Alyson Carrel

Alyson Carrel is a clinical professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and Co-Director of the law school’s nationally-ranked Center on Negotiation, Mediation, and Restorative Justice. Until 2019, she led the law school's legal technology & innovation initiatives as the inaugural Assistant Dean of Law & Technology. Carrel is a tech-curious legal educator and mediator who seeks to understand how technology and innovation are changing the practice of law, dispute resolution, and legal education. She currently teaches courses in Negotiation and Mediation. She is developing the Delta Model, a new competency model for the 21st-century legal professional, and set of tools called Design Your Delta, that use a human-centered design approach to help legal professionals grow and thrive through intention, innovation, and well-being. She has received grants to purchase wearable cameras for negotiation simulation courses, a fellowship to integrate the A2J Author platform in a mediation advocacy clinic, and launched TEaCH LAW, a demonstration series for instructional technology.

Carrel’s primary motivation is to encourage others to try something new, look at an issue a little differently, and recognize there are many paths forward. When working with students, she models the importance and power of a client-centered approach to lawyering, expands and enhances their problem-solving skillset, exposes them to emerging technologies and the future of law, encourages them to seek a fulfilling career, supports them as they navigate the law school experience, and provides a safe space for difficult conversations.

Carrel is an active leader, presenter, and trainer in dispute resolution. She has provided negotiation and dispute resolution trainings for a wide variety of clients including large law firms like Baker McKenzie, court systems/programs such as the Cook County Juvenile Court Child Protection Mediation Program, government organizations such as HUD, corporations such as Coca-Cola, and nonprofit organizations including Umoja. Carrel has mediated a wide range of disputes and participated as a neutral in several class action racial discrimination settlement disbursements.

Prior to her appointment at Northwestern Law, Carrel was the Training Director at the Center for Conflict Resolution, one of the nation’s largest and longest-running community mediation centers, where she directed and lectured in the 40-hour mediation skills training and mediated court-referred cases. Before attending law school and prior to working at CCR, Carrel managed the Dependency Mediation Program for the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Florida, which provides mediation services to parties involved in child protection/dependency matters. She also worked with the Juvenile Mediation Clinic at the University of Florida School of Law, where she helped train and manage law school clinic students in small-claims mediation, victim-offender mediation, and conflict resolution skills.

Carrel received her JD from the University of Missouri-Columbia, where she published a case note on drafting an effective ADR contract clause and was the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Dispute Resolution. She received her BA in Women’s Studies from the University of Florida where she wrote a thesis focused on domestic relations mediation.