kellyjasper.com

I love this story because of it’s potential. It really could have been a wash and I’m happy with the way it’s developing. Stay posted for parts 2, 3, 4 …

From Wednesday’s Daily News-Record:

Lawyer Puts Peace Into Practice

By Kelly Jasper

HARRISONBURG — Everybody has something to bring to the table. Traditionally, it’s called a potluck. Marshall Yoder calls it an inadequate term for the convergence he is going for.

This is what Yoder has in mind: people far from home, cooking foods from the place they call home, in his home, sharing a meal from his table, a long, solid dining room set in his upscale city home.

A welcoming place, where professors feast and linger with the internationals they teach and who teach them. A comfortable time when chattiness drowns the background music and the room’s volume swells as the contents of each covered dish disappear.

Yoder says it is a dream come true.

He’s always wanted to host other students in his house, a place he’s called home since moving to the Valley last year and enrolling in Eastern Mennonite University.

Yoder, at 48, is a nontraditional student. But so is most everyone else here at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

In a building on the outskirts of EMU’s campus, the center teaches, promotes, cherishes and fights for peace, says Bonnie Price Lofton, communication coordinator for the center.

So do the students who study there — a hodgepodge of internationals, professionals and academics who want to learn about conflict, avoiding conflict and overcoming conflict in creative ways that cross cultural and religious boundaries.

Yoder is a family man from North Carolina. He left behind a large, successful law practice and moved his wife and two boys to Harrisonburg. He didn’t come just for school; he says the family had its personal reasons, too.

He and his “wife and soul mate,” Julie, had wanted to leave the city. Charlotte was just too big to raise the boys, Benjamin, 6, and Samuel, 7.

Yoder was also interested in a new type of law, a holistic and collaborative approach — a way to apply all the things he was learning as he commuted to EMU’s program. It was time to move.

Without the drive from North Carolina, Yoder had time to take classes during the year, instead of just attending the summer program he had been driving up for.

Eleven years ago, that summer institute was the birth of the program now known as CJP.

Its organizers say its principles have always been rooted in the Mennonite peace tradition of Christianity. Yet its teachings have attracted students from several religions, says Bonnie Price Lofton, communication coordinator for the center.

She says it works because peace is universal.

Students from more than 80 countries have agreed with her, coming to the United States to study under the dozen or so CJP staff and faculty members.

Many have gone on to lead peace-building projects or programs in one of the 38 nations where the center’s teachings have spread. But some, like Yoder, choose to work closer to home.

Peace At Work

Lawyers get a bad rap, says Yoder. He says he thinks the kind of law he likes to practice shouldn’t.

Collaborative law is one of the types he practices at Wharton Aldhizer & Weaver in Harrisonburg. He says its principles are simple.

First, clients agree not to sue. They commit to communication. They put it in writing and then they work — hard — to find some common ground.

That’s tough to do, Yoder says, but worthwhile because “it changes the dynamics from traditional bargaining where people play it close to the vest
and into interest-based negotiations.”

That means everybody could win, or at least come out less jaded, he says.

It’s an increasingly common approach in divorce proceedings, especially when children are involved, Yoder said.

“This is for people who want to step above the fray and focus on their kids,” he said. “Maybe they can get more in court, but this way protects their kids.”

Couples who can’t work within the guidelines of collaboration have to find new lawyers, Yoder said. It works about 85 percent of the time.

The idea took hold in the early 1990s in Minnesota. It spread, and firms in Virginia started adopting the concept last year, Yoder said.

Eight or nine other lawyers in the area practice some form of the approach, he says.

They’ll sometimes bring in flip charts and mental health professionals, neutral financial advisers and sometimes a mediator.

The technique also has been successful in other disputes, often over estates or between employers and employees.

“The process lends itself well to places where
people have ongoing relationships,” Yoder said.

Yoder doesn’t handle too many divorce cases. He focuses now on construction and corporate law, estate planning and land use and zoning.

“My interest is finding out how this applies to other areas of law,” he said. “That’s where EMU’s program really ties in nicely.”

There, he says, classes have cut to the core of his ambitions, underscoring the need for peaceful resolutions, regardless of where the conflicts occur.

“Some of these teachings and practices can cut across cultures,” Yoder says. “It’s not just about making peace in the Gaza Strip.”

Learning From Each Other

Yoder’s classes have centered on conflict transformation, a buzzword for understanding and changing the way people address society’s problems.

He says the most valuable part of the program has been the interaction with other students.

With each class Yoder meets a cross-section of the world. He collaborates, identifies interests and seeks solutions — like he does at work.

His classmates come from some “incredibly violent” situations from across Europe, Africa and Asia. He says he’s learned from them and all the “treasures” that their experiences offer.

“My story is pretty boring compared to what these 30 people in each class have gone through,” Yoder says.

And, for that, he’s grateful.

When Yoder joined the program, he and Julie say they wanted to get plugged in with the international community. Yoder understands that it’s no easy thing to learn English, leave home and devote years to studying peace, only to return with the challenge of making the place you left better than how you found it.

So he hosted a potluck, to say “hi,” to say “thanks,” and to learn a little more about the world.

“It’s a small world,” he says, and he believes, “people have to work things out.”

Yoder tries — even if just for a few hours and a potluck — as he invites others into his home, where everybody has something to bring to the table and everybody sits to eat.