Biography

Professor Hershman holds advanced degrees in both law and social work. Both skill sets inform her work as a mediator specializing in family disputes. Prior to joining the Hofstra Law School community, she taught in the areas of conflict resolution and family law at Purchase College SUNY and worked extensively as a mediator and third party intervener in organizational, community, and family disputes. During this time, she developed and directed the PAZ (Peace from A to Z) Peer Mediation Program, one of the first peer mediation programs in the country to teach transformative mediation principles to elementary school students. She also provided short-term counseling to families in the Children’s Aid Society’s PINS (Person In Need of Supervision) Diversion Program in Brooklyn and designed several programs that used school-based mediation as a tool to increase retention rates and prevent involvement with the juvenile justice system.

Professor Hershman’s students in the Mediation Clinic will mediate disputes between parents and teens, as part of a program intended to divert these cases from the juvenile justice system. Law students will work side by side with mental health specialists. Using an interdisciplinary approach, students will grapple with issues of family justice, juvenile rights, professional responsibility, and, most of all, what it means to be a lawyer.

Professor Hershman has written in the areas of peer mediation and mediation theory, collateral consequences of incarceration for women and families, and the assignment of defense counsel to indigent clients in Federal Court. Her research interests are in the intersection of mediation, families, and the justice systems.

 Curriculum Vitae