Sara Campos is a Visiting Clinical Professor and Director of Loyola Marymount University, Loyola Law School’s Center for Conflict Resolution (LCCR), as well as a certified bilingual mediator. Originally trained at LCCR as a law student mediator in 1998. The LCCR recruited her to become part of its regular staff. She now serves as its director and in this role, she trains and mentors LCCR staff, LLS students, and community volunteers in Basic Mediation Skills and she also teaches courses in Mediation and Mediation Advocacy. As a Latina, she adds diversity and brings the perspective of a person working in and believing in the traditional mediation model. Yet her legal training allows her to understand and appreciate other models as well.
Ms. Campos is in a unique position to utilize her legal, bilingual, and bicultural skills and knowledge to assist litigants in resolving their disputes through mediation. Under her leadership, LCCR has expanded the services it provides. In 2021 LCCR created and implemented the Landlord Tenant Options Counseling Project, as a response to the COVID-19 Pandemic to assist both landlords and tenants in navigating the new post-pandemic landscape. LCCR’s Landlord/Tenant Options Counseling Clinic was recognized during a 2022 White House ceremony for responding to the Attorney General’s Call to Action to the Legal Profession to address the housing and eviction crisis and help increase housing stability and access to justice. In 2022, The Collaborative Family Law Clinic whose goal is to support families in meeting their needs and interests as they navigate divorce partnered with LMU’s Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic to explore how clinical art therapy could best be integrated into and enhance the collaborative divorce process.
In addition to her role at LMU-LLS, Ms. Campos is a member of the Southern California Mediation Association (SCMA), the American Bar Association (ABA) Dispute Resolution Section, the Mexican American Bar Association, the Latina Lawyers Bar Association, and the National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM). Ms. Campos also served two terms on the board of The National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM) and chaired its Membership Development Committee, from 2014-2019. Ms. Campos has participated on numerous mediation panels including The Second Appellate District Court Panel. She has previously worked on the L.A. Superior Court panel, Centinela Youth Services Victim Offender and Family Panel, and the EEOC and DFEH mediation panels handling employment discrimination matters.
Ms. Campos is a member of the Just the Beginning – Los Angeles (JTB-LA) Steering Committee, curriculum committee, and provides negotiation training to the JTB Scholars during its Summer Legal Institute (SLI). JTB is a pipeline organization whose mission is to increase diversity in the legal profession. This week-long program gives many underrepresented and first-gen students the opportunity to. In 2021, SLI won California LAW’s Education Pipeline Award. In 2019 Ms. Campos received the JTB-LA Leadership Award of Excellence for her outstanding contributions to the JTB-LA Summer Legal Institute. She also received Loyola Law School’s Service Award in 2019. Ms. Campos, along with another colleague, received the 2005, 2012, and 2018 Mediation Case of the Year Award from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Ms. Campos received her bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her Juris Doctor from LMU Loyola Law School.