Ellen Kabcenell Wayne

Ellen Kabcenell Wayne began her legal career at the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Eventually concluding that litigation was not always the most effective tool for creating organizational or societal change, she returned to George Mason University and obtained a master’s degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. She first developed an interest in special education conflict management in research and writing about special education mediation for one of her GMU courses, prior to its implementation as a requirement in the 1997 IDEA reauthorization. She was later a special education mediator for the District of Columbia Public Schools and was one of the authors of a 2003 report, “A Time for Action: The Need to Repair the System for Resolving Special Education Disputes in the District of Columbia,” undertaken by the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and the law firm of Piper Rudnick (now known as DLA Piper). From 2000 to 2009, prior to becoming Program Manager for DoDEA’s CEDR (Center for Early Dispute Resolution), she taught at the University of Baltimore in its MS degree program in Negotiations and Conflict Management and its MA degree program in Legal and Ethical Studies. Her course offerings included: Approaches to Managing Conflict, Organizational Conflict and Conflict Management Systems, Negotiation, Research Methods, Community Conflict, Trial Processes, Employment Law, Legal and Ethical Arguments, and Ethics and Advocacy.