Professional Bio
Laurel Stevenson is the Director of the Mediation and Assessment Program (MAP) for the United States District Court, Western District of Missouri, a position she has held since August of 2020. In addition to overseeing the program, including a pilot program for prisoner pro se cases, she serves as a mediator and facilitator in a variety of cases. She has mediated more than 300 cases via Zoom, and hundreds more in-person. Laurel has utilized attorney and non-attorney co-mediators and co-facilitators in numerous matters.
During law school, Laurel was a member of the Journal of Dispute Resolution and published an article on using ADR in hospital staff privilege disputes. She was a guest lecturer for a graduate course in health care risk management and a research assistant to Professor Phil Peters on the Nancy Cruzan case which went to the United States Supreme Court.
Prior to becoming the MAP Director, Laurel was a litigator for more than two decades and served as a mediator and arbitrator her last twelve years of private practice. She tried more than eighty jury trials to verdict, including wrongful death cases, commercial disputes, professional liability, employment, and products liability cases. She served as appellate counsel in numerous cases and argued before all intermediate appellate courts in Missouri and the Missouri Supreme Court.
Laurel is admitted to practice in Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin, all state and federal courts in Missouri, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.
In 2023, Laurel served as a Fellow with the ABA’s Section of Dispute Resolution. She is currently the Co-Chair of the ABA’s Court ADR Committee. She has written extensively on several legal issues, including ADR. She has taught more than thirty CLE’s, including courses on diminished capacity, conflict resolution for medical and legal professionals, insurance, and ethics.
Outside of work, Laurel is a published author of children’s books under her pen name Alysen Bayles, a name honoring her late grandfather. Her books to date include Winston, Silly Sam from Galapagos Land, and Cambridge and Clyde. She is working on more children’s books, including one on conflict resolution, in addition to novels and a poetry book.
Laurel is in her fourth year on the Board of Directors for Nova Center of the Ozarks, an organization providing residential and non-residential services to individuals with developmental disabilities, including individuals on the spectrum.
