Sandhya Kohli, LLM

Sandhya Kohli is an alumni of the Alternative Dispute Resolution LLM program at Osgoode Professional Development. Sandhya graduated from the program in 2013. Sandhya currently works as a mediator and conflicts consultant. In her practice, Sandhya assists small to medium workplaces with conflict and assists business in the creation and implementation of dispute design processes. This includes helping to resolve current conflicts in workplaces using conflict coaching and mediation, as well as the more proactive process of building processes for the resolution of potential future conflicts. This work helps workplaces avoid litigation as a means to resolve conflict, a way of preempting the (often) lengthier and more expensive tribunal and court processes. Sandhya is also an adjunct professor in the Osgoode Hall Law School JD program, where she teaches dispute resolution, mediation, and negotiation to upper-year students. Lastly, Sandhya acts as Integrity Commissioner for the Durham District School Board.

Initially, Sandhya was drawn to the program because of her background in litigation. After spending several years as a federal crown prosecutor, Sandhya began to think that there must be alternatives to the adversarial litigation route. Sandhya was looking to learn more about the various methods of conflict resolution that fall under the umbrella of alternative dispute resolution, which led her to the LLM in Dispute Resolution at OsgoodePD.

Sandhya describes her experience in the Dispute Resolution LLM program as affirming in that the program confirmed for her that her thinking was correct: that there are many ways to think about, address and resolve conflict outside of the adversarial process of litigation. Sandhya claims that the combination of her professional experiences as a crown prosecutor and the theoretical and practical Dispute Resolution courses she took in the LLM aided her in becoming the conflict specialist she is today.

For people considering the LLM in Dispute Resolution, Sandhya advises that this program can act as a type of “career enhancer.” She maintains that the broadly applicable LLM can encourage what Sandhya calls a “paradigm shift” in how individuals assess and approach the various kinds of conflicts they may deal within their lives and careers.