Karen L. Tokarz

Faculty

Karen L. Tokarz

Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service; Professor of African and African-American Studies;
Director, Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Program
Director, Civil Rights, Community Justice & Mediation Clinic 

Education

B.A., 1970, Webster University
J.D., 1976, St. Louis University
LL.M., 1985, University of California, Berkeley

Curriculum Vitae

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Publications

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Assistant

Carol Sharp - (314) 935-6474

Phone / Email

Phone:  (314) 935-6414
E-mail: tokarz@wulaw.wustl.edu 

Office

Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 584

Courses Taught

Negotiation
Mediation Theory & Practice
Civil Rights, Community Justice & Mediation Clinic
International Justice & Conflict Resolution Field Placement
Human Trafficking & Labor Migration Seminar
Public Interest Law and Policy Seminar
Employment Discrimination
Pretrial Practice & Settlement
Faculty Advisor for Washington University Journal of Law and Policy & Africa Public Interest and Conflict Resolution Initiative 

Profile

Professor Karen Tokarz is an internationally recognized expert in dispute resolution and clinical legal education, and a highly respected civil rights mediator. Her scholarship addresses public interest law issues, including clinical legal education, dispute resolution, judicial selection, and elder law. Director of the law school’s Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Program, she is past director of the school’s highly ranked Clinical Education Program. Professor Tokarz is a certified Neutral for the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri, and serves on the Missouri Supreme Court ADR Commission and on the U.S. District Court ADR Advisory Committee. In 2008–09, she was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation. She has consulted on international dispute resolution as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the University of Kwa Zulu-Natal in South Africa. She is the founder of the Africa Public Interest Law & Conflict Resolution Initiative. Over the past decade, she has coordinated field placements for more than125 law students with legal aid offices, human rights organizations, and tribunals in South Africa, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as Brazil, Chile, Cambodia, India, and Thailand. Professor Tokarz is the recipient of several teaching and client advocacy awards, including Washington University’s Founders Day Distinguished Faculty Award, and has been named to Best Lawyers in Alternative Dispute Resolution since 2010. She coordinates the law school’s Public Interest Law & Policy Speaker Series, serves on the steering committee for the university’s Gephardt Institute for Public Service, and is an affiliated faculty member in the African & African American Studies Program and the Women, Gender & Sexuality Program.

  • In The News [view]
  • Africa Brochure [view]
  • Tokarz Named Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law and Public Service [view]
  • Photo Gallery of Installation [view]