Forrest (Woody) Mosten has spent his entire career as a tireless peacemaker working for increased legal access and dispute resolution for the underserved and diverse members of our society.
Woody is a professional mediator helping families, businesses, and organizations resolve disputes. He has mediated conflict involving schools, community boards. churches and synagogues, and non-profit organizations.
He is the co-founder of Mosten Mediation Training Academy for online Mediation Training which offers courses throughout the world.
See: www.MostenMediationTraining.com
Woody serves clients throughout the world exclusively through Zoom. Prior to converting to an online practice, he had offices in San Diego and Los Angeles and was named an Honorary Member of the Orange County Collaborative Practice Group. Woody and his wife, Dr. Jody Mosten, live in La Jolla.
Woody is in constant demand worldwide as a conference keynote speaker and expert witness on mediation. He served on the faculty from 2002-2022 at the UCLA School of Law (Mediation and Lawyer as Peacemaker) and he previously taught at Cal Western School of Law (Innovative Law Practice), University of San Diego School of Law (Legal Ethics), University of Southern California (Client Counseling), Pepperdine Law School (Mediation), Hamline Law School (Advanced Mediation and Unbundling), University of Nevada at Las Vegas (Collaborative Law), University of Idaho (Mediation), University of Denver (Legal Access), Mercer Law School (Trial Advocacy and Client Counseling) and other educational institutions.
In 1972, with his partners Len Jacoby and Steve Meyers, Woody opened the first private legal clinic in the United States that still is in operation 49 years later following a California Supreme Court ruling permitting an expansion of consumer information by lawyers.
Woody was Director of Clinical Education at Mercer Law School in Macon, Georgia where he traveled the Southern US recruiting African American law students as Faculty Sponsor for the Black Law Students Association.
Early in his career, Woody was a lawyer for the Oglala Sioux Nation following the Wounded Knee Occupation. He also served as a lawyer working with the United Farm workers and has trained Asian-America mediators to better serve their community and as ACLU Counsel in cases involving civil rights.
Woody has served as consultant and trainer for the Hopi Dispute Resolution Council and has conducted Basic and Advanced Mediation trainings on the Hopi Tribal Grounds. In addition, he was named to neutral and impartial mediator for major political and public policy tribal disputes.
Woody served as Director of Consumer Protection as the Assistant Regional Director of the Federal Trade Commission. In this position, he led an investigation against real estate brokers who harassed consumer oriented brokers who tried to help consumers. This experience led 13 years later to Woody inventing Limited Scope Legal Services for which he is recognized as the “Father of Unbundled Legal Services” See Unbundled legal services at Wikipedia.
Woody is a founding member of the Southern California Mediation Association and was named by SCMA as Peacemaker of the Year and has twice served as keynote speaker at the SCMA Annual Conference and will keynote the SCMA Family Mediation Institute with Judge Elizabeth Potter Scully who is also Woody’s co-author on 3 ABA books with a fourth in progress. Woody is the recipient of the 2017 SCMA President’s Award. In 2020, SCMA presented Woody with its Inaugural Forrest S. Mosten Star Award for Innovation and Achievement in Mediation.
In 2024, the Pennsylvania State Bar has established the Stu Webb/Forrest Mosten Peacemaker Award. Woody keynoted and was principal trainer at the Pennsylvania State Bar Peacemaker Conference in Philadelphia in 2018
Woody has chaired many committees and projects in Peace Education. In 2008, the Association of Conflict Resolution appointed Woody to Chair its Task Force to establish a National Peacemaker Museum. He has served as a conflict resolution consultant and facilitator for the Burnham Center for Community Advancement in San Diego.
Woody is a Charter Member of Mediators Beyond Borders and was spotlighted in March 2024. See: https://mediatorsbeyondborders.org/a-lifelong-pursuit-of-peacemember-spotlight-forrest-woody-mosten/
In 2019, Woody received a Life Career Achievement Award from the Academy of Professional Family Mediators. In 2020, APFM established the Forrest (Woody) Mosten Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion Training Scholarship. See: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (apfmnet.org)
Woody was awarded the Lifetime Career Award by the New York State Mediation Association and has been recipient of the ABA Lawyer as Problem Solver Award, ABA Lifetime Legal Access Award, and the Los Angeles County Bar Louis M. Brown Conflict Prevention Award.
Woody is the author of nine books and numerous articles on mediation and other dispute resolution topics. His newest book, Family Lawyer as Peacemaker (with Lara Traum) was published in January 2026 and his 10th book, Resolving Family Disputes: A Self-Guide to Becoming a Family Mediator (also with Lara Traum) will be published by the ABA in early 2027.
In 2022, Woody was named as honoree of Whose Who in ADR, See: https://www.adrtimes.com/whos-who-in-adr-forrest-woody-mosten. He has served as Editor of four special issues for the Family Court Review. In 2020, he was named Chair of the Mediate.com Task Force on Online Mediation Training, and is the coauthor of the Task Force’s Final Report – See: OnlineTaskForceReportAug6c.pdf(mediate.com).
Since 1989, Woody has served as Chair of the Brown Mosten International Client Consultation Competition involving 25 countries including India, Poland, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Ukraine, Nigeria, and other countries from Western and Eastern Europe www.BrownMosten.com.
In summer 2026, Woody will co-found (with Ken Cloke) the first International Peace Camp for Teenagers sponsored by Mediators Beyond Borders.
Woody can be reached at www.mostenmediation.com for mediation services and at www.MostenMediationTraining.com for mediation training. Woody’s bio is also at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_S._Mosten.
My pro bono mediation time in the Los Angeles and Ventura Superior Courts has included mediating and supervising the mediation of civil harassment and small claims matters in various courthouses....
By Jack GoetzOn the first day of high school journalism class, Nora Ephron’s teacher taught the class how to write a lede. He began with a set of facts: “Kenneth L. Peters,...
By Tammy LenskiFrom the Mediation Matters Blog of Steve Mehta. I saw a fascinating post about negotiations and chocolate cake in a recent post by Andrea Schneider on the ADR Prof Blog....
By Steve Mehta
