2026 Maryland Mediators Convention

Lou Gieszl is Assistant State Court Administrator for Programs at Maryland Judiciary, where he oversees ongoing initiatives to support mediation and conflict resolution, juvenile and family services, problem-solving courts, behavioral health, access to justice, equal justice, online dispute resolution, and policy research for trial and appellate courts statewide. Prior to this, Lou served for 16 years as Deputy Executive Director of the Maryland Judiciary’s Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office (MACRO) a statewide resource for conflict resolution programs and mediator excellence. In establishing MACRO as a state office of dispute resolution, Lou staffed a high-level commission on alternative dispute resolution (ADR) engaging hundreds of Maryland-based stakeholders and a national advisory board of ADR experts to develop and implement a statewide practical action plan. He is a National Center for State Courts Certified Court Executive, with more than twenty-five years of high-level judiciary policy and leadership experience all oriented towards advancing the cause of justice and making court services more accessible and user friendly. In addition, Lou is a long-time adjunct professor at the University of Baltimore’s (UB) Program on Negotiations and Conflict Management, where he has taught a variety of dispute resolution courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels, including within UB’s Second Chance program which provides undergraduate education within a maximum-security state prison for men. Through the Second Chance program, Lou helped to create Big House Mediations, a prison-based conflict management program by and for incarcerated individuals. A skillful mediator, facilitator, trainer, and conflict manager, Lou is active in mediation at the national and local levels. He is a former president and diversity officer of the Association for Conflict Resolution, the leading organization for all conflict resolution practitioners. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation, the world’s premier center for the advancement, practice, and study of mediation in the transformative framework. Lou holds bachelor’s degrees in English, philosophy, and political science, and a master’s degree in public policy, all from UMBC, an Honors University in Maryland.