LAS VEGAS -- Some Nevada homeowners facing foreclosure now have the right to negotiate with their lender face-to-face.

Foreclosure mediations began statewide last week.

Homeowners who represent themselves in the mediations received help Thursday night with a legal workshop at UNLV.

Homeowners who received a notice of default on or after July 1 can go through mediation process and have an independent arbitrator try to work out a settlement. Lenders likely have big legal teams, unlike homeowners.

But some community groups helped give a crash course on the mediation process.

The Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada along with UNLV's Boyd School of Law are stepping in to help those entering foreclosure mediation.

“When I see homeowners, it’s one of two things. One is they’re desperate, and they're scared,” said attorney Michael Joe, of the Legal Aid Center.

Joe was the teacher of a class of 40 at UNLV Thursday night.

“Our objective is to help homeowners represent themselves,” Joe said.

And that means explaining all the paperwork homeowners will need when they show up, and the hardship they will need to prove to have a successful mediation and get their loans modified.

“So, we’re trying to teach them to make their arguments, explain to the lender that they're going to be a good homeowner, that they're going to make their payments, that if they modify it’s better to modify the loan than foreclose it,” Joe said. “The homeowner would go in there and say, ‘Please, please, please don’t take my home,’ and that doesn’t make for a very good mediation.”

Everyone in attendance received a detailed booklet on how to plead a case.

About 2,000 mediations are in the works. There will be an average of 1,000 a month.

These classes are scheduled to continue until November.