Family Law Institute 2024
Please find my PowerPoint slides for my 2024 Family Law Institute presentation here: Thoughts of a Mediator.pdf
Experience. Passion. Dedication.
Conflict takes a psychological and financial toll on people and organizations. I have spent 30 years helping people resolve conflict in creative, constructive and sustainable ways. I am effective because I bring extensive experience in mediation, arbitration and other dispute resolution processes to each conflict.
Mediation
Mediation is a confidential, voluntary process that allows people to discuss and resolve issues with the assistance of a person unrelated to the conflict, who is not impacted by the outcome. It is voluntary in two respects: people choose to participate in the process and then choose any resolution or outcome that the process creates. Mediation is often a less costly choice, emotionally and financially, and produces a resolution faster than other processes which impose an outcome on the parties.
As a trained, experienced mediator, my role is to create a process that facilitates conversation between people who are experiencing conflict to assist them in resolving or transforming the conflict. Conflict can be a healthy, empowering experience when it provides people with an opportunity to create effective, lasting solutions or when it provides a greater understanding of the other viewpoints in the conflict. Conflict can be fueled by each person’s perception of the conflict or of others involved in the conflict, and their perception may change during a mediation process.
Mediation is an important and effective process when an issue or conflict exists between people who have ongoing relationships, for example in a family or workplace. It is a process that promotes communication and understanding between people, assisting them to move forward in a positive manner.
Family Resolution Services
Family Mediation
The most important relationships for many people are with their children, spouses, partners or other family members. If you are partners, spouses or parents separating or divorcing, you need to work through the issues that arise from separating your physical and financial lives while maintaining the capacity to work together to parent the children in your family.
Family Arbitration
Arbitration is a process where each person in a dispute tells his or her side of the dispute to a neutral person, called the arbitrator, and asks the arbitrator to make a decision that resolves the dispute. Each person may present witnesses and documents as evidence to support their side of a dispute and can make arguments to support the decision that they want the arbitrator to make.
Family Mediation-Arbitration
Mediation-Arbitration (Med-Arb) is a process where a neutral third party conducts a mediation process with the parties to assist them in resolving the issues between them. If some, or all, of the issues are not resolved by an agreement reached in mediation, the neutral third party becomes an arbitrator who determines the issues that were not settled in the mediation process.
“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”