David Hoffman:
David is the founding partner of Boston Law Collaborative, LLC (“BLC”), where he serves as a mediator, arbitrator, and attorney. Prior to founding BLC, he was a litigation partner at the Boston law firm Hill & Barlow, where he practiced for 17 years and chaired the Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice Group. David also served for a year as staff counsel for the ACLU of Massachusetts. David mediates and arbitrates cases at BLC ranging from business, employment, construction, intellectual property, and professional liability to divorce and other family-related disputes. BLC is a multi-disciplinary practice that includes lawyers, mediators, mental health professionals, and a financial professional. BLC is the winner of two national awards – the American Bar Association’s “Lawyer as Problem Solver Award” (2009), and the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution “Law Firm Award for Excellence in ADR” (2010).
David has taught the Mediation course at Harvard Law School since 2008. In 1997 and 1998, he taught an HLS course on Advanced Mediation and Family Law Practice. David is also on the faculty of the Harvard Negotiation Institute, teaching a five-day mediation skills course with HLS Prof. Robert Mnookin, for the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Before teaching at HLS, he was an Adjunct Professor at Northeastern University School of Law (teaching Alternative Dispute Resolution and Negotiation). He has also been the lead trainer in several mediation trainings for the American Bar Association.
David is past chair of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution, and currently co-chairs the Section’s Collaborative Law Committee. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators. He is also past chair of the Boston Bar Association’s ADR Committee and past president of the New England chapter of the Association of Conflict Resolution.
David is listed in the book “The Best Lawyers in America” in five categories (Mediation, Arbitration, Collaborative Law – Civil, Collaborative Law - Family, and Family Law Mediation). He has been listed in Boston Magazine's Super Lawyers Directory each year since the listing began.
David is a graduate of Princeton University (A.B. 1970, summa cum laude), Cornell University (M.A. 1974, American Studies, all but dissertation completed toward Ph.D.), and Harvard Law School (J.D. 1984, magna cum laude), where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for Hon. Stephen G. Breyer.
Michael Broyde:
Michael J. Broyde is professor of law at Emory Law and a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law Religion at Emory University. His primary areas of interest are law and religion, Jewish law and ethics, and comparative religious law. Besides Jewish law and family law, Michael has taught Federal Courts, Alternative Dispute Resolution, and Secured Credit and Bankruptcy. He received a juris doctor from New York University and published a note on the law review. He also clerked for Judge Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Michael is ordained (yoreh yoreh ve-yadin yadin) as a rabbi by Yeshiva University and was a member (dayan) of the Beth Din of America, the largest Jewish law court in America. He was the director of that court during the 1997–1998 academic year, while on leave from Emory. Outside of Emory, Michael was the founding rabbi of the Young Israel synagogue in Atlanta, a founder of the Atlanta Torah MiTzion kollel study program and a board member of many organizations in Atlanta.
Michael has published more than 75 articles and book chapters on various aspects of law and religion and Jewish law, including "A Jewish Law View of World Law," Emory Law Journal 54: 79-93 (spec. ed., 2005), about how Jewish law might classify international law, and a series of vigorous exchanges in several publications on military ethics in Jewish law. He also has published a number of articles in the area of federal courts, including an article in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy on the impeachment process.
Michael Broyde is a graduate of Yeshiva University: Yeshiva College, BA, cum laude 1984, New York University School of Law, JD 1988, and Yeshiva University: Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, Ordination 1991.
Robert K. Collins:
Robert Kirkman Collins celebrated his 30th anniversary as a divorce mediator in 2012, and during the course of his career Bob has guided well over a thousand couples through the difficult passage of divorce. Trained in 1982 in the first group in New York City taught by John Haynes, the originator of divorce mediation, Bob was one of the founders, an original Board Member, and a past President of the Family and Divorce Mediation Council of Greater New York. He has has been cited by Cardozo Law School as being “among the pioneers of divorce mediation in New York”.
Formerly a partner in the law firm of Davidson, Dawson and Clark and then an independent family law practitioner in Manhattan for over twenty years, Bob is now a Visiting Clinic Professor of Law and the Director of the Divorce Mediation Clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. At Cardozo, he teaches divorce mediation and supervises law students who conduct mediations at the Clinic with couples referred by New York State’s Office of Court Administration.
Bob has been teaching divorce mediation for close to 20 years, and has trained many of the mediators currently practicing in New York City, using his manual Common Sense and the Crisis of Divorce. A founding member of The New York Mediation Group, he teaches annually at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, has trained divorce mediators for The New York Peace Institute (formally Safe Horizons), and for a dozen years has taught Family Mediation at the Northwest Institute for Dispute Resolution at the University of Idaho College of Law. During the course of his career, Bob has trained mediators in many states across the country, and lectured on mediation in England, South America and Asia. Bob has previously been a Professor of Law and the Director of Clinical Programs at the American Justice School of Law, and has taught both Family Law and Dispute Resolution at Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey. Bob graduated with Honors from Yale College, and was on Law Review at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Herbie DiFonzo:
Born in Buenos Aires and raised in New York City, J. Herbie DiFonzo has taught at Hofstra since 1995. He is a Professor of Law and has also served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Director of the Criminal Justice Clinic, and Director of the LL.M. Program in Family Law.
Herbie has won numerous awards for his teaching and writing. He teaches courses in family law, civil procedure, and alternatives to litigation; and he writes primarily on issues in family law and criminal justice. He has authored two books:Intimate Associations: The Law and Culture of American Families (co-authored with Ruth C. Stern) (2013), and Beneath the Fault Line: The Popular and Legal Culture of Divorce in Twentieth-Century America (1997). He has served as a Co-Reporter for two national family law projects. These include the Shared Parenting Project, sponsored by the Association of Families & Conciliation Courts (with Prof. Marsha Kline Pruett); and the Family Law Education Reform (FLER) Project, a national effort to improve family law teaching, for which he and Prof. Mary E. O’Connell received the 2006 Stanley Cohen Distinguished Research Award.
Herbie received a B.S in Sociology from St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia, and J.D., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Virginia. Following law school graduation, he served as an Attorney General’s Honors Law Graduate at the United States Department of Justice. He had a wide-ranging two decades of law practice before becoming a full-time professor, including stints as a federal prosecutor and as a litigator in the areas of family law, criminal defense, negligence, and professional malpractice.
Rachel Green:
Rachel Fishman Green, Esq. is an attorney who began her practice as a divorce and family mediator in 1995. She is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Family & Divorce Mediation Council of Greater New York where she Chairs the Ethics Committee and the Domestic Violence Task Force and, for 5 years, was the Editor-In-Chief of that organization’s newsletter, Council News. Rachel is a frequent presenter on Ethics and Domestic Violence at conferences and seminars given by the New York State Council on Divorce Mediation, and the Family & Divorce Mediation Council of Greater New York. She was the keynote speaker, in 2002, at the annual conference for the Michigan Association of Court Mediators.
Rachel has also been awarded the achievement of the Advanced Practitioner Level membership in the Academy of Family Mediators, the Association for Conflict Resolution, and the New York State Council on Divorce Mediation.
Rachel is a certified mediator by “Safe Horizon’s” Brooklyn Mediation Center, and a certified Arbitrator of Matrimonial Fee Disputes for the Second Judicial District serving Kings County. She also mediates disputes about allegations of attorney misconduct, referred to her by the Judicial Grievance Committee, Second Department.
Rachel has helped thousands of divorcing and separating couples resolve conflicts concerning all aspects of divorce, including division of homes, time with the children, dividing small businesses, fair distribution of pension assets, child support, division of health and child care expenses for children, tax aspects of divorce, how to bring new girlfriends/boyfriends into children’s lives.
Rachel graduated cum laude from Boston University School of Law in 1990.
Joanna Grossman:
Joanna Grossman joined the Hofstra faculty in 1999 and served as the Associate Dean for Faculty Development from 2004-08. She was named the John DeWitt Gregory Research Scholar for 2010-11. She has also taught in the law schools at Vanderbilt, University of North Carolina, Cardozo, and Tulane. She writes extensively about family law, especially state regulation of marriage. She is the co-author, with Lawrence M. Friedman, of Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America (Princeton 2011), a comprehensive social history of family law in the United States. She also writes about sex discrimination and workplace equality, with a special focus on issues such as sexual harassment and pregnancy discrimination. She is the coeditor, with Linda McClain, of Gender Equality: Dimensions of Women's Equal Citizenship (Cambridge University Press 2009), an interdisciplinary anthology that explores persistent gaps between formal commitments to gender equality and the reality of women’s lives. She has published articles in Stanford Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, and the Yale Journal on Law and Feminism, among other places. Professor Grossman teaches Family Law; Wills, Trusts & Estates; and a variety of courses relating to gender and law.
A graduate with distinction from Stanford Law School, Joanna served as the articles development editor of the Stanford Law Review and was elected to Order of the Coif. She served as a law clerk to Judge William A. Norris of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, before spending a year as staff counsel at the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C., as recipient of the Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship. She practiced law from 1996 to 1998 at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Williams & Connolly.
Joanna is a regular columnist for Justia's Verdict and has served on the editorial board of Perspectives, the magazine of the ABA's Commission on Women in the Profession. Professor Grossman was selected to deliver Hofstra University's Distinguished Faculty Lecture in 2004 and Hofstra University’s Annual Diversity Lecture in 2010. She was elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 2009, and was inducted into Long Island’s "40 Under 40" in 2005.
Lela Love:
Lela Porter Love is a professor of law and director of the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (NYC). She founded (in 1985) and directs Cardozo's Mediation Clinic, which was among the first clinical programs in the country to train law students to serve as mediators.
Lela serves as mediator, arbitrator and dispute resolution consultant in community, employment, family, human rights, school-based and commercial cases. Her mediation of a public policy dispute in Glen Cove, NY, brought widespread publicity to the use of mediation in resolving complex litigation.
An active educator and participant in alternative dispute resolution activities, she regularly conducts mediation and arbitration training programs for community dispute resolution centers, court-annexed programs, lawyers, judges, corporations, experienced mediators and a variety of other groups. She designed a mediation course offered in Budapest each summer to students from around the world; developed a "Train the Trainers of Mediators" program and teaching manual for the State of Michigan; and has also trained mediator trainers for the NYS Unified Court System. She served as a consultant to the State of Florida in implementing its mediator qualification requirements and a consultant and trainer to the Louisiana Board of Workers Compensation in designing and implementing a mandatory mediation program for Workers Compensation cases. She is a certified trainer for community dispute resolution centers in NYS and has developed and delivered mediation theory and practice courses at a variety of law schools, both domestic and international, which typically satisfy certification requirements for court-annexed mediation assignments in the respective states. Since 1993, she has regularly delivered arbitration training programs for the State of NY, Office of Court Administration, for arbitrators of attorney-client fee disputes.
Lela is Past Chair of the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution. In her chair year she initiated the first International Mediation Leadership Summit in the Hague. She also is a member of the NYS Unified Court System Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Committee.
She has written widely on the topic of dispute resolution, including co-authoring the book The Middle Voice, co-editing a collection called Stories Mediators Tell, co-authoring three law school textbooks, and writing many articles. She mediated a simulated product liability dispute that was broadcast numerous times by COURT TV.
In addition to her work in ADR, she developed and directed the Small Business Clinic at George Washington University's National Law Center.
Lela received her B.A. from Harvard University, a M.Ed. from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a J.D. degree from Georgetown University Law School. She is a member of the Bar in New York, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia.
Jody Miller:
Jody Miller is the executive director of the Mediation Center of Dutchess County, having worked closely with courts and the community to develop and provide mediation and conflict resolution training programs over her more than 20 years in the alternative dispute resolution field. During her tenure and in partnership with the domestic violence community, Jody and her team created the award winning Domestic Violence and Mediation Safety Project. She serves on the Dutchess County Aging Services Advisory Board, NYS Sen. Sue Serino’s Aging Advisory Council and is a member of the Hon. Deborah A. Kaplan’s Elder Justice Working Group.
Jody is an adjunct professor of mediation at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University and is a Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation. She is a certified trainer through the New York State Unified Court System’s Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution Programs (ADR) and in July, 2013, earned Part 146 (court rule) approval for Initial mediation training. She is the author of the chapter, “Choosing to Change: Transitioning to the Transformative Model in a Community Mediation Center,” in the publication, Transformative Mediation: A Sourcebook: Resources for Conflict Intervention Practitioners and Programs, Association for Conflict Resolution/Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation, 2010. In 2013, with the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation, she created a video of a transformative commercial mediation that includes parties who are represented by their attorneys. She has been a presenter at conferences throughout the United States, as well as in Italy and China. She wrote the article, “Mediating Commercial Cases: A Case for Transformative Mediation,” ACResolution, Winter, 2015. She is currently co-writing a mediation manual for the New York State Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution Programs and creating a Surrogate’s Court Mediation Program in collaboration with Dutchess County Surrogate’s Court.
Forrest Mosten:
Forrest (Woody) Mosten teaches mediation, lawyer as peacemaker, and family law practice as Adjunct Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law and has been in private mediation practice since 1979. He trains professionals in mediation and collaborative practice from basic to advanced courses and is in constant demand worldwide as a conference keynote speaker and expert witness.
Woody is the author of five books and numerous articles on mediation, interdisciplinary collaborative practice, expansion of legal access, building profitable legal and peacemaking practices, cutting edge issues in family law, and other dispute resolution topics.
Woody was 2009 ABA Frank Sander Co-Lecturer at the ABA Dispute Resolution Annual Conference held in New York. In 2004, he was the recipient of two prestigious ABA Awards: ABA Lawyer as Problem Solver Award and ABA Lifetime Legal Access Award (he is recognized as the “Father” of Unbundled Legal Services). In 1996, he received the Los Angeles County Bar Louis M. Brown Conflict Prevention Award, and was named by the Southern California Mediation Association as Peacemaker of the Year. He is the founding Chair of the Beverly Hills Bar Dispute Resolution Section and has received two major awards for his work in mediation from that organization. He is a founding member of Mediators Without Borders.
Since 1989, Woody has been the Chair of the International Client Consultation Competition, a law school activity affiliated with the International Bar Association that bears his name (www.brownmosten.com ).
Kelly Browe Olson:
Kelly Browe Olson is the Director of Clinical Programs and an Associate Professor of Law. She oversees the mediation, litigation, tax and consumer protection clinics, and state-wide Special Education and Dependency/Neglect mediation projects . In addition to teaching the Mediation Clinic, she has also taught Family Law, Mediation Seminars, ADR, and Domestic Violence courses. She helped create the U.A.L.R. Graduate Certificate Program in Conflict Mediation. She is a passionate advocate who focuses on educating law students, judges, lawyers, and other professionals on conflict resolution and communication.
Kelly is currently serving as chair for the American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution 2015 conference and on the executive board of the AALS ADR Section and the Arkansas Conflict Resolution Association. She has also served on numerous boards and committees for the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts’ Court Improvement Project; the Arkansas Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission; the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission; Arkansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Arkansas Women’s Leadership Forum. Nationally she has been a resource for the American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, the Family Court Review and the National Child Welfare Decision-making Network. She won the Bowen School of Law Faculty Excellence Award for Public Service in 2004 and 2013.
Kelly is a frequent national and international speaker and trainer on communication, mediation, domestic violence and children’s legal issues. Before coming to Bowen, she was the Child Law Mediation Projects Coordinator at the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where she taught clinical and ADR courses, had a graduate fellowship and served as a Senior Editor of the Loyola Children’s Rights Journal. Before graduate school, Professor Browe Olson spent three years working as an attorney and General Counsel at a small telecommunications company. She received her J.D. from the University of Michigan and an LL.M. in Child Law at Loyola.
Stacey Platt:
Stacey Platt is a clinical professor of law and the associate director of the Civitas ChildLaw Clinic at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where her focus is the training of law students to represent children in legal proceedings.
Stacey has dedicated her legal career to representing low-income children and families. At the ChildLaw Clinic, Stacey and her students represent children involved in child protection cases and high conflict custody disputes. In addition to clinical supervision, Stacey co-teaches a weekly clinic seminar, and serves as a faculty lecturer and trainer in several other law school courses involving child and family law, as well as trial practice.
Before joining Loyola, Stacey was a staff attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, where her areas of focus were domestic violence and children's issues. She has extensive experience representing parents, caretakers and children in abuse and neglect proceedings in the juvenile court and in custody and visitation proceedings in the domestic relations court, including work on significant appeals. She has also worked on several class action lawsuits pursuing reform of Illinois' child welfare and education systems.
Stacey has co-authored several articles on topics including failed adoption, older youth aging out of foster care, and the educational rights of homeless children. She has served as a teacher for the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence and the National Institute of Trial Advocacy in numerous litigation training programs for children's advocates and advocates for survivors of domestic violence.
Stacey serves on the editorial board of Family Court Review, the board of directors of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), and the advisory board of the Honoring Families Initiative of the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System.
Prior to becoming a lawyer, Stacey was a caseworker in the New York City child welfare system. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology and history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and her law degree, cum laude, from New York University School of Law.
In August 2011, The Chicago Bar Association honored Stacey with the Leonard Jay Schrager Award of Excellence, in recognition of her contribution to improving access to justice.
Alla Roytberg:
Alla Roytberg is a lawyer with over 20 years of professional experience. After graduating from Fordham University School of Law in 1991 and practicing law at two law firms for five years, Alla started The Law Offices and Mediation Center of Alla Roytberg in 1996. Currently the successor entity, The Law Firm and Mediation Practice of Alla Roytberg, P.C. firm has two offices located in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan and in Forest Hills, Queens. Ms. Roytberg’s practice focuses on matrimonial and family law litigation, divorce mediation and collaborative divorce with an ancillary general practice.
Ms. Roytberg is fluent in the Russian language and frequently addresses legal needs of the Russian Community in New York. Her clients range from individuals and entrepreneurs to privately-held small companies. She is a member and past-President of the Family and Divorce Mediation Council of Greater New York (“FDMCGNY”) and a member of the New York State Council on Divorce Mediation. Ms. Roytberg is admitted to the Bars of the States of New York and New Jersey and to the Supreme Court of the United States.
In addition to her private practice, Ms. Roytberg currently serves as Director of the Small Law Firm Center at the New York City Bar Association. Some of Ms. Roytberg’s affiliations and memberships include memberships of the NYC Bar Association, of its Small Law Firms' Committee and the City Bar Task Force on New Lawyers in a Changing Profession, of the New York State Bar Association and of its Family Law and Dispute Resolution Sections, of the Academy of Professional Family Mediators as a Founding Member, of the Association for Conflict Resolution as Advanced Practitioner Member, and of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals.
Peter Salem:
Peter Salem has served as executive director of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts since 2002 and as associate director from 1994-2002. He was a William T. Grant Foundation Distinguished Fellow (2009-2012), working with the Arizona State University Center for Prevention Research to promote effective use of high quality social science in family law.
Peter taught mediation at Marquette Law School and was mediator and director of Mediation Family Court Services in Rock County Wisconsin. He has conducted training and technical assistance for family court service agencies throughout the United States for the last 20 years and has spearheaded several family court reform initiatives.
Peter is co-editor of the book Divorce and Family Mediation: Models, Techniques and Applications (Guilford, 2004) and was the recipient of the Association for Conflict Resolution’s John Haynes Distinguished Mediator Award in 2008.
Nadia Shahram:
Attorney, writer, educator, activist, and an adjunct faculty at the Law School, Nadia N. Shahram ’97 received her B.S. from the University at Buffalo and her J.D. from SUNY Buffalo Law School. She was trained and licensed as a divorce and family mediator at the Rochester Mediation Center, in 2001. In 2001 and right after the tragic events of September 11, Nadia started questioning the role of Muslims in the image of Islam. At the Law School, Shahram teaches Effect of Religion and Culture on Family Laws in Eastern Countries.
In 2010, she published Marriage on the Street Corners of Tehran, a novel based on true stories of Iranian Muslim women facing legal and cultural inequality in everyday life as well as in court rooms. An advocate of Muslim women rights, Nadia regularly presents the differences in interpretation verses the actual text of the holy book of Koran.
Nadia has received multiple awards for her practice and activist work including Buffalo Business First’s ‘Legal Elite of Western New York’ and ‘Women of Influence’ awards. Buffalo Public Schools recognized her with an ‘Education and Culture’ award and the Family Justice Center also presented her with the ‘Spirit of Woman’ award.
A collaborative lawyer and mediator, Nadia is a board member of New York State Council on Divorce Mediation, a board member of the Family Justice Center, and a member of the Women and Erie County Bar Associations. Her private practice is dedicated to Matrimonial mediation with offices in Amherst, New York.
Jacqueline Silbermann:
Former Justice Jacqueline Silbermann concentrates her practice in matrimonial law and alternative dispute resolution and mediation. Jacqueline has twenty years of experience handling matrimonial matters throughout the state of New York, and more than twenty five years of overall judicial experience including: divorce negotiation and litigation, prenuptial agreements, separation contracts, post-judgment litigation, equitable distribution, asset valuation, mediation, arbitration and collaborative law.
Jacqueline served as Statewide Administrative Judge for Matrimonial Matters from January 1997 until December 31, 2008. From March 2001 until December 31, 2008, she served as the Administrative Judge of the Supreme Court, Civil Term, New York County. Additionally, she is listed as a mediator and arbitrator by the International Institute of Conflict Prevention & Resolution and is a member of the American Arbitration Association roster of mediators.
Jacqueline serves on the boards for Fordham University School of Law and the New York State Association of Women Judges, and she is the current President of the New York Women’s Bar Association. She also serves as a current board member and former president of Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert; a fellow of the American Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association; a member of Family Law and Judicial Section of the New York State Bar Association; a member of the Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers; a member of the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals; and a member of the Interdisciplinary Forum which discusses issues involving children and divorce.
Ed Stein:
Edward Stein is a Professor of Law and former Vice Dean of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. At Cardozo, Ed is the founding director of the Gertrud Mainzer Family Law, Policy and Bioethics Program. His scholarship focuses on legal and philosophical topics related to families, sexual orientation, sexuality, gender, reproduction, bioethics cognition, and science. He is author of Without Good Reason: The Rationality Debate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science (Oxford, 1996) and The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation (Oxford, 1999), and editor of the anthology Forms of Desire: Sexual Orientation and the Social Constructionist Controversy (Routledge, 1992).
Ed, who joined the Cardozo faculty in 2000, has taught in the philosophy departments at Yale University, Mount Holyoke College, Williams College, and New York University. He has also clerked for Judge Dolores Sloviter of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Ed Stein graduated with a B.A, Williams College, 1987; Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992; J.D. Yale Law School, 2000.
Abby Wittlin Tolchinsky:
Abby began her career in 1991 as a litigation associate at the law firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore. From there, she went on to volunteer with the Lawyer’s Committee for Human Rights where she evaluated cases and interviewed immigrants from around the world who wished to apply for asylum in the United States. Abby then worked at the Women’s Justice Center at Pace Law School, in White Plains. There, she provided legal advice to victims of domestic violence.
In April 2004, Abby received her mediation training through the Center for Mediation in Law and continues to participate in advanced trainings and professional retreats through the Center, including advanced coursework in matrimonial law and mediation techniques. Abby completed an apprenticeship as a volunteer mediator with the Westchester Mediation Center, CLUSTER where she participated in custody and visitation mediations and she is a certified mediator in the New York City Family Courts. She is a member of the Family and Divorce Mediation Council and the New York State Council on Divorce Mediation. Abby was a teaching assistant at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, training new mediators in an advanced practicum. Additionally, Abby is a regular columnist for the New York Law Journal, mediation column.
Abby received her BA from Barnard College of Columbia University and her JD from the New York University School of Law.
Ellie Wertheim:
Ellie began her legal career advocating on behalf of children in abuse, neglect and juvenile delinquency cases at the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society. Subsequently, she represented indigent clients in custody, child support, matrimonial and family violence cases at the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG). As part of her work at NYLAG, she also supervised law students who assisted domestic violence victims in Family Court and conducted family law trainings at law schools and social service agencies throughout New York City.
Using her family law background, Ellie is now committed to the practice of mediation to assist families in resolving their conflicts. She received her mediation training at the Queens Mediation Network and completed the divorce mediation practicum at the Ackerman Institute for the Family. She participates in advanced trainings and professional retreats through the Center for Mediation in Law, including advanced coursework in matrimonial law and mediation techniques. Ellie was a teaching assistant at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, training new mediators in an advanced practicum. Additionally, Ellie is a regular columnist for the New York Law Journal, mediation column. Ellie serves on the Board of Directors of the Family and Divorce Mediation Council and is a certified mediator in the New York City Family Courts.
Ellie received her BA from Northwestern University and her JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Zena Zumeta:
Internationally known as both a mediator and trainer of mediators, Zena D. Zumeta is president of the Mediation Training & Consultation Institute, Zena Zumeta Mediation Services, and The Collaborative Workplace in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
She received her Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. Zena is a former board member and president of the Academy of Family Mediators (now merged into the Association for Conflict Resolution), past president of the Michigan Council for Family and Divorce Mediation, and past Regional Vice President of the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution. She is also a former member of the Advisory Council for the Family Section of the Association for Conflict Resolution, and ACR's Membership and Governance Committees.
Zena has extensive experience as a trainer, mediator, facilitator and consultant. She has been providing mediation services since 1981.
She is an approved civil and family mediator in Michigan, and an approved mediation trainer for Michigan and many other states.
Zena is the recipient of the the Family Mediation Council-Michigan Liftetime Achievement in Mediation Award; the National Education Association/Saturn Corporation Award for Union-Management Collaboration; the John Haynes Distinguished Mediator Award from ACR; and the Kumba Award from the National Conference on Minorities in ADR.
