That's what I do.
Whatever your professional role, you know the moment. Your client is struggling to stay effectively in the process — escalating, shutting down, or stuck on one issue that's blocking everything else. That's when you bring me in.
In collaborative divorce training I got to experience what that looks like from the inside — watching a client held by a lawyer, a financial expert, and a coach, each carrying a different piece of what she needed to stay in the room. And I recognized every single one of those roles, because in mediation I carry them all internally. The legal frame. The financial reality check. The quiet monitor asking whether this person is regulated enough to stay in the process right now.
What I saw in that training wasn't just a different model. It was proof that even with a full team around a client, there are moments when bringing in a mediator shifts the whole team forward. Not because anyone failed — because the situation called for a specific skill set at a specific moment. That's the pass. And when it works, everyone moves.
When your client is stuck, escalating, or dragging a case toward high conflict that nobody wins — that's when you call me. I come in for a defined intervention: as little as one session, though it may take a few to right the boat. A parenting plan, a specific impasse, a process that's lost its structure. I don't take your client. I don't take your case. I calm the process down, build a new structure, and send you back in to close. If you're working within a collaborative framework, I've trained in collaborative practice and understand exactly where I fit in that model — and where I don't.
If your practice focuses on amicable divorce, but your normally amicable couple has gotten stuck on one issue, bring me in to work through that specific issue. My specialty is high-touch mediation — for exactly the moments when a couple needs someone to dig deeper than a typical amicable-divorce process allows.
When your client knows something needs to change — in their marriage, their co-parenting relationship, or their family dynamic — but can't get the other person to the table, that's where I come in. Part of our work together is helping your client find the language and the moment to make that invitation. Part of it is giving them something concrete to offer: one focused session, one specific issue, no pressure beyond that.
If they get there, what we might work through together could be as significant as getting clear on whether the marriage is over and how to move forward, building a parenting plan that actually holds, or establishing a parenting coordination structure when co-parenting decisions keep breaking down. Your client comes back to you with more clarity and less conflict consuming the session. You stay in the relationship. I handle the piece that's been blocking everything else.
When the financial picture is clear but co-parenting conflict is blocking everything else — when clients can't get past the parenting plan long enough to look at the numbers — I can clear that path. A focused parenting intervention gets the co-parenting decisions made so the financial work can move forward. You don't lose the case. You just stop losing time to a conflict that isn't yours to resolve. As little as one session, though a few may be needed depending on how entrenched the impasse is.
I also know that being the neutral, and leading a collaborative team through conflict, is often outside a financial specialist's core skill set — and it isn't supposed to be your job to carry. That's why, when the team needs it, I sit with you and co-mediate rather than take the case over. You keep your seat on the team and the client relationship you've built. I bring the facilitation piece, and you build those skills alongside me for next time.
I work in whatever configuration your case needs. That might be:
In every configuration, the goal is the same: get the family moving forward, and get you back to the work you do best.
The traditional model of mediator neutrality asks practitioners to be on no one's side. In theory, that sounds fair. In practice, it often means the mediation spins out of control because the mediator isn't checking their own biases — and clients, feeling unsupported, either hide behind their attorneys or fall apart. It also means that no one in the room is actually advocating for the most important party: the family itself, and the children inside it.
The more useful frame comes from two sources that have shaped my practice significantly. Ken Cloke's concept of omnipartiality holds that a mediator's job isn't to stand apart from the conflict but to be fully present on every side of it simultaneously — understanding each person's experience so completely that each party feels genuinely heard. William Ury's Third Side extends this further: in any conflict, there is a third party whose interest is the health of the relationship and the community beyond it. In family cases, that third party is the children, the extended family, and the future these people are all still going to share.
Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Systems Theory adds another layer: a child doesn't develop in isolation, but within a nested set of systems — the immediate family, the relationships between those around them, the institutions they move through, and the broader cultural context. When parents are in conflict, every one of those systems is affected. A mediator who only sees two adversaries is missing most of what's actually happening. A mediator who understands family systems can work at the right level — not just resolving the presenting dispute, but protecting the ecosystem the child depends on. And that ecosystem is often bigger than the two parents in the room: the stepparent doing the Tuesday pickup, the grandparents providing after-school care, the new partner who is now part of the household. When those people aren't accounted for in the agreement, the agreement breaks down the first time reality doesn't match the plan.
This is why I meet individually with each party — and why I am confident doing so. By actively balancing my own biases, continuing to gather information, forming hypotheses, and testing them, I am not gathering ammunition for the other side. I am ensuring that everyone arrives at the joint session having been genuinely heard and understood. They know what they want to say. Many have practiced it. And if they flounder, I can give them an assist. Omnipartiality isn't a compromise to neutrality. It's a more rigorous version of it.
For professionals who have watched clients shut down in joint sessions, this distinction matters practically. When each party has had a private space to be heard, the joint session becomes a working meeting rather than a performance. That's where agreements actually get built.
My practice is grounded in a specific set of frameworks that most mediators don't bring to the table. Ken Cloke's omnipartiality. William Ury's Third Side. Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Systems Theory — the understanding that a child lives inside a nested set of relationships, and that when parents are in conflict, every one of those systems is affected. These aren't decorative citations. They are the operating system underneath every session.
A father wanted Saturday morning pancakes with his young daughter. The parents couldn't agree on how to make it happen. On the surface it looked like a scheduling dispute. It wasn't.
Mom was in sober living. She needed a clear, fully mapped-out plan — something concrete she could hold onto. Dad was an artist. He needed to see the schedule drawn out, not typed out.
What I discovered was that they were looking at completely different calendaring systems and neither one made sense to the other. Mom only trusted a fully populated computer calendar for the entire year. Dad only worked from a whiteboard with colored markers. Every time they tried to agree on a schedule, they were agreeing on different documents — and neither one knew it.
Once I understood that, the real conversation became possible. What did Dad actually need Saturday mornings to look like? It turned out he needed to work Saturday afternoons — and he needed his daughter to have time on a non-school day to move through her emotions at her own pace. When we got there, he was willing to accept less time than he had originally asked for. Not because he gave up. Because we finally understood what the time was actually for.
We would never have gotten there without going back and forth between two different visual systems, two different ways of understanding a week, and two parents who both loved their daughter and had no idea they were talking past each other.
That's the work. And that's what gets to agreement.
That number isn't an accident. It's what happens when you have the right tools and the tenacity to keep using them.
The phrase "best interests of the child" is the legal North Star of family law. It is also, as I wrote in a published piece for Mediate.com, a generality that provides very little guidance for the day-to-day friction of a divided family. For parents in high-conflict transitions, best interests is often a Rorschach test: they see whatever justifies their own position.
This is where temperament charting shifts from a childhood education concept to a high-level mediation intervention.
I use a structured two-stage process. First, each parent independently charts their child's temperament — without including themselves. This homework assignment forces a shift from litigant to observer. Then we map the adults and move from legal generalities to specific, tailored agreements: an exchange protocol for a child with low adaptability, a sensory environment plan for a child who is highly distractible, a transition script for a child with a negative initial reaction to change.
The result isn't a generic parenting plan that satisfies a legal requirement. It's a map of a specific child's wiring — and a set of agreements built around that child rather than around the conflict between the parents.
When parents see the map, they stop fighting for time and start working toward fit. That's how we build agreements that stay out of court.
In active cases I work with and through the professionals already working on the case. I'm never replacing you — I'm getting the process back on track so you can continue doing what you do best. That means communicating directly with attorneys, coaches, and other team members as appropriate, and being transparent about my role and scope from the start.
I am not currently a card-carrying collaborative practitioner, but I've been trained in the process and work comfortably within collaborative divorce teams. I understand the model and know where a mediator fits in that framework — and where the boundaries are.
For colleagues who want the fuller picture before referring a case:
I'm happy to work with coaches and other professionals who want to use my Co-Parenting Plan Blueprint workbook directly in their own practice — whether that's recommending it to clients or building it into your existing sessions.
I'm also turning it into a full training for coaches, launching late 2026 / early 2027, designed to give you the frameworks and facilitation tools behind the workbook so you can guide clients through building a durable co-parenting plan yourself. If that's of interest, add your name below and I'll keep you posted as it comes together.
If you have a case that's stalling and you want to think through whether I'm the right intervention, reach out directly. No referral forms, no intake process. Just a conversation between colleagues about what your case needs.