My greatest pleasure as an attorney and counselor is maintaining a long-term, positive relationship with my clients by getting to know them and working hard to help them protect their interests and meet their goals. I have formed my own firm to get away from conflicting demands from "management" in order to focus my efforts as an experienced attorney and counselor entirely on client service. I am fortunate to have practiced and to continue to practice law with many well-qualified attorneys. I value my relationships with them, as well as with the many other colleagues I have gotten to know through my 28 years practicing law in numerous jurisdictions and through service to bar association organizations at the national, state and local levels.

I have been admitted in four jurisdictions (Michigan, New York, New Jersey and the District of Columbia) and maintain my bar association memberships in Michigan and New York. I have handled environmental litigation in a number of federal and state courts, and have negotiated settlements with numerous state and federal agencies, including several of the regional offices of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, including most recently in Texas.

                                                               Great Lakes Mediation, LLC

ABOUT MEDIATION

Mediation is a confidential, informal process parties can voluntarily undertake in which a neutral third party assists them with negotiation to resolve their dispute. The parties and their attorneys participate and are critical to the process of identifying needs and interests that can affect or define a workable outcome.

Mediation can occur before litigation is filed, early in litigation, or after necessary discovery or motion practice is completed. Courts increasingly request (or require) that parties consider and attempt mediation because it frequently results in early settlement, saving the parties money and the court time, and empowering the parties to tailor a resolution that may meet their needs better than a black-and-white decision by the court.

Mediation may not be appropriate if one or more parties are certain they will win, feel it is important to have an "up or down" decision, or view the case as a matter of principle on which they cannot or will not bend. It requires willingness to compromise and is more effective if approached with active effort to use the process. Counsel's role in mediation is a hybrid of litigation advocacy skills and client counseling skills, with less focus on making one's best argument and more on (a) recognizing the potential downsides of not settling (including the possibility of losing in court) and (b) fashioning terms that meet the client's needs but also can be acceptable to the other side and form the basis of an attractive or, at least, acceptable, settlement.

Sometimes, mediation may morph into arbitration or an evaluative form of mediation in which the parties ask the mediator to change hats from facilitating to arbitrating and make or recommend a decision. Alternatively, sometimes a mediation results in an agreement to undertake certain steps and the parties ask the mediator to remain available to arbitrate any disputes arising out of that work. In either case, it is important for the parties to discuss and agree explicitly on the changed role of the mediator.