PHILOSOPHY OF LEGAL PRACTICE
Collaborative Law and Mediation assist people with reaching their most effective, successful, durable and cost-effective out-of-court negotiated settlements.
Collaborative Law provides clients with the opportunity to reach out-of-court settlements in which each party is represented by an attorney. Each party with their respective attorney works together to reach negotiated agreements. Laurie will provide legal representation, give legal advice, assist in drafting documents, and filing documents with the court.
The power of the table occurs when people to a dispute sit down together with their respective attorneys in a collaborative process and consider their goals and objectives. Conflicts are complicated, stressful and overwhelming. Sitting and talking together at the table, provides the framework that allows people to unfold the layers of issues and reach successful resolution. By talking together the decisions reached will be durable ones. By talking together the children in a divorce will benefit. By talking together parents will be able to co-parent their children with respect and understanding. By talking together employees and employers learn to work together. By talking together people in the dispute have learned the invaluable tools of resolving their issues. If and when future concerns arise, the parties will return to the table to reach agreements utilizing the same strategies.
Collaborative Law provides the framework to allow the parties to control the successful resolution of their dispute. Each party digs deep to reach an agreement that is fair, durable and cost-effective. The parties control their outcomes not lawyers and not judges. The parties control the schedule of reaching decisions. The parties reach their negotiated settlements with the guidance and advice of their attorneys, according to their own timetables, not the slow, cumbersome and costly timetable of the courts. The collaborative process assists people to reach fair agreements derived from talking and working together at the table.
Mediation brings people together to work with a mediator, a neutral third party. Laurie, as the mediator, helps both parties reach their best outcomes. Mediation is a structured problem-solving process in which a neutral, impartial third person assists people to reach a voluntary agreement to resolve their disputes. The mediator facilitates the negotiations, but does not impose her view of what the agreement should be. Laurie assists people to reach agreement in a collaborative, consensual and informed manner. Laurie's objective is to facilitate the parties themselves reaching their best agreement.
For more information please send an email to Laurie.Levin@comcast.net or call 802-989-9482.