Lori Goldstein

BACKGROUND/PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

HOW I CAME TO MEDIATION AND COLLABORATIVE LAW:
My years of negotiating complex corporate transactions kept me tuned in to commercial needs of both sides, so we could close deals. However, while corporate law was interesting and intellectually stimulating, I wanted to add a more human element to my work. So, I began exploring ways to apply my negotiating skills to families in emotional distress. I discovered mediation in 1990.

I immersed myself in the field and became passionate about the process when I saw what it could do. I decided to devote my career to this approach to solving conflict.

Transformative change can take place when someone's pain, disappointment, loss, confusion, and many other difficult emotions, are finally acknowledged.

I learn every day from my clients, and work my hardest to connect by truly hearing their needs and helping them get to a place where they can start the next phase of their lives at peace.

PROFESSIONAL HISTORY:
In addition to successfully handling, from beginning to end, many hundreds of divorce cases in my private practice since 1996, I am an advanced practitioner member of the Academy of Family Mediators, the NYS Council for Divorce Mediation, and the Family and Divorce Mediation Council of Greater NY. I am also a member of the NJ Association of Family Mediators, and the NY Association of Collaborative Professionals.

I taught mediation at Brooklyn Law School, and am a former member of the Board of Directors of the Family and Divorce Mediation Council of Greater NY. I was certified by the NYS Unified Court System as a Mediation Trainer, pursuant to which I trained hundreds of community members, including judges, lawyers, and therapists in mediation. I am also the former director of Victim Services Mediation Program, which mediated over 5000 cases per year.

I also mediated hundreds of Title VII Equal Employment Opportunity cases for the US Postal Service and served as a certified mediator for the Manhattan and Brooklyn Mediation Centers.

Before turning to mediation and collaborative law full-time, I practiced corporate law for 8 years at two large nationally known law firms, Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander and Ferdon in New York City and Steefel Levitt and Weiss in San Francisco. I am a member of the New York, New Jersey and California Bars.