Ariella Linda Shuster

Ariella Shuster is a collaborative law attorney, mediator, and trained life coach serving families across Washington State. Her practice focuses on high-integrity, out-of-court divorce, with the goal of helping clients move through separation with their dignity intact and their relationships with co-parents, children, and themselves preserved.

Ariella spent fifteen years as a trial attorney, much of it as a public defender in New York, before concluding that the adversarial structure of family court is the wrong place for two people to make the most important decisions of their adult lives. The collaborative process is built to do the opposite. It keeps clients in control, keeps communication open, and keeps the legal mechanics from compounding the human cost.

Alongside her legal practice, Ariella has spent more than a decade as a Professional Life Coach trained in ontological coaching. This dual training informs how she works with clients: substantive legal advocacy where it is needed, paired with the emotional and behavioral support that divorce actually requires.

Ariella served as Chair of the Collaborative Law Section of the King County Bar Association from 2020 to 2023 and currently sits on its Family Law Executive Committee and Professional Development Committee. She is on the Family Law Executive Committee of the Washington State Bar Association and Chairs its Mini-CLE Committee. She is a graduate of the year-long International Academy of Collaborative Professionals Leadership Academy, a program that selects only twenty-two international practitioners per cohort, and serves on the IACP's Ethics and Professional Standards and Practice Group committees. She is the Affinity Bar Liaison for the Cardozo Law Society Advisory Group, and a member of the Cascadia Collaborative Practice Group.

Ariella holds a Certificate in Mediation from the University of Washington and a 40-Hour Peaceful Divorce Mediation certification from Forrest S. Mosten. She trained as an ontological coach through the Accomplishment Coaching year-long program. She is the author of Divorce With Dignity: How to End Your Marriage Without Ruining Your Life or the Lives of Your Children (2023), has been featured in NW Lawyer's "Beyond the Bar Number" column, and has appeared on FOX and ABC television.

A New Yorker transplanted to Seattle, Ariella is admitted to practice in Washington and New York.