OUR TRAINER COMMUNITY
Ivan Alter is an attorney and mediator with offices in Westchester County, New York, and New York City. Practicing law since 1993, Ivan traded in an early career spent litigating complex commercial matters and high-conflict matrimonial cases in favor of a more rewarding practice using the understanding-based model.
Ivan left the courtroom for good twenty years ago and today empowers his clients to design satisfying resolutions to their conflicts through mediation and collaborative law. He is a graduate of Brandeis University (B.A.), Brooklyn Law School (J.D.), and Columbia University (M.S.). Having participated in countless training programs and symposia, Ivan currently serves on the board of directors for the Center for Understanding in Conflict and the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals.
Danillo Alves is an IT Executive with over 23 years of experience in the computer software industry and has worked in different management positions for Latin America in recent years. He is a seasoned leader passionate about ensuring the perfect experience for his team and customers, and his journey truly exemplifies a broad, exciting, and global career. He has accumulated over the years international and intercultural experience by delivering services, leading teams, negotiating with customers in different countries, and completing short assignments and a fellowship in Germany.
In 2021, Danillo joined the SAP Ombuds Office as Ombudsperson for the Americas. Following his passion since 2015, he has also worked as an Internal Coach for individuals and teams, following his Erickson International Certified Coach qualification. He has already supported the Ombusoffice in the past years as Conflict Counselor. After completing mediation training at the Center, he joined the Business Mediator group.
Laurie Amaya is a family law mediator, consulting, and collaborative attorney. After many years as a litigator, she changed her practice in order to help clients reach peaceful and out-of-court resolutions to divorce and family law disputes. Laurie now works full-time as a peacemaker. Laurie has worked with hundreds of parties with family law issues, including marriage and domestic partner dissolution, legal separation, and parenting issues, helping them work together to reach agreements which meet their respective needs while doing so in a non-adversarial process.
Laurie is an Academy of Professional Family Mediators (APFM) Certified Advanced Practitioner and Senior Mediator, as well as a Mediate.com Certified Senior Mediator. She has extensive training in mediation and conflict resolution, including training in the Understanding-Based Model with the Center for Understanding in Conflict, the Reflective Practice method of case consultation, as well training with Forrest “Woody” Mosten. Laurie received her B.A. from U.C. Santa Cruz in 1988, her Juris Doctor from Southwestern University School of Law in 1993, and has been licensed to practice law in California since 1993 and Arizona since 1994. Her office is in Pasadena, California.
Armine Baltazar is a mediator and a collaborative attorney in Los Angeles. After over 20 years of practicing in the litigation arena, Armine finds it deeply fulfilling to help couples find a non-litigated way through divorce. She co-founded HEALTHY Divorce, a Los Angeles Superior Court pilot project that links lower-income divorcing couples with support services such as legal, parenting, mental health, and housing. She is also a member of CUC’s Programs Committee and is the Chair of Virtual Divorce California’s Diversity Committee.
Armine teaches mediation at Monterey College of Law and has been a guest lecturer at Loyola Law School and Santa Monica City College. She has been a school board member of a private, pre-K through 12th grade Armenian heritage awareness school in Hollywood for over ten years. She graduated from UCLA’s School of Law in 1997 and is a member of various mediation and collaborative organizations and study groups. She has appeared on CBS News and on radio for her legal opinion and has twice been a guest speaker on the podcast, “The Amicable Divorce Expert.”
Kathy Campbell has been a practicing family law attorney since 2002 and helps tailor outcomes to each families’ unique needs. As a Certified Family Law Specialist who stays out of courtrooms, she uses Understanding-Based Mediation and Powerful Non-Defensive Communication to help Bay Area families through their divorce. Kathy is drawn to work with LGBTQI+ families, especially when gender-related conflict is part of the conversation.
Kathy served as Collaborative Practice California President from 2023-2024. She has also served on the Boards of the San Mateo and Santa Clara County Collaborative Practice groups. She completed the International Academy of Collaborative Professional’s 2021-2022 Leadership Academy. She frequently presents at family law conferences and started a collaborative practice mentor group to help other professionals develop their conflict resolution skills. Recently she taught her first conflict-resolution class to high school students and expects to continue sharing at other Bay Area high schools.
Helen Chen is a mediator, trainer, and conflict coach specializing in workplace conflicts, with a lifelong passion for improving workplaces. In her prior position at the Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California, Berkeley, Helen trained employers and employees in various industries on improving working conditions. As a former employment attorney at Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus, she represented employees in workers’ compensation, occupational health and safety, and retaliation matters.
Helen also mediates in civil harassment court, supporting work colleagues, landlords and tenants, neighbors, businesses and consumers, and family members in making mutually beneficial decisions together. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, she is a graduate of Stanford Law School (J.D.), University of California, Berkeley (M.S.), and Stanford University (B.S.). Helen has received mediation training through the Center for Understanding in Conflict, the Northern California Mediation Center, and Stanford Law School.
Catherine Conner has been a mediation and collaborative practice trainer since 2004. She is a frequent presenter at collaborative conferences and family law workshops. She authored Collaborative Practice Materials with Steven Neustadter and Margaret Anderson. Catherine Conner’s private practice focuses on family law alternate dispute resolution, including mediation, collaborative practice, and private judging. She graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law, Boalt Hall in 1982 and is a founding partner of Conner, Lawrence, Rodney, Olhiser & Barrett, LLP. In 1992, Catherine became a Certified Family Law Specialist. She has been honored as the recipient of the Rex Sater Award for Excellence in Family Law, the Eureka award by Collaborative Practice California and was the 2018 honoree for Careers of Distinction. She was on the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals from 2007-2014 and served as the President in 2013.
David Dörken is a lawyer, Zen Buddhist practitioner, and meditation teacher based in Leipzig, Germany. He currently works independently with a technology-focused law firm. In 2024, he spent a year as a resident at the Crestone Mountain Zen Center in Crestone, Colorado. Together with friends, he co-founded the Zen Lab, a meditation center dedicated to bringing Zen practice to the younger generation in the heart of the modern city.
David offers a unique approach to conflict resolution, blending his legal expertise with mindfulness practices rooted in Zen principles. His work emphasizes openness, presence, and non-judgmental awareness as essential tools for transforming conflict into meaningful connection and growth. With experience spanning legal counsel, mediation, and teaching, David helps individuals and organizations navigate disputes with clarity, compassion, and creativity.
Antoinette Delruelle has been a mediator since 2009 and an attorney since 1994. Before starting the Mediation Project at the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG) in 2013, she represented survivors of domestic violence in divorces and family cases for eighteen years and has taught mediation to legal services attorneys and NYS court staff and mediates divorces, parenting, and child permanency cases for New York City’s five borough courts.
Antoinette was president of the Family and Divorce Mediation Council of Greater New York from 2014 to 2016 and is on the Center for Understanding in Conflict board. She is a member of the statewide ADR Advisory Committee formed by former Chief Judge DiFiore in April 2018 to give recommendations on how to increase the use of ADR in the NYS court system.
Mario Dotti has been a full-time mediator and neutral since 2003, working with national and international mediation providers, such as CAM – Camera Arbitrale di Milano, CEDR, Organismo di Conciliazione Forense di Milano, ECDR – European Center for Dispute Resolution, and other private providers. Focus areas include commercial contracts, intellectual property, patents, banking contracts; family, insurance, and real estate disputes; and probate and will. Mario is also an accredited teacher/trainer in mediation by the Italian Ministry of Justice and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Milan-Bicocca on conflict management, mediation, and negotiation.
Sharon B. Eckstein is an attorney with over 20 years of mediation and conflict resolution experience with a focus on disputes involving those who have had prior relationships or who maintain ongoing contact – employment, workplace, and family matters, including divorce and custody as well as adult family and elder law issues, business partnerships and dissolutions, organizational boards, nonprofits, condo/HOA matters, and community land use disputes. She also works with Eckstein Conflict Resolution Services and offers mediation, facilitation, conflict coaching, and training in various contexts.
Sharon is a National Association for Community Mediation (NAFCM) board member and a volunteer mediator with the Philadelphia Eviction Diversion Program and the Philadelphia Police Advisory Commission Community-Police Mediation Program. Sharon received her juris doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She was a summa cum laude graduate of Queens College of the City University of New York, a Belle Zeller scholar, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Gary J. Friedman has been practicing law as a mediator with Mediation Law Offices in Mill Valley, California since 1976, integrating mediative principles into the practice of law and the resolution of legal disputes. Co-founder of the Center for Understanding in Conflict (formerly the Center for Mediation in Law), he has been teaching mediation since 1980. Prior to his work as a mediator, he practiced law as a trial lawyer with Friedman and Friedman in Bridgeport, Connecticut. After several years as an advocate, he sought a new approach to resolving disputes through increasing the participation of the parties in the resolution of their differences. At that time, he and his colleague, Jack Himmelstein, began to develop the Understanding-based model that is now practiced extensively in the United States and Europe. As one of the first lawyer mediators and a primary force in the current mediation movement, he has used this model to complete over one thousand mediations in the last two decades He has mediated numerous two-party and multi-party disputes in the commercial and non-profit realms, in the area of intellectual property, real estate, corporate, personnel, partnership formations and dissolutions, and family law.
Nathalie Herren is a mediator active in Switzerland and Canada, providing mediation services globally. She is the founder and CEO of Armonibre, offering mediation, training, and advice in conflict management. Nathalie mainly works in commercial mediation, the workplace, and general mediation. She practices in English, Spanish, French, and German.
Nathalie studied International Relations at The Graduate Institute Geneva, Business Administration at HEC Montréal, and European Master in Mediation at IUKB Sion. She has more than 20 years of experience in human security in Europe, North, and South America. She is a sworn mediator to the State of Geneva and is accredited by Switzerland’s Swiss Chamber of Commercial Mediation (SCCM). Nathalie is also certified by the Swiss Federation of Mediators (FSM), ADR-ODR International Civil/Commercial Mediator, and International Mediation Institute (IMI). Her greatest strength is accompanying people to think “out of the box” in times of conflict and change, focusing on communicating authentically.
Pat Lau has been a workplace mediator at Intel Corporation from 2010 to 2024. After his first conflict management class many years ago, Pat became fascinated with alternative ways to address and resolve workplace conflict, especially after discovering the understanding-based model. In 2013, he co-founded and for over ten years led Intel’s Collaborative Mediation Program. This in-house workplace mediation program helped resolve challenging conflicts among co-workers, peer managers, team members, supervisors, and subordinates.
Pat is a trainer at the CUC, has presented at numerous national conferences, published in the “Corporate Mediation Journal” and in the 2nd Edition of “Managing Conflict” by David Liddle. He regularly volunteers as a mediator for small claims cases for the Portland Multnomah County Circuit Court and is also Past Chair of the Oregon Mediation Association Workplace Special Interest Group. Pat’s previous career was in engineering, and he holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering from Stanford and Southern Methodist University. Married with two daughters, Pat enjoys family vacations in Montana, cycling, coaching soccer and long walks with their two Newfoundlands.
Caitlin Meredith, MPH, MA, is a mediator, coach and conflict skills trainer who works with individuals, organizations and families navigating transitions and conflict. Her curiosity about conflict led to 13 years with Doctors Without Borders in war zones in sub-Saharan Africa, and then to consulting in the criminal justice system. After working in the aftermath of big conflicts, she decided to learn more about preventing and working through disagreements through courageous conversations. This curiosity led her to the Center for Understanding in Conflict. In addition to her private practice, Caitlin volunteers her time as a mediator for community and court-based mediation programs in Colorado and California. She also teaches Core Mediation and Negotiation classes at the Monterey College of Law and co-hosts a podcast about women’s financial literacy. In all of her endeavors, Caitlin finds honest, clear and vulnerable communication to be the key ingredient for creating meaningful connections in our lives. Also, humor.
Katherine Eisold Miller is an attorney practicing mediation and collaborative practice in Westchester County, NY. She has been practicing family law since 1987, first as a litigator and now exclusively outside the court system. She has taught family law at the White Institute and NYU as well as with the Center and lectures regularly on mediation and collaborative practice. She is a Board member of the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals.
Michelle Exline Minovi, Esq. is a highly skilled divorce and family mediator with 14+ years family law experience. As Managing Attorney at the legal services non-profit Ayuda in Washington, D.C., Michelle represented low-income and Spanish-speaking immigrant clients in complex matrimonial cases in the context of domestic violence. After moving to Brooklyn, Michelle litigated and won sole custody on behalf of a parent of two children who was forced to leave the ultra-religious community because she identified as queer. After three years of intense litigation, Michelle wondered if there was an alternative way to divorce? Michelle knew she had to pivot from litigation to mediation after she took her first mediation training at the Center for Understanding Conflict. As a mediator, Michelle values the process as well as the outcome.
Michelle is on the roster of mediation panels for matrimonial Supreme Court in Kings, New York, and Queens counties as well as the borough-wide custody and visitation mediation panel. Michelle sits on the board of the Family and Divorce Mediation Council of Greater New York and is a member of the New York State Council on Divorce Mediation. Michelle speaks functional Spanish. Michelle volunteers at the New York Legal Assistance Group and the Legal Services of New York as a mediator and as a consulting attorney. Michelle is currently co-teaching the mediation clinic at the Brooklyn Law School.
Sethu Laxmi Nair is a mediator, facilitator, coach, and trainer in the fields of alternative dispute resolution and restorative practices. Currently, she serves as the Director of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and Restorative Practices at the Center for Creative Conflict Resolution, an innovative public service group that offers a blend of conflict resolution, training, and systems design options within and across the New York City government. Through her private practice, Sethu consults with nonprofit organizations and businesses, offering a unique blend of leadership coaching, mediation, and group conflict management.
A member of Hidden Water, Sethu facilitates restorative circles to heal the impact of child sexual abuse in the family system. She also teaches a foundational course on Restorative Justice and Practices at the School of Social Work at Columbia University. Sethu has worked with various gender justice and human rights organizations in New York and India. She earned her bachelor’s at SUNY Purchase College and her Master’s in Economic and Political Development at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
Heba Nimr has worked in various capacities for more than 30 years with families and organizations challenging systemic barriers to equity, as well as navigating interpersonal conflicts and abuse. Heba brings and builds on those experiences in her current practice, based in Oakland for ten years and counting, as a lawyer and mediator focused primarily in the areas of family law, and life, legacy and death planning. She has particular strength and interest in conflict resolution in multicultural and multilingual settings.
Hansa Patel is an attorney, mediator, and teacher. As an attorney, Hansa zealously advocated for abused and neglected children or defended their parents’ rights in the San Francisco juvenile dependency court for fourteen years. Hansa is passionate about serving the underprivileged community. Feeling depleted by the court system, Hansa explored new ways to empower her clients to resolve conflict. Mediation empowers Hansa’s clients to choose how they want to engage with conflict, co-create resolutions, and even transform a relationship. In the USA, Canada, and Africa, Hansa teaches mediation, including integrating mindfulness skills into conflict resolution. Hansa wants her clients to have the same tools she cultivates in her children: a mindful approach to resolving challenges in life.
Carsten Pöschl, SAP’s Global Ombudsperson, and his team are the first port of call for the company’s 110,000 employees when it comes to the confidential handling of work-related complaints and conflict situations. Before he became Global Ombudsperson, Carsten spent several years at SAP working in strategic HR roles and, before that, led international teams in the areas of Sales and Consulting. Carsten Pöschl is a qualified conflict resolution expert, mediator, coach, and mindfulness trainer with more than 15 years of management experience. His original studies include degrees in Industrial Engineering and Business Administration from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, the Royal Institute of Technology and the Stockholm School of Economics in Stockholm, Sweden.
Joy S. Rosenthal, Esq. has been mediating divorce and practicing collaborative law since she started Rosenthal Law & Mediation in 2006. Before going out on her own, Joy represented children in foster care and in delinquency (criminal) proceedings. Joy taught family law at the City University of New York School of Law for several years, and developed an online course called Landing On Your Feet – A Compassionate Lawyer’s Guide to Divorce for people who are going through divorce and separation. The child support calculator on Joy’s website is used by lawyers and court staff throughout New York State. She is thrilled to be a CUC trainer!
Melanie Rowen is a mediator and conflict coach who believes in the power of understanding-based conflict resolution to transform our world. She frequently trains individuals and groups on effective communication in conflict situations and on creating inclusive environments, particularly around gender, sexual orientation, and disability. Melanie previously litigated civil rights cases, including marriage equality, employment discrimination, issues involving transgender and gender non-conforming youth and their families, and issues facing LGBTQ+ elders, at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and served on the Board of Directors of the Transgender Law Center.
Earlier in her career, Melanie worked in business litigation at Latham & Watkins LLP, and for many years, she was the Associate Director for Public Interest Programs at UC Berkeley School of Law. Melanie currently works in attorney professional development at the Bay Area offices of a large law firm, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the National Association for Law Placement.
Tara Ollapally is an international lawyer with 25 years of experience, beginning her career in human rights law in the U.S. Since 2015, she has been a key figure in advancing mediation in India and is the co-founder of CAMP Arbitration & Mediation Practice Pvt. Ltd., one of India’s oldest mediation institutions. Tara regularly speaks on mediation, conducts awareness programs for law firms and businesses, and trains lawyers and mediators through the CAMP–Edwards Mediation Academy partnership. She has also taught mediation at several Indian law schools and has served as Coordinator for the Mediating Disputes course at Harvard University.
Tara has also has mediated a wide range of disputes in both India and the United States —including family, inheritance, construction, real estate, and consumer matters. She is licensed to practice law in New York and India and holds degrees from University Law College (Bangalore) and Columbia Law School.