Leading Alternative Dispute Resolution Experts Experts

Alice has a tremendous amount of emotional intelligence, which she uses to successfully mediate case after case. Her empathy and understanding puts clients on both sides at ease and comfortable during the mediation. She is a gifted listener, a creative problem-solver and most of all a strong communicator. With Alice's help, most people are able to resolve their issues, feel heard and move forward in their lives. ShikinaMediation.com Specialties: divorce agreements, family conflicts, conflicts between board members, landlord/tenant, community mediations

I am the founder and principal mediator of the San Diego Family Mediation Center. We are located in Del Mar, California at 445 Marine View Ave., Suite 305, Del Mar, CA 92014. Please visit me at www.SanDiegoFamilyMediation.com. My primary goal is to educate people of the benefits of mediation, not only in family law matters, but in all matters. I have been mediating divorces for over 17 years. I believe that families deserve more than family court can give them. Sure, divorce is a legal process, but it is also a family matter and should be treated as such. Too many professionals lose sight of the fact that each "side" is still part of a whole unit. One that will, more often than not, have to continue in a relationship together. This process MUST include empathy, understanding and clear communication. Without them, our clients suffer, and if our clients suffer, their children suffer more. Specialties: Family mediation, pre-marital & post-marital mediation & agreements, dissolution of both marital and non-marital relationships. Mediations are generally completed using only one mediator, however, team mediation will be provided upon request or when necessary.

Michael Aurit is a leading divorce mediator in America, trailblazing the movement to make mediation the first choice for divorce. He has guided thousands to their best possible agreements, affirming that within every problem is an opportunity. Michael shapes the future of mediation as a law professor at Pepperdine University and Arizona State University, and a top trainer for professionals globally. As President of the Academy of Professional Family Mediators, he pioneered online family mediation, expanding its reach worldwide.Alongside Karen, he champions healthy relationships and advocates for children. They believe that even in the most challenging situations, there's always an answer.

Erik Wheeler has helped hundreds of couples go through divorce more peacefully and at much lower expense than battling it out in court. Holding a Master's degree in Mediation, Erik works in both Vermont and Colorado, specializing in divorce and family mediation. His calm, reassuring approach that helps couples reach agreements even in emotionally charged situations. He prepares all court-required paperwork for uncontested divorces, guiding clients through the process from initial agreement to final filing without the adversarial dynamic of litigation. Erik is available to comment on topics including divorce mediation, alternative dispute resolution (ADR), the financial and emotional costs of contested divorce, co-parenting agreements, asset division, and how couples can avoid the family court system. He serves everyday families, military couples, and cases involving complex asset division.

Romina is an FMC-accredited family mediator, Professional Practice Consultant, and the founder of three complementary ventures in the UK family mediation space: Ark Mediation, Digital MIAM, and The Family Mediation Project. Romina holds a law degree and built her early career in commercial sales and partnership development for technology companies operating in the digital communications and security sectors. That foundation, combining legal literacy with a proven ability to manage complex stakeholder relationships shaped the pragmatic, solutions-focused approach she brings to mediation today. She founded Ark Mediation in 2019 and has since become a fully accredited member of the Family Mediation Council, working across a wide range of cases including parental disputes, financial settlements, and civil and workplace conflicts. Her approach is empathetic but grounded: parties feel genuinely heard while being guided purposefully towards resolution. In 2024, Romina qualified as a Professional Practice Consultant (PPC), enabling her to train and mentor mediators working towards FMC accreditation, a role that reflects her commitment to raising standards across the profession. Recognising that access to MIAMs remained a practical barrier for many families, Romina founded Digital MIAM (digitalmiam.co.uk) to offer fully online digital MIAM workflow delivered by qualified mediators, making it easier for individuals to meet the legal requirement without the friction of geography or scheduling. She subsequently founded The Family Mediation Project (thefamilymediationproject.co.uk), a free educational resource providing plain-English guidance on mediation, MIAMs, and the family court process in England and Wales - built on the belief that better-informed people make better decisions for their families.

Sarah Federman's career has never followed a straight line, which makes her useful to reporters looking for a different kind of expert. She spent her thirties as an international advertising executive working across more than ten countries with brands like Google, Bloomberg, Discovery, and the NFL. Then she saw her name on a Holocaust memorial wall and started asking questions the industry couldn't answer: What happens when companies cause serious harm? How can they address and prevent complicity in genocide, slavery, ecocide and other mass atrocity? How do they reckon with that? What does accountability even look like generations later? Those questions took her back to school and to a career as one of the most distinctive voices in the U.S. on corporate accountability and historical justice. Today she is an Associate Professor at the University of San Diego's Kroc School of Peace Studies, where she studies how corporations become complicit in large-scale human rights violations and how they can atone. She is the author of three books, two award-winning. Corporate Reckoning: How Companies Can Atone for Historical Transgressions (MIT Press, 2026) offers a framework for what genuine accountability looks like for institutions that have caused deep historical harm. Last Train to Auschwitz traces the decades-long effort to hold the French national railway responsible for transporting Jewish deportees to Nazi death camps. Transformative Negotiation, written with her Baltimore students, reframes negotiation as a vehicle for equity and structural change. Federman has testified twice before Congress on whether American banks bear responsibility for their historical ties to slavery, engaging both the scholarly and policy dimensions of reparations. She writes for the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and the BBC, and is a TEDx speaker, whose talk was selected by TED main stage for global distribution. She is available to comment on corporate accountability, reparations, Holocaust memory, transitional justice, negotiation, business ethics, ESG, and environmental justice in the Tijuana River watershed.

DR. SUDHIR RAVINDRAN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW, SOLICITOR (ENGLAND & WALES), FOUNDER OF ALTACIT GLOBAL, A LEADING INDIAN LAW FIRM. HE IS AN AUTHOR AND EDITOR OF PUBLISHED LAW BOOKS AND HAS CONTRIBUTED TO MANY RESEARCH ARTICLES IN FIELD OF LAW. AN ENGINEER & LAWYER, HE HAS MASTER’S DEGREES IN BOTH STREAMS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK, UNITED KINGDOM. HE HAD BEEN AWARDED A DOCTORATE IN LAW (PHD) FROM NALSAR UNIVERSITY, INDIA. HE IS CURRENTLY PURSUING HIS POST DOCTORAL RESEARCH (LLD). A REGULAR SPEAKER IN SEVERAL UNIVERSITIES, NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES. HE HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE 100 LEGAL LUMINARIES OF INDIA AND TOP 100 IP LEADERS OF INDIA.

Scott Levin, known as the Chief PeaceKeeper™, is a leading San Diego divorce lawyer and mediation expert. As the founder of San Diego Divorce Mediation & Family Law, Scott helps couples achieve amicable divorces without the stress of court battles or high legal fees. With over 20 years of family law experience and a magna cum laude degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, Scott is dedicated to providing affordable, peaceful resolutions for families. Scott's clients typically reach amicable out of court agreements in months for a fraction of the cost of a contested litigation. Scott’s expertise as a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst™ ensures a fair division of assets and debts, while his problem-solving approach has earned him recognition as one of San Diego's top family law attorneys, including awards from San Diego Business Journal, Super Lawyers, Mediate.com, and San Diego Metro Magazine. Scott is proud of his and the firm's compassionate approach to separation empowering families to resolve all aspects of divorce with dignity. To learn more about Scott and mediation law services, call 858-255-1321

Frank Zaid was the first recipient of the Canadian Franchise Association's most prestigious award - the Lifetime Achievement Award - in 2009. In his 40 years of francise law practice he was involved with over 400 franchise systems. He also serves on the boards of directors of leading franchisors in Canada and is available to act as a member of the board of directors or advisory boards of emerging or established franchise companies. Through ADR Chambers in Toronto, he is the only mediator and arbitrator in Canada to restrict his alternate dispute resolution practice to franchise disputes. He also is available to serve as an independent ombudsman to individual franchise systems. Frank is regularly retained to act as an expert witness in franchise disputes and is available to prepare expert opinions and/or testify in dispute matters. Frank frequently appears as a profile speaker/panelist at franchise conventions and conferences and is available for such events.

Marlene Chism works with executive leaders to build drama-free cultures that drive growth and reduce costly mistakes. An expert in conflict management, Marlene is known for getting to the root problem, simplifying the complex and increasing leadership clarity. As a coach, Marlene works with decision-makers, offering frameworks and tools to navigate complex conversations and increase accountability. As a seasoned facilitator and dynamic speaker, she brings executives and managers together to uncover blind spots, address the elephant in the room, and strengthen alignment. A recognized expert on the LinkedIn Learning platform, Marlene has produced six educational video series on high-stakes topics such as working with high conflict people, having difficult conversations, and anger management. She’s the author of four commercially published books. Her latest, From Conflict to Courage was nominated for an international award from GetAbstract. Marlene holds a bachelor’s in communications with a minor in psychology, and a master’s in human resources development. She’s an enhanced practitioner in Narrative Coaching.

Jane McWilliams champions peaceful resolution, transforming conflict into understanding through education. She takes a positive approach, providing helpful, evidence-based, actionable tips. At The Aurit Center, she harnesses her extensive background in psychology and social services into empowering others to resolve conflict with empathy and respect. Her insight into how people think and communicate are the foundation of her work.She believes that mediation paves the way for a more compassionate and cooperative world. Jane’s creative spirit shines through in her learning initiatives, designed to foster inclusivity, celebrate diversity, and spark lasting positive change. Jane has a vision for a more peaceful future–one conversation at a time.

I started out as a lawyer in litigation, and the courtroom is what pushed me toward the work I do now. Watching cases drag on for years over disputes that should have taken weeks taught me how broken the system is for anyone without deep pockets or endless patience. My background spans in-house legal work at large corporates, time in Singapore, and a string of startups before CADRE. That gave me a practical view of how businesses actually experience legal risk. I co-founded CADRE to bring online arbitration and mediation to disputes courts were never built to handle efficiently, especially the everyday commercial disagreements worth a few lakhs rather than crores. I focus on the legal, technology, strategy, risk, and regulation side of the business. I spend a lot of time thinking about where dispute resolution is heading, and where the gap still sits between what the law allows and what businesses actually use. I am a rebel lawyer by instinct, and I believe law should serve people, not slow them down.

Dr. Lillian Glass is a world-renowned, well-respected communication, body language, and human behavior expert. She has written numerous best-selling books, including "Toxic People," where she coined the term, as well as The Body Language of Liars. She is not only a media commentator where she disucsses newsmakers but also uses her expertise as an expert witness in both state and federal courts. She is alsoan award winning fimmaker with her film Reinventing Rosalee, which debuted at Cannes receiving 57 awards worldwide.

Ellen Kim is Founder and Principal of Cadenza Resolutions and Advisory, a firm dedicated to mediation, arbitration, and executive coaching. With a background in complex commercial negotiations, Ellen deeply enjoys the process of "closing a deal." She is adept at listening with attentiveness, finding the ask behind the ask, and providing creative solutions to her clients. Ellen continues work "closing deals," but has moved her seat at the table to be the neutral facilitator of an agreement. Her interest in dispute prevention and resolution lies in the very simple summary that she enjoys being a "professional peacemaker." Whether designing dispute systems for organizations or resolving active disputes, Ellen believes that creating a space for all parties to be heard with respect leads to better outcomes for all. Ellen brings this same deep listening to her coaching practice as an executive coach. As a coach, she has partnered with legal and business leaders across industries in Silicon Valley and through Santa Clara University’s Leavey Graduate School of Business and Law School to strategize around career design and leadership development. Additionally, Ellen is particularly passionate about empowering individual executives to engage in healthy conflict within their organizations to catalyze innovation. Ellen enjoys facilitating better conversations, cutting to the heart of the matter in a dialogue, and giving parties permission to have *that* kind of conversation.

I help leaders stop being cornered by behavior they were never trained to handle. As the Founder of Mission Critical Impact and a 5x Bestselling Author, I specialize in "Tactical Control." This provides experienced leaders the specific language and structures needed to shut down manipulation, deflection, and undermining in real time. Based in Virginia Beach, I leverage over 30 years of expertise to help executives maintain authority and protect their results when people problems threaten their credibility. My work moves beyond theory to provide tactical, actionable control in high-stakes workplace environments.

Dr. Favaro is a master of human relationships, having spent more than 40 years as a court-appointed forensic psychologist and custody evaluator in over 6000 high-conflict divorce and criminal cases. Dr. Favaro has taught anger management, conflict resolution, civilized co-parenting, and in Bad People Bible, how to identify and remove toxic individuals from your life. As a pioneer in healthcare and AI, Dr. Favaro’s early work contributed to the development of artificial intelligence applications in medicine and diagnosis, which he presented at a 1984 world conference at Harvard University. Soon after, he created Activision’s Alter Ego, the first life simulation game developed by using interviews with hundreds of people about their most memorable life experiences. This passion for AI led him to develop Bad People Bible’s AI therapy coach and digital community on Teachable. Dr. Favaro has authored dozens of books on conflict resolution, anger management, parenting, relationships, and clinical and child development. You may have seen him on ABC with John Stossel, Fox’s The Morning Show with Mike and Juliette, on the Montel Williams and Geraldo Rivera shows as the resident guest psychologist, and on dozens of local and international news shows. He is the executive director of SmartParenting: The Family Center, a clinic that delivers court-related services to high-conflict individuals and families, and is the founder and CEO of the Center for Improved Human Relationships, an organization that promotes civility, respect, and conflict resolution at home, in the workplace, and in the community.

Dr. Adrian McIntyre is an anthropologist, linguist, media personality, and expert on verbal communication. He's a founding partner at Speed of Story, a strategic communications consultancy for executives, experts and entrepreneurs. Adrian has worked at the intersection of SOUND + STORY since he was a kid. His broadcasting career began in 1978 at the age of five as co-host of The Happy Day Express, a weekly storytelling show that became the longest-running children's radio program in California history. He's lived in over 30 countries and spent more than a decade in the Middle East and Africa as a journalist, social science researcher, communications adviser and media spokesperson for two of the largest humanitarian relief agencies in the world. He earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Fulbright scholar and National Science Foundation fellow. SPEAKING: Adrian delivers compelling keynotes, breakout sessions and workshops on The Art & Science of Extraordinary Conversation, teaching people to communicate effectively and collaborate successfully by asking better questions and telling better stories. He's delivered 1,500+ stage presentations and written two speeches that were presented to members of the United Nations Security Council. MEDIA & PODCASTS: Adrian's hundreds of media appearances have reached millions of people via news outlets such as the BBC, The Guardian, CNN, NPR, Fox News and the New York Times, as well as regional newspapers and radio stations throughout North America & Europe. He’s been active in podcasting since 2016, serving as host, producer or featured guest on more than 400 podcast episodes. CONSULTING: Drawing on his formal training in linguistics and a literal lifetime of media and storytelling experience, Adrian helps business leaders to sharpen their ideas, shape their stories, and share their messages in a natural, authentic way to create visibility, increase credibility and build trust with human audiences and machine algorithms alike.

My tenure on the Orlando Sentinel Advisory Opinion Board afforded me a unique opportunity to weigh in on issues related to race, religion, patriotism, justice, oppression, politics, and history to name a few. Though we did not always agree with each other’s opinions, we were respectful and I hope we came away from those discussions with a greater appreciation for how different points of view are necessary to our understanding of the issues which confront us as a nation. Conflict is inevitable but how we deal with conflict goes to the core of who I am as well who we want to be as a nation. Our nation was forged as a result of conflict. The founding fathers, all of whom were white men, created our Constitution and institutions which still survive today. Key to this survival was the ability to engage in respectful discourse, compromise and adapt to societal demands for change. Our history and world history are steeped in paternalistic ideology that is so ingrained in our society that most of us scarcely notice the insidious side effects. These side effects include inequities and inequality in power based on race, gender, religion and socioeconomic factors. Regrettably, we live in a world where our senses are constantly being bombarded with images, sound bites, and elected officials who are not representing the interests of the people but those of special interest groups. We the people are being manipulated by those who are fearful of change. Our president is solipsistic. We the people are anesthetized to the suffering and injustices that many face. What use to shock us no longer does. We live in an age of malignant normalcy. We no longer engage in critical thinking and we defame and deflect when confronted with opinions that do not conform to our worldview. What happened to compassion, common decency, compromise and empathy? Each of us has a duty individually and collectively to take a stand for something in keeping with the values enumerated in our Constitution of liberty and justice for all. So, what does conflict resolution have to do with any of this you might ask. Everything, is my response. Acknowledge, listen, pause, speak. Courtesy, Respect and Compromise also go a long way. We have to work together to defeat those who hold an apocalyptical worldview which seeks to return us to the days of our founding fathers. We need to be in alignment with the Preamble to the Constitution, “We The People…” where power rests with citizens.