Attorney and counselor at law for sustainable businesses and individuals who choose a more conscious and sustainable approach to choices.

As one of the co-founders of the Conscious Contracts® model, I manage the community. I train lawyers in a process of designing contracts to be relational, values-based, and self-managing. The model is one of the many approaches that fall within the integrative law movement. The Conscious Contracts process integrates the work of organizational development, business success, plain language drafting, multisensory law, legal design, coaching, and values and purpose. They're based on accepted law yet can expand to fit the most creative companies. Conscious business people need conscious business documents. Conscious businesses can create legal documents that express their purpose and values-based intent. These contracts focus on designing sustainable, trusting relationships that can stand the test of conflict and offer options for resolution that are not court-based. Litigation is expensive and impractical. Arbitration is just litigation-light. What are the options for resolution that fit your company's values? Do you want to be known as the winner in court or the winner in the business world?I've consulted with companies and local counsel around the world. The Conscious Contracts® process has been used by start-ups, in shareholder agreements, with service providers and clients, between employers and employees, and with refugees and landlords. I have trained lawyers on six continents. Our community does business in more than 20 languages.

Project for Integrative Law & Legal Education

With the support of Assistant Dean of Experiential Learning, Carrie Kaas, and my co-teacher, Jacqueline Horani, we have designed a cutting-edge negotiation clinic using the best practices in legal education, Integrative Law & the Conscious Contracts model at Quinnipiac University School of Law. We have honed the model curriculum and I am currently training others in delivering integrative law topics at other law schools.

In March, 2023, the ABA Law Practice Management section published Trauma-Informed Laws. I am on the editorial team with Helgi Maki, Marjorie Florestal, and Myrna McCallum. https://www.americanbar.org/products/inv/book/430137593/ My first book, Lawyers as Peacemakers, Practicing Holistic, Problem-Solving Law, was a flagship book of the ABA and a 2010 best-seller. www.lawyersaspeacemakers.com. My second ABA book, Lawyers as Changemakers, The Global Integrative Law Movement,was published in December, 2016. It explores the Integrative Law movement, especially systemic, social change approaches. It includes examples from all six continents and contributions by 111 different writers. www.lawyersaschangemakers.comIn 2020, my two books were combined into a reader and translated into Italian, with reflective commentary by a team of Italian integrative practitioners. Other translations are underway.I am a contributor to several other books. Check my website for more details.

I have been coaching and consulting with lawyers for more than 30 years. I bring everything I have to the coaching relationship: building successful law practices, coach training, decades of training in organizational development, transformational technology, and life experience. I honed my coach training in over 1,000 hours of work in Landmark Education and additional training with LifeOnPurpose Institute. I studied Infopreneuring (Information Entrepreneurship) with Robert Allen, Mark Victor Hansen, Chris and Janet Atwood, in the early 2000s.I was a pioneer in collaborative practice and mediation in the mid 1990s. I have worked in restorative justice, including a documentary television series. I co-created a model of contracts that is now practiced on six continents. I had one of the first law practice websites in the country and have been ahead of the curve on most innovations.As a coach, I help clients distinguish their purpose and values, then set – and reach – goals based on the client’s truest needs and desires. Through regular calls, I provide accountability, strategy, structure, a process for navigating decisions, and motivation to support progress.A teacher at heart, I have created a whole curriculum of options, resources, and tools. As a client, you have access to all of those and you only do those which are relevant to you. As a consultant, I share my knowledge and can introduce clients to helpful contacts within my broad international network. I often tap into what I have learned from law firms around the world. (Someone said that all my contacts are “pre-screened for cool”!

Cutting Edge Law Enterprises is a Florida social purpose corporation with a mission to transform the legal profession. We and our allies take on projects that are meant to cause systemic change. My clients are changemakers in law, business, and consciousness. I work with leaders as a thinking partner and advisor, developing strategic plans, and helping design organizational architectures. I support lawyers and entrepreneurs in aligning their values and integrity with their careers and lives. I am involved in creating new models of collaboration. My collaborators and I have projects on every continent. I work with lawyers, law programs, and nonprofit organizations who are creating a better world. For example, I recently consulted with the Earth Law Center in Colorado.

My first two ABA books track the history of the integrative law movement, its emergence and evolution. As a supporter, observer, and chronicler of the movement I am connected with thousands of lawyers around the world. I (and my company, Cutting Edge Law), became synonymous with the movement. Flattering and honoring as that was, in 2021, I explored what it meant to leave a legacy and concluded it was best to build structures for the movement to stand on its own. I don't want to be the mom, doing everything that needs to be done, filling in all the gaps, and managing the chore list. It is time for independence. I started working on that process in earnest. With the help of a stalwart team, we put together a global gathering, an around-the-clock online conference which connected lawyers from every continent at times convenient to all their time zones. We launched the Integrative Lawyers of the World podcast, the periodic Community Conversations, and a newsletter. We built a website, a Mighty Network community, and started a fund-raising campaign. With core values like Compassion, Authenticity, Creativity, Generosity, and Love, we are redesigning law practice for this millennium and the life conditions we now face. We are doing our internal work, learning skills for better relationships, aligning with purpose and values, and are harbingers of a new consciousness in law. We think about topics that have been taboo in law like vulnerability and trauma. We are courageous in stepping forward to offer new ways of practicing, breaking free from the brokenness of the decaying legal system.

In 2007, I had a 3-level log house with a hot tub on a mountainside near Asheville, North Carolina. I was practicing integrative law and mediation, teaching locally, and consulting with media. I was already a leader in integrative law, though it didn't have a name then. As a connector, finding ways to spread the news, I organized 8 conferences that year, some as part of a team, some as a team leader. I attended even more conferences. So many conferences gave me a unique perspective and I saw a role that I could take in connecting and showcasing changemakers in the law. It was one of those realizations: someone could make a big difference here....oh gosh, I am someone! I was the one who saw the opportunity and I was the one to take it on. So, at the end of 2007, I gave up my house and office and began to travel. At first, I thought I'd be gone 3 months. I extended my travel for a few months at a time and eventually embraced the lifestyle. During Covid lockdowns, I had to go online with much of my work until I resumed travel in 2022. In 2023, after 15 years as a nomad, I settled back in North Carolina. In the beginning, I interviewed lawyers around the United States, crisscrossing the country. The interviews are posted on the Cutting Edge Law YouTube Channel, about 350 clips. I also wrote and spoke about the movement, developing trainings based on local demand. I adapted my focus to fit the interests of each legal community. At one point, I had a catalog of 35 offerings. After 4 years of travel in North America, in 2012, I was invited to Australia and South Africa. Europe came the next year and in 2015, I made my second circumnavigation, adding India to the other destinations. Brazil was in 2019. I've built communities of practice and support everywhere I've gone. My role has been to find then gather, nurture, support, & showcase the integrative lawyers I've found. When I became a nomad, I didn't know any others. Now there is a movement of digital nomads.

With @StephanieShorter, a neuroscientist who works in behavioral change, we designed a transformational app for lawyers. Based on the latest research in neuroscience, behavioral change, lawyer well-being and happiness, essential skills, plus knowledge about the industry and personality of lawyers, the App was meant to provide a community of support, tools, skills, exercises, and resources to improve the quality of lawyers' lives and their services to clients. The app goes beyond helping lawyers accept their lots in life and aims to bring compassion, dignity, healing, creativity, a growth-mindset, and (yes! even) love to the legal profession. Unfortunately the circumstances and timing of the pandemic put our project on hold.

Values-Based Contract Negotiation and Drafting, Practice Ready Skills PRI. The course engaged students in some cutting-edge approaches to being a lawyer. It introduced students to a worldwide innovation in drafting values-based legal documents, both contracts and governance documents. We explored valuable skills in engaging conflict and addressing change in our own lives and those of clients, including self reflective values exercises and development of professional development goals.

From the Catalog:[At Omega, each year, more than 23,000 people attend workshops and educational programs delivered by hundreds of teachers, artists, healers, and thinkers on the leading edge of their disciplines. With special attention to our key initiatives in sustainability, women’s leadership, veterans care, and service, we bring awareness to issues that must be addressed in order for our society to heal and flourish.]From the catalog: Divorce With Power and Clarity. Divorce, no matter how amicable, is never easy. The legal hurdles and the emotional turmoil can wreak havoc on our lives. The insomnia, angry outbursts, and bouts of grief can make us feel our world has been turned upside down.This workshop—for women only—is designed to help guide us through divorce and its aftermath. If you are heading for a divorce, are in the process now, are recently divorced, or divorced years ago and still struggling with it, the team of experts leading this program—J. Kim Wright, Jac Patrissi, Kim Pentecost, and Ellen Kellner—can help. Together they offer a comprehensive approach to making divorce less tumultuous, and guide us to see it as an opportunity for healing, transformation, and empowerment.Throughout the weekend we learn how to understand and navigate the legal system; how to energetically separate from our spouses and the negative patterns that have developed in the relationship; how to leave and heal from destructive relationships, how to best cope with co-parenting issues with a difficult ex-partner; how to develop divorce solutions that nurture our children; and how to create a new life that fits our values and most cherished commitments to ourselves and to others. See http://www.eomega.org/

I taught a summer intensive on Integrative Law: Law as a Peacemaking Profession which fulfilled the advanced writing requirement for my students.

Design, administration, active participation and leadership of a holistic law firm using integrative law modalities including collaborative law, mediation, victim-offender dialogue, therapeutic jurisprudence, creative problem-solving, preventive law, legal and conflict coaching and counseling. Caseload was primarily family law and business formation, dissolution, and contracts. Many clients presented complex financial issues with estates up to $10+ million. Many brought challenging emotional issues which were best served by support from mental health professionals. I often worked in multi-disciplinary teams and with neutral experts. www.healersofconflicts.com

Through VORP, I offered training and consulting about restorative justice and victim-offender mediation to community justice organizations, governmental bodies, and the media. I developed materials, trained, and performed direct services. I also worked on a documentary series, interviewing and screening potential participants in face to face dialogues for families of murder victims and those who killed their loved ones. Case management and preparation of victims and offenders for face-to-face dialog in murder cases. Restorative justice consulting, victim-offender mediation, training and program development at the national and international level. Educated Departments of Corrections about programs being created for families of murder victims to face the killers of their loved ones. Attended National Conferences on Restorative Justice in Texas in 2007 and 2009.

Taught Restorative Justice and Business Law to undergraduate students.

Taught two semesters of Alternative Dispute Resolution to upper class paralegal students in 4-year degree program.

We designed this conference for people who care deeply about people and the planet and wanted to be as effective as possible in making a difference. We shared cutting edge technologies, tapped into the collective wisdom of the entire group, and emerged with a deepened skill at uniting and empowering members of our communities. Our leaders, already effective in community transformation, were reminded that by reaching more partners, we expand our results! As a member of a team, planned and co-led multi-generational conference and leadership program based on Appreciative Inquiry and other transformational approaches.

Conducted family law mediations, mostly in divorce cases. Outreach.

Starting as a sole practitioner in general practice, I “successfully” litigated many cases, winning all but one in the four years I litigated. Disillusioned by the damage caused by litigation even when my clients won, I designed, created, and administered an innovative multidisciplinary holistic law practice, offering mediation and early forms of collaborative and cooperative law. Represented clients in district (family) and juvenile court, in negotiations, mediation, and family law matters. Advised clients of alternatives to litigation and worked with local lawyers in innovating new approaches. Supervised staff and independent contractors including counselor and social workers, and interns in law and social work.

I was the E.D. and Director of Community Development and Outreach of a domestic violence outreach and shelter program. Staff of 12. Administered agency, excelled at community outreach. Developed one of the first domestic violence task forces in the world.