Please attend the Longmont CLE presentation on The Value of Community Mediation, presented by Susan Spaulding, to be held at the Dickens Tavern on November 7.
Susan Spaulding will be presenting about the value of community mediation as part of the continuum of conflict resolution that includes the courts, the work of private attorneys, prosecutors and public defenders, restorative justice, and private mediators. She will highlight the work of Longmont Mediation Services, which includes conflict resolution and mediation in the context of landlord/tenant, neighbor/neighbor, business/customer, and family relationships. Beyond mediation, although the office does not function as advocates, the office does provide legal information and resource referral to all sides of a conflict.
This type of community mediation program and resource referral fills an important, often ignored niche that helps resolve those types of small conflicts which cause stress, distress, anxiety, repeated calls-for-service from the police, evictions that could be prevented with better communication, and which can even lead to violence, protection orders and criminal charges that would have/could have been averted with the help of the assistance of intervention involving higher level communication and conflict resolution skills.
She will also present about coming to mediation as a result of her experience as a family law attorney, understanding that many types of conflict involving on-going relationship are poorly resolved through the formal legal process, after seeing, in fact, how many relationships are permanently destroyed by trying to force a relational problem into the more rigid framework of our law system. The Longmont Mediation Services office does work closely with the legal community in Longmont, and is willing to invest mediation time in divorce, civil return, and eviction mediations in which one or both parties are resource-poor and may be represented by a low fee or pro bono attorney. The office also provides mediation services for the eviction hearings each Friday, both in Longmont and Boulder.
Susan Spaulding is an attorney in Longmont. Susan clerked for J. Morris Sandstead in the 20th Judicial District, practiced family law for four years, and has been a mediator for 18 years. She has coordinated Longmont Mediation Services for the City of Longmont for 12 years.
