Who We Are

 

Meet Marguerite

You will learn about my work and experience on this page below, and also in this Spotlight piece, taken from an interview with a writer for Mediators Beyond Borders International: Law, Human Rights and Mediation.

I’ve come to the process of mediating as something of a second calling, although my entire career has been focused on peace-building. My first act involved teaching international human rights and humanitarian law, and I started one of the first human rights law school clinical programs in Boston. The program undertook projects involving the genocide in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and state-sponsored starvation in Darfur. I monitored the Akeyesu trial at the ICTR, which resulted in the first international judgment that systemic rape is a war crime. I wended my way between academia and non-governmental organizations that focused on mass atrocity, including the Center for Human Rights at the RFK Memorial Foundation. I learned a great deal about the ability of humans to cause harm - but also to demonstrate extraordinary tenacity in creating peaceful co-existence.

Like many women at the time, I took a step back from my career, about 15 years into it, in order to take on full-time caregiving for my family. The move resulted in a new area of research and advocacy, involving family responsibilities discrimination and the maternal wall. I participated in a study out of the Work/Life Center at Hastings, and I began to speak on pay equity and the gender gap.

I also took on a Board seat at about this time with an organization called, Free Speech for People. During the period 2016-2020, I was tasked with facilitating community conversations around highly divisive political topics.

Today, I offer services that reflect a coalescing of my varied experiences. I speak at trainings and conferences on topics involving conflict literacy and management. I mediate and facilitate dialogue among family members and workplace teams, often on matters that involve work-family obligations and requested accommodations. I facilitate difficult conversations, involving deeply held positions and on divisive political topics. I am an active member of the American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution, Institute of Coaching, International Ombuds Association, National Speakers Association and Women’s Bar Association. I have held Board seats of organizations whose missions focus on immigration, international human rights and upholding the US Constitution. I devote a percentage of my time to non-governmental organizations that interface with the United Nations and international agencies to offer needs-based programming, particularly on issues involving women/peace/security.

Our goal is to build peace, one disagreement at a time.

I’m trained as a mediator, conflict coach, dialogue facilitator and restorative justice practitioner. My goal in this work is to help people to craft solutions to the disputes they are facing, and then to help them to navigate to resolution. Whatever the issue - a difficult conversation with a teenaged child - or a government acting against its population - the goals of conflict resolution are the same: to foster collaborative problem solving, so that the parties create their own outcomes; to enhance productive communication, so that every party feels heard, and to navigate difficult conversations, so that parties take decisions after exploring all options.

By providing a process that fosters healthy relationship.

Many people are unfamiliar with the concept of mediation. They sometimes believe that mediation occurs only through the court system.

Actually, mediation can occur in any context, and among any group of people, who decide that bringing an impartial third party into the dispute might help them to sort out their needs and interests - and communicate these in productive ways. Mediation happens in conference rooms and over zoom; across dining tables and within classrooms.

Unlike litigation - which is an adversarial process - mediation is a collaborative process that promotes a spirit of cooperation. Using mediation, you can help to preserve your relationships, which often get destroyed in contentious litigation. Studies show that the majority of people who choose mediation find resolution of their conflict, and they walk away from the process believing it was productive and positive. The true value of mediation is that everyone involved has an opportunity to express their point of view, and to know they were heard. It’s a win-win.

And remaining true to our Mission.

Our work is founded upon core values that we bring to every client interaction:

  • we treat all parties equally, and with respect and dignity;

  • we create an environment that allows all parties to feel safe and comfortable;

  • we listen actively and with non-judgment, so that every party feels heard;

  • we exercise a posture of neutrality without any stake in an outcome,

  • we move processes forward with strategic, nonthreatening questions,

  • and we foster civility, humility, and bridge building in all of our engagements.


It isn’t enough to talk about peace,
One must believe in it.
And it isn’t enough to believe in it,
One must work at it.

Eleanor Roosevelt