Nuria Lopez

I started my career as a chemist by trade, but my path took an unexpected turn when my sister, who is a lawyer, called me one day and told me she had taken training for mediation. She thought I would be a great mediator and that we should plan to do something together. I found this quite interesting because when we were both in college at the same time, I remember going with her to the law school and thinking, oh my god, how can they do this kind of job? She insisted I take the training, so I did. I joined a volunteer program and started doing mediations in court. It looked like people were very happy with what I was doing, so I decided to give it a try and registered my little company of one. I started volunteering in 2014 and opened my company in 2015, and here we are 12 years later. My main area of expertise today is family law, which makes up about 60-70% of my practice, and the rest is civil matters like contracts, real estate, water rights mediation, and monetary claims. I have the flexibility to work from home or from my office, but mostly remote. I book mediations in blocks of 2 hours and try to accommodate everybody's schedule, including offering mediations after hours. I ask a lot of questions to better understand where parties are and try to find common ground. You need to be neutral, and sometimes it's hard, but that's part of the job. You cannot assume things, you need to ask questions and be open-minded to hear both sides' versions so you can assist them to try to find common ground.