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Kathleen offers a safe and supportive environment, in which open conversations can take place clarifying the conflict. Her coaching provides a total perspective of the challenge at hand which cuts through misunderstanding, and brings real closure to long-standing disputes.
Kathleen has been exclusively providing transformative mediation and coaching services since 2013. She is a former trial lawyer with 35 years experience trying high profile civil, criminal and divorce cases. Her peers named her “Best Lawyer in front of a Jury” in 1991. Kathleen’s extensive experience as a mediator and trial lawyer working with a large and diverse cross section of people and conflict gives her a depth of understanding and skill about relationship conflict. She is able to be a trustworthy guide through relationship transition and conflict. In Kathleen’s 18 years of mediating disputes she has a proven success rate bringing resolution to conflict without parties resorting to the adversarial court model. Given her breadth of experience Kathleen is able to uplift even very difficult and entrenched situations. Kathleen provides a safe environment, which invites people in conflict to relax and reflect. This allows for the creation of positive, new beginnings.
Kathleen’s previous work as a trial lawyer also involved litigating high-profile cases to a jury resulting in network television exposure and positive legislative change.
Kathleen is the owner of Kathleen Franco PC,
Kathleen’s services also include collaborative family law, a new model for resolving family law cases out of court. Kathleen’s experience in resolving conflict includes a vast range of disputes, such as divorce, separation, child custody, employment, the workplace, and more.
Kathleen received a dual degree; JD and MBA from the University of Denver College of Law and University of Denver, Graduate School of Business and Public Management in 1983. She received her BA in June 1979 from the University of Denver and was invited to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, which recognizes excellence in the top one percent of graduating students.
Her legal career began in the Denver Public Defender’s Office in 1982 representing criminal defendants. Kathleen went on to work as a corporate litigator for two Denver based corporate law firms, Sumners & Miller and Conklin& Adler, before establishing her own private practice in Denver consisting of divorce and family law, as well as high profile personal injury, civil and criminal cases. Kathleen moved to Boulder in 1997, and transformed her legal approach away from the adversarial legal model into a collaborative/mediation approach. Her emphasis became helping people resolve their problems out of court. Kathleen is known for her compassion for all parties and holding a process with integrity. Given her extensive experience in high-conflict environments clients can feel confident that she is able to mediate even the most challenging cases.
Kathleen held a position with the Colorado Judicial Department, Office of Dispute Resolution from 2000-2007, mediating and arbitrating court-referred high conflict family and divorce cases for the courts.
Kathleen was on the board of the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association for 13 years until moving to Boulder, and is currently a member of the Colorado Bar Association and Boulder County Bar Association.
Kathleen has also conducted workshops for lawyers in the collaborative model, which included creating and hosting lectures & trainings. During this time, Kathleen was a mediation trainer for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy.
Kathleen also developed and led retreats for lawyers on ethics and “Spirituality and the Law” . These retreats included meditation and yoga training for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) credit.
Kathleen offers a series of trainings that she has developed to transmit the powerful mediation skills that are a result of her years of practice. The trainings will be of benefit to anyone who wants to move out of the adversarial model and into a transformative approach to conflict resolution in any part of their lives.
Marriage counseling does not have to lead to conscious uncoupling.
I am adding a new service to my Divorce Mediation practice called: Marriage Mediation.
Many of my clients are bringing their marriages back to life by making agreements in mediation, rather than divorcing.
Mediation brings awareness to the dynamic between the partners. When the dynamic is unbalanced, the relationship is challenged.
To one degree or another many relationship challenges arise when we sacrifice ourselves or something we want.
In marriage mediation partners are able to see their part in the dynamic and make agreements based on sharing what they really want. Agreements transform the relationship.
A positive new beginning for a path forward is created based on an ability to make agreements in the moment, overriding the habitual dynamic.
If you are interested in discovering your relationship dynamics, call me.
