We offer a number of services to our clients. Please take a moment to review them. To learn more about the services offered below, click on the title and additional text will drop down. If you don't see any text, try a different browser or update java.
Whether you are considering starting your own business or working with a non-profit organization, there are many decisions to make regarding the proper formation and operation. We can help you work through the process and assist you in making sure all the proper procedures are in place. We can also provide facilitation services for board meetings and strategic planning sessions. If your organization experiences conflict regularly, we can help you find efficient and effective ways to manage that conflict. Through a dispute management audit, we can help you analyze the procedures currently in use for resolving disputes, and identify new procedures designed to reduce costs and expedite resolution. We can provide mediation when disputes threaten to disrupt your organization.
Sarah Read has represented clients before Administrative or Regulatory Agencies for over twenty years. She has worked with clients as a litigator, advisor, negotiator, and resolution counsel, and handled regulatory issues in the areas of energy law and telecommunications. She has also helped design and implement collaborative processes and drafted regulations and legislation. If your organization is regulated, or dependent on a regulated entity, we can can help you understand the regulatory structure and develop and implement a sustainable long-term regulatory strategy.
Preparing your own draft legislation can assist in the negotiation and successful implementation of any law ultimately passed. When you are in need of new legislation, we can help you prepare a draft. Sarah Read has experience in drafting both complex statutes and simple amendments. Ms. Read assisted in the drafting and negotiating of the "Electric Service Customer Choice and Rate Relief Law of 1997" that restructured the electric industry in Illinois and also assisted in drafting the Illinois "Universal Telephone Protection Law of 1985." She has also worked on bills in Missouri and in other states.
We work with clients to design dispute resolution processes and to prepare for mediations, negotiations or settlement conferences. We will also serve when needed as a party advocate in the actual mediation or negotiation. Where the most effective, efficient and complete resolution also includes the passage of legislation or action by the courts, we can draft legislation and work with your lobbyists to help secure passage, or work with trial counsel to help move the issue forward.
Sarah is part of the American Arbitration Association's panel of neutrals and provides both arbitration and mediation services for business and regulatory disputes through the American Arbitration Association. She also offers mediation services for individual or community disputes on either a flat fee or hourly fee rate schedule. Both arbitration and mediation can help you resolve disputes quickly, confidentially, and at a reasonable cost. In arbitration, the parties present their case and the arbitrator makes a decision, although the process is more flexible and less formal than litigation. You can read more about arbitration services here. Mediation is an even more flexible process and a mediator does not make decisions but instead helps facilitate discussions among parties. You can read this FAQ if you would like more information about mediation. We have helped to resolve several complex, multiparty, and emotionally charged disputes. We have also helped parties work through difficult issues like business succession or organizational disputes through mediation. Sarah has worked with many different types of mediation processes and can help parties tailor the mediation process to meet their needs. She is currently serving on the Missouri Supreme Court's ADR Commission, and recently had her article "What Would You Change About Mediation" published in the American Arbitration Association's Dispute Resolution Journal.
We provide consulting and coaching services for law firms and individual attorneys. These include facilitation, training, conflict management, strategic planning, and specialized services for individuals in OCDC diversionary or probationary programs. Sarah was featured in an article on project management skills for lawyers in the July 2010 issue of Lawyers USA. Facilitation and Strategic Planning Training We provide training programs for retreats, and skill building seminars on professionalism, law practice management, conflict resolution, negotiation, and other issues such as mentoring and intergenerational communications. Conflict Management Coaching Specialized Services
