Mara Linder is a 30-year Arizona licensed attorney with an Master’s degree in Counseling and over 15 years Mediation experience, conducting more than 6000 mediation sessions. She owns Affordable Mediation and Modern Mediation. Both companies focus exclusively on Divorce Mediation. We use a client-centered, positive psychology approach.
Affordable Mediation focuses on helping individuals and couples find the best path and the healthiest way to move forward through divorce by providing a compassionate, supportive, non-judgmental environment to be heard and explore options. Modern Mediation is for couples who have a more sophisticated financial situation. You will have a collaborative mediation team, including a certified divorce financial analyst, a QDRO and retirement professional, and a divorce/co-parenting Coach. Attorneys are included, as needed. We can help with every aspect of the divorce process including preparing and filing your initial court documents, helping you reach agreements on division of property, spousal maintenance, child support, parenting time and custody (legal decision-making) and drafting your property settlement agreement, parenting plan and divorce decree.
We believe providing a skilled professional team and supportive environment is the key to helping couples see their way to workable solutions.
More about Owner/Mediator, Mara Linder:
• Graduated from one of the top law schools in the country, the University of Texas at Austin
• Spent the first part of her legal career as an attorney with the prestigious law firms of Gallagher & Kennedy and Steptoe & Johnson
• Obtained her Master’s degree in Professional Counseling with highest distinction
• Adjunct professor of Counseling Psychology at Argosy University
• Past President of the Arizona Counselors Association
• Active member of the State Bar of Arizona and has taught and published in the legal field
• Has been published in the Arizona Counseling Journal
• Member of the Alternate Dispute Resolution and Family Law Sections of the Arizona State Bar, the Association for Conflict Resolution (Practitioner status), the Arizona Association for Conflict Resolution (Practitioner status), the Employee Assistance Professionals Association, the Maricopa County Association of Family Mediators, the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals
• Extensive Mediation training and Continuing Education courses
Mara has been mediating over 15 years and has conducted over 6000 mediation sessions with divorcing couples, assisting in reaching workable, sustainable, mutually comfortable agreements. Almost every couple reaches full agreement without litigation (or reconciles).
Our approach is a client-centered approach based on the teachings of Carl Rogers (Person-Centered, Client-Center, Rogerian Counseling Theories), who, in my opinion, is the founder of mediation. Mediation is really based in psychology, not law. It’s about helping individuals and couples find the best path and the healthiest way to move forward by giving them a compassionate, supportive, non-judgmental environment to be heard and explore options. We do not conduct “settlement negotiations.” That’s what I call “mediation” during litigation where sessions usually are conducted in separate rooms with lawyers and litigation strategy is brought into the discussions. Instead, we cut through all that and focus on the couple’s real goals, needs and hopes. In getting down to the basics and building back up, people are able to see their way to workable solutions.
JD Law – University of Texas at Austin School of Law;
MA Professional Counseling – Argosy University;
BA Psychology – University of Texas at Austin
We offer 4 tiers of divorce mediation with different fee structures:
