Effective Family Dispute Resolution.

Family Mediation: A safe place to have difficult conversations

Family mediation is a confidential negotiation process that lets people reach agreements about the things that are important to them. Research shows it leads to durable agreements, is more empowering and less expensive than most other options.
Many couples who end their partnership want to negotiate a separation agreement that lets them move on in a fair and sustainable way.

Family mediation helps them agree about decision-making and parenting time for their children, child support, extracurricular expenses, school choice, mobility, life insurance and other important matters affecting their children.

We help separating spouses resolve all the financial issues arising on their separation such as income determination, spousal support, valuation and division of assets.

Our decades of experience working in the legal and mediation fields enable us to help our clients reach acceptable, workable and sustainable outcomes.

Benefits of family mediation:

• Gives the parties control over their own process
• Is more affordable than most other options
• Helps both very high conflict and very agreeable parties
• Can be done without lawyers present (though legal advice is important)
• Allows each party to be heard
• Offers a way for children to have their voices heard
• Can be done online, saving time and costs
• Enables both parties to obtain all necessary disclosure in a confidential way
• Helps reduce conflict in the family, benefitting parents and children alike

Parenting Coordination: Helping parentings resolve disagreements about their Parenting Plan

Many parents need some help resolving disagreements about the details of their parenting plan.

Parenting coordinators (PCs) work closely with parents to help resolve those disagreements in a quick, effective and fair way that minimizes conflict.

Parenting coordination is a child-focused dispute management process that gives the PC the authority to help the parents reach agreements about their differences, and to make binding decisions if they cannot agree.

It requires parents to sign a two-year contract with their PC and to pay a reasonable deposit so that matters affecting the children can be resolved urgently if necessary.

Our PC team members are all lawyers with specialized training and experience in parenting coordination and arbitration. They work closely together to provide the best possible service for our clients.

Family Arbitration and Mediation-Arbitration: A private decision-making process leading to binding decisions

Sometimes separating couples have tried other ways of resolving their dispute and they just want a decision made for them. But going to court can be very expensive and time-consuming, with long wait times.

Arbitration and mediation-arbitration allow parties to choose their own adjudicator and design their own process. Where both parties trust and respect their arbitrator, they are more likely to accept the outcome and move on with their lives.

Family arbitration is confidential. There is no public court file.

Our arbitrators and mediator-arbitrators are seasoned family professionals, including a retired family court judge. Parties seeking arbitration must sign a Family Arbitration Agreement with independent legal advice before starting the process.

Our Team

When choosing the professionals to guide you through this critical time in your life, competence and experience count. Work with our team at Riverdale Mediation —seasoned alternate dispute resolution professionals with legal backgrounds — for a process you can trust.

Hilary Linton is the owner and founder of Riverdale Mediation. Formerly a family and civil litigator, she has 20+ years of experience working as a mediator, arbitrator or parenting coordinator to help the most challenging cases reach satisfactory and affordable outcomes. A leading teacher of family dispute resolution, she has a strong reputation of successful and respectful service as a parenting coordinator, mediator and arbitrator.

The Honourable Clifford Nelson, retired from his role as a family court judge in the Superior Court of Justice, brings many years of experience of settlement-focused work to his role as a family mediator and arbitrator.

Avagene Skervin is a family law lawyer, certified family mediator and notary public. She joins the Riverdale team as a family mediator and screener. She promotes the resolution of family law issues including decision-making responsibility, parenting time, support and property, through a variety of alternate dispute resolution processes.

Borzou Tabrizi, a family lawyer, has years of experience as a family mediator working with high conflict disputes. He brings that experience along with legal expertise to his successful mediation and parenting coordination practice. Clients and counsel alike appreciate Borzou’s calm and thoughtful approach.

Lindsay Kertland has extensive experience working with high conflict cases in her private practice and also as a roster mediator with Toronto Family Mediation Services (mediate393) where she has served for over six years in three Toronto family courts. She devotes her parenting coordination and family arbitration screening practice to helping families find peaceful and durable solutions to difficult conflicts.