About

Legal Background

I have decades of history in the Seattle legal community—working at prominent national and local firms before forming Rosen Resolution. While I have taken cases big and small to trial, arbitration and up on appeal, I pride myself on having been able to effectively resolve the vast majority of my cases well before those stages of litigation.

After law school, I worked at Heller, Ehrman, White & McCauliffe on multi-state lawsuits against the tobacco industry, and then with K&L Gates on Microsoft litigation. Following this large-firm experience, I joined Johnson, Christie, Andrews & Skinner (JCAS) as a litigation associate, focusing primarily on insurance defense. When senior partner Bob Christie left JCAS, I joined him as a founding member, and later partner, of premier boutique litigation firm Christie Law Group, PLLC, where I handled civil litigation matters in a wide variety of complex cases, including police misconduct, personal injury, municipal liability, professional malpractice, employment, construction site injury, product defect and commercial claims.

I completed the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) Trial Academy in 2009, and have represented defendants and plaintiffs through my career, seeing cases from both sides of the aisle.

ADR has been in my veins my entire legal career. Since law school, I have studied the field and have developed a strong alternative dispute resolution background and practice.

Philosophy and Approach

There is no question that litigation can be exciting. I certainly enjoyed working with fantastic clients, attorneys, insurance folks, experts, court personnel, etc. on all kinds of interesting cases. However, I have also seen that litigation is becoming prohibitively expensive and unpredictable. So much of what goes into the process is not only unnecessary, it’s often counterproductive to meeting the parties’ interests. Mediation offers a better way. Helping parties avoid the escalating costs, emotional toll and uncertainty of litigation is the best use of my professional skills and allows me to be effective in ways that lawyering can’t.

I adjust my mediation style for the particular case, using the approach that gets the job done, always with empathy and humor. Having served as both a defense and plaintiff attorney, I’ve seen up close what both sides go through, allowing me to relate and build rapport with all the players.

If an evaluative approach is appropriate, I am well-equipped to assess the respective positions and potential outcomes of a case. However, strategic discussion and thoughtful questioning is what most often guides parties to their desired outcome. I have an innate ability to read the room and set the environment for fruitful discussions.

Mediating is more than just acting as the messenger in the middle of a negotiation. It’s about helping people communicate in ways they may not otherwise be able to, in order to solve a dispute. Sometimes cases are relatively straightforward and resolve with ease, but frequently critical issues may not be apparent on the surface. Finding­—and addressing—these issues is often necessary to break an impasse or improve the quality of a final agreement.