Our family mediator, Erin Birt, is a family law attorney with a mental health background and 20 years of experience working with couples and families.  She is focused on improving family dynamics by providing clarity to couples and parents as they move through various seasons of life. Whether you are planning for the future of your relationship or have made a commitment to resolve your family matters privately, our mediator is available to help with the details and procedures. 

 

Ms. Birt's experience includes 20+ years of mediation experience. She is a current member and past board member for the Mediation Council of Illinois. Erin devotes personal time to present at continuing education seminars to assist in the training other mediators and mental health providers. She also meets monthly with the Mosten Guthrie mediation practice group in order to provide her clients with the most up to date mediation services and skills. She has been listed on the court approved mediator's list for various counties in Illinois for many years. 

 

Erin's also has a mental health background as a certified alcohol and other drug counselor and she is trained as a parenting coordinator and and family law coach. All of the skill sets needed for counseling, coordination, and coaching greatly assists her mediation clients as it allows her to screen appropriately, positively address emotional and legal issues, and help develop creative solutions to complex family questions. 

 

Ms. Birt has experience in the following areas of mediation: 

Each family is unique. Although some may feel their case is simple or similar to others, each couple has complexities that can influence their communication styles and their commitment to resolving their marriage planning questions or divorce and parenting issues. A couple's ability to communicate effectively about their relationship history, future, and concerns is often influenced by:

• their own personal history,
• their current emotional and physical wellbeing and
• the wellbeing of their significant other, coparent, or spouse.

Because of the unique history of each person, it's important to work with a family mediator that can help assess the wellbeing of a couple, motivate each party to participate in negotiations, analyze each party's respective communication style, and promote critical thinking while avoiding stumbling blocks.  This is where Erin's background and experience allows her to excel for the benefit of her mediation clients.

As a family law attorney with two decades of legal experience and a mental health background, Erin's practice philosophy is to either prevent or limit court involvement in family law matters. Adversarial court hearings can destroy relationships, especially the parent child relationship. Note: If, however, your relationship history includes active alcoholism, active drug addiction, or abuse – Erin will be able to screen the participants and may refer you to a trusted professional for further assistance to help protect and restore safety for the entire family..

 

Our firm also has a financial professional on staff as our paralegal is also an accountant. If you have significant financial questions, our mediator and our accountant paralegal can assist the mediation process together. If another layer of assistance is needed, we can also co-mediate with a CPA/tax professional to ensure our clients leave in the best financial position they can while resolving family questions or concerns. We have experience with many experts and professionals to provide you with a comprehensive in house mediation services and we often will work together with Actuaries, CPA's, Insurance Professionals, Tax Professionals, Appraisers, Retirement Specialists, Child Specialists, Mental Health Specialists, and the like.  

 

 

Erin also hosts a Restorative Podcast and writes regularly for our blog to provide our clients with resources to help them before, during, and after they work with our firm. Our social media accounts are a great starting place for researching family questions, subscribe or follow us on all platforms here. 

 

If you are just starting to contemplate a marriage, separation, or divorce, or if you have already experienced a divorce or separation and need to explore next steps or modifications to old agreements, Erin is available to help. She frequently helps couples by:

To the couples and families that willingly, or not, entrusted their private family discussions to our firm and taught us over the years how best to respond, help, and provide clarity during family transitions, our firm is sincerely grateful for the trust you have placed in our team. Contact us today at (630) 891-2478 if you are considering mediation for any family matter.