Our 2021 Training will be held in collaboration with UC Hastings College of Law’s Center for Negotiation & Dispute Resolution.
CNDR offers superior education and scholarship in dispute resolution to judges, attorneys, practitioners, and international visitors. It is located in the heart of San Francisco (although this training will be held virtually).
Course Description
This program is open to family mediators who want to advance their mediation skills to work more productively with families where cross-border parenting issues arise. This training will help family mediators spot potential issues that require additional discussion and consideration between the parents, and help the mediator have a more sophisticated understanding of how to approach these complex multi-jurisdictional situations. The training will cover the legal and practical aspects of international custody, child relocation, and child abduction that may arise when a family’s background includes more than one jurisdiction.
This 14-hour training will be held in 4-hour blocks over the course of 4 days, and it will be conducted entirely online.
Monday, June 21, 2021 – 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. ET
Tuesday, June 22, 2021 – 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. ET
Monday, June 28, 2021 – 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. ET
Tuesday, June 29, 2021 – 12:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. ET
Trainer
Ms. Melissa Kucinski is the owner of MK Family Law, PLLC based in Washington, D.C. As part of her law practice, she mediates complex cases that span multiple states and countries. In 2013, Ms. Kucinski consulted for The Hague Conference on Private International Law. She has authored over a dozen publications, many with a focus on cross-border family mediation, and recently authored a chapter in an upcoming treatise on the Hague Conference on Private International Law‘s work in international family mediation. She has presented at nearly 50 national and international conferences on cross-border family cases.
Ms. Kucinski chaired a Steering Committee for International Social Service in Geneva, Switzerland, and was designated as a Legal and Mediation Expert to an international delegation to The Hague Conference’s 7th Special Commission meeting on the Practical Operation of the 1980 and 1996 Hague Conventions in 2017. She sat as an advisor on several past delegations for the U.S. government, including for The Hague Conference’s 6th Special Commission meeting in 2011, and a delegation that traveled to Tokyo in 2014 to discuss the bilateral operation of The Hague Child Abduction Convention with Japan’s Foreign Ministry. While in Tokyo, Melissa conducted a 2-day mediation training for Japanese family mediators. She co-designed a 40-hour international family mediation training offered by the American Bar Association in 2013 and 2015 and has offered advanced training for the Center for ADR and UC Hastings College of Law. Ms. Kucinski, a fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers and active on its Dispute Resolution Committee, is a panel mediator for 5 separate state and federal courts in 3 different jurisdictions in the United States. In 2019, she was a guest of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be the plenary speaker at a symposium in Tokyo celebrating the 5-year anniversary of Japan’s ratification of the Hague Child Abduction Convention. She spoke on the promise of mediation in child abduction cases.
Pre-Requisites
This training does not require prerequisite coursework. However, this training is appropriate for experienced mediators and family law professionals. Please only register for this course if your background fits this description so that the curriculum will be appropriate for the audience. If you are interested in this training but are not sure if your experience and the curriculum will be a match, please contact Melissa before registering, to discuss at melissa@mkfamilylawfirm.com.
Class Size
There will be a cap on the class size so that we can engage in discussions as part of the training.
Post-Registration
Once you register, you will receive all the confirmation details by email.
Continuing Education Credits
You will receive a certificate of attendance for attending all days of the training. This course is pre-approved for 14.0 non-ethics continuing mediator education credits with the Commonwealth of Virginia.
