Great question and I’m so glad you asked!
But first, we need to talk about litigation.
I’ve been practicing civil and commercial litigation for 15 years. In my career, I’ve taken and presented clients for hundreds of depositions. I’ve fought with opposing counsel over countless motions to compel discovery (where one party asks the court to make the other party turn over documents, emails, texts, or testimony they don’t want to turn over). I’ve filed and opposed just as many motions to limit important evidence from being used at trial.
Any honest litigator will tell you that a large part of their job in the litigation process involves preventing the other party from telling their side of the story and only telling certain parts of yours. Part of their job is to silence or re-frame the opponent’s side of the story in a way that discredits, distorts, or contorts it into something ugly.
This process has been the cause of many needless shouting matches, aggressive emails, and the ruin of personal and business relationships. For years, I’ve watched the litigation process bring out the worst in good people.
Also, in the end, the outcome of any litigation is entirely out of the parties’ hands and is decided by a judge or jury who will only ever know a part of the story. And any honest litigator will (should) tell you that litigation is a very expensive, stressful, and time-consuming gamble – it doesn’t matter how solid the facts.
And that’s the thing that has always bothered me about litigation: Litigation makes communication strategic and hostile. Litigation shuts down communication.
Over my career in litigation, one simple idea kept occurring to me: “We have this backwards. Conflict requires the parties to engage in more honest communication, not less.” I couldn’t shake the idea that if I had the chance to sit down with both parties, listen to their stories, and get them to start communicating again, their dispute could very likely be concluded on their terms and without the stress and cost of the litigation process.
That simple idea is at the heart of Peacefield Conflict Resolution.
No doubt, conflict is an inevitable part of life and business. But, that doesn’t mean litigation has to be our first reaction to conflicts that seem entrenched or hopeless.
So, what is Peacefield?
Peacefield is a firm that help businesses, organizations, families, and individuals understand, navigate, and resolve their most difficult conflicts through services that include mediation, conflict assessments, coaching, and more.
We work with people, businesses, and organizations who are facing difficult conversations, strained relationships, consequential disputes, or conflicts that seem to have reached an impasse.
Sometimes a lawsuit has already been filed. Often, the goal is to prevent one.
In either case, Peacefield begins with a different question: What if conflict was thought of as a problem to be solved rather than a battle to be won?
Conflict Creates More Than Disagreement
Most conflicts are about more than the issue that appears on the surface. If you think of an iceberg, the “dispute” is what you can see above the surface. But the conflict is everything underneath the surface that the dispute is built upon.
A business dispute may ostensibly concern a contract, money, performance, or responsibility. An organizational dispute may look like a disagreement over a decision or policy. A family dispute may center on property, finances, or competing expectations.
But underneath those disputes lie the conflicts that can make the dispute so tough to deal with. These conflicts are often comprised of a complex combination of things, just some of which could be misunderstandings, assumptions, poor communications, hurt feelings, ancient grudges and unresolved fights, competing interests, damaged relationships, frustration, fear, resentment, and a sense that the other side simply is not listening.
Traditional adversarial processes can be necessary, but they are not always designed to address those dynamics. Litigation, in particular, asks parties to develop competing positions and prove why one side should prevail over the other.
Peacefield works differently.
Our role is to reopen, restart, and reset conversations that have become stuck. We create a structured and confidential environment where people can better understand the conflict, identify what is actually driving it, clarify their interests, and explore possibilities that may have been obscured by the dispute itself.
In that sense, Peacefield serves as a bridge—helping people move from past grievances and present realities toward future possibilities.
More Than Mediation
Mediation is an important part of Peacefield’s work, but Peacefield takes a more comprehensive view of conflict than a traditional mediation practice.
We provide mediation of civil and commercial disputes, including matters both before and during litigation. As a neutral, Peacefield helps parties communicate, evaluate their circumstances, identify potential areas of agreement, and explore whether a mutually acceptable resolution is possible.
But sometimes conflict needs attention long before it becomes a formal dispute.
That is why Peacefield also provides negotiation facilitation. Here, we help individuals and organizations think through difficult negotiations and create more productive conversations before positions harden.
Our conflict assessments and conflict coaching help clients understand the sources and dynamics of recurring or particularly challenging conflicts and develop better ways of responding to them.
Through fractional ombuds services, Peacefield can also provide organizations with an independent, neutral resource for identifying and addressing workplace and organizational concerns before they escalate.
And because some conflicts cannot truly be resolved simply by exchanging money or signing an agreement, Peacefield also works in the areas of apology, forgiveness, and repair—helping people consider whether acknowledgment, accountability, or restoration can play a meaningful role in moving forward.
A Different Way Through Conflict
Peacefield does not begin with the assumption that conflict is inherently destructive.
Handled poorly, conflict can consume enormous amounts of time, money, attention, and emotional energy. It can damage businesses, organizations, careers, families, and relationships.
But conflict can also reveal something important. It can expose problems that need attention, assumptions that need to be reconsidered, relationships that need repair, and conversations that need to happen.
The challenge is creating the right process for those possibilities to emerge.
That is what Peacefield does.
We provide a place where facts can meet friction, perspectives can shift, communication can restart, and people can see possibilities beyond the fight immediately in front of them.
We are not here to decide who wins.
Peacefield is here to help people find a better way forward.
