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Mediators
Elder Decisions is a division of Agreement Resources, LLC. All of our mediators have received advanced training in Elder Mediation and are experienced in mediating family disputes.
Arline Kardasis • Rikk Larsen • William Levine, Esq.
Honorable John Maher (ret.) • Crystal Thorpe • Blair Trippe
| Arline Kardasis |
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Arline Kardasis is a mediator, trainer and founding partner of Elder Decisions and Agreement Resources, LLC. She mediates family disputes in the areas of eldercare and estate matters as well as divorce. Arline has delivered workshops, seminars and trainings in a broad spectrum of settings, including: the American Bar Association, National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers, the Northeast Human Resources Association, and the Association for Conflict Resolution International. She has presented to doctoral candidates in gerontology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and has provided conflict resolution skills trainings to social workers, nurses and eldercare professionals from throughout New England. Arline has written about family mediation for Mediate.com and, with Rikk Larsen, she co-wrote “When Aging Issues Lead to Family Conflict” for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.
Arline is Vice President of the Board of Directors of the Association for Conflict Resolution - New England Chapter. She is a member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation and served on the Public Awareness Subcommittee for the Massachusetts Trial Court’s Standing Committee on Dispute Resolution. Arline was trained at Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation and by the Center for Social Gerontology. She has designed and delivered numerous advanced trainings in elder mediation for mediators from around the United States. Arline received her BA in Political Science and Urban Studies from Boston University and her MAT with honors from Simmons College.
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| Rikk Larsen |
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Rikk Larsen is a founding partner of Elder Decisions where he is a mediator, trainer and conflict coach. At Agreement Resources, Rikk’s mediation and conflict coaching practice includes divorce, post-divorce and marital mediation. He has created and presented conflict skills trainings to eldercare professionals from around New England. Rikk served on a Subcommittee for the Massachusetts Trial Court’s Standing Committee on Dispute Resolution. He co-presented “Using Mediation in Elder Law” at the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and presented a workshop “When Families Struggle with Dementia: Facilitating Solutions through Mediation” at the Dartmouth Alzheimer’s Conference. He is the co-author, with Crystal Thorpe, of "Elder Mediation: Optimizing Major Family Transitions" for Marquette Elder's Advisor Law Journal. He was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition show, “Mediators Help Families with Tough Choices of Aging.”
Rikk is a former case coordinator for Family and Probate Court and a case liaison for Small Claims Court for the Harvard Mediation Program. He attended Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation. He is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution and the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation. He received his BA from Williams College and his MBA from Harvard Business School. |
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| William Levine, Esq. |
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William M. Levine is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and has been since 1987 (former President of the Massachusetts AAML Chapter; and past National AAML Arbitration Chairman); and he is a fellow of the International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (1990). Mr. Levine is former (and first) chair of the Boston Bar Association Family Law Section (1989-91). He presently serves on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, and he is a member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation and the Association for Conflict Resolution.
Mr. Levine has received national recognition, including being named as one of the “Top 100” in Worth Magazine’s guide to the nations’ best attorneys (December 2005); as one of the Best Lawyers in America by Naifeh and Smith every year since 1995; by Boston Magazine "The Best Lawyers" (October 2003); by Massachusetts Super Lawyers (November 2004 - 2011); and by New England Super Lawyers (November 2007 - 2011). Mr. Levine lectures frequently and has authored numerous articles on family law subjects. He is a trained mediator (AAML and Divorce Mediation Training Associates) and arbitrator (AAML) and he has participated in advanced trainings in marital mediation (2010) and elder and adult family mediation (2011).
Mr. Levine is a principal in the mediation and arbitration firm of Levine Dispute Resolution Center LLC, of Westwood and Northampton, MA. Previously, he was a longtime partner in the Boston law firm of Lee & Levine LLP, where he practiced exclusively in family law from 1985 through 2011. In addition to litigation and other traditional representation, Mr. Levine has mediated family law cases 1995; and he has served as an arbitrator since 1990.
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| Honorable John R. Maher (retired) |
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Judge Maher (retired) has an active mediation/arbitration practice, concentrating in the areas of trusts and estates, elder law, real estate, and business dissolutions. Judge Maher served as the Administrative Judge of the New Hampshire Probate Courts from 1990 until he retired in 2007. A pioneer in the judicial side of the mediation field, he was instrumental in the creation of the mediation program in the New Hampshire Probate Courts in 2002. He was the Probate Judge for Rockingham County, New Hampshire from 1983 until 2007. During that period, he presided over hundreds of litigated cases dealing with real estate, trusts, estates, guardianships and other elder law issues. He studied mediation at Pepperdine Law School in Malibu, California and recently completed the Graduate Certificate Program in Conflict Studies at Woodbury College in Montpelier VT. |
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| Crystal Thorpe |
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Crystal Thorpe, a founding partner of Elder Decisions, is a mediator, trainer and principal of Agreement Resources, LLC. She has developed and conducted conflict resolution skills trainings for eldercare professionals and teens, and coaches executives and law students in conflict resolution and mediation skills. She is the co-author, with Rikk Larsen, of "Elder Mediation: Optimizing Major Family Transitions" for Marquette Elder's Advisor Law Journal. In addition to her private mediation practice, Crystal has mediated on several panels including the Massachusetts Trial Court’s Juvenile Court Department where she mediated Parent/Child cases, and the Middlesex Multi-Door Courthouse - Superior Court Department where she mediated Prisoner cases. She is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution and the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation.
Crystal served on the Public Awareness Working Group and the Court Systems Working Group for the Massachusetts Trial Court’s Standing Committee on Dispute Resolution. She received mediation training from The Center for Mediation in Law (now The Center for Understanding in Conflict), The Center for Social Gerontology, Harvard Negotiation Program’s Insight Initiative, and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC), and has received extensive advanced trainings in elder, divorce, and family mediation. She has over ten years of experience in the corporate and non-profit sectors in the areas of training, human resources, quality assurance and consulting. She holds an MSW and an MBA from Boston College and an undergraduate degree in Cognitive Science/Psycholinguistics, magna cum laude, from Brown University. |
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| Blair Trippe |
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Blair Trippe, a founding partner, is a mediator, trainer, family business consultant, and principal of Agreement Resources, LLC and Elder Decisions, where she mediates workplace and family disputes including eldercare and estate issues. In addition to her mediation work, Blair has developed and presented numerous workshops and training programs in Negotiations, Conflict Resolution Skills, and Peer Mediation for professionals and teens. Blair has presented to the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, the American Bar Association (ABA), the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) and at the Map Through the Maze conference of the Alzheimer’s Association. She also served on the faculty of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s conference on Alzheimer’s disease. She has been featured in articles in AARP, SHRM (Society for Human Resources Management) and in 2007 was interviewed by CBS Evening News with Katie Couric in a segment on elder mediation which aired nationwide.
Blair earned an MBA in marketing and finance from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, a BA in psychology from Connecticut College, and a Certificate in Family Business Advising from the Family Firm Institute. She received basic and advanced mediation training from The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, The Dispute Resolution Center at Northwestern University in Chicago, and The Center for Social Gerontology in Ann Arbor. Prior to her career in conflict resolution, Blair worked at Prudential Bache Securities in New York and at The Straumann Company, a healthcare start-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a former Board Member of the New England Association for Conflict Resolution, a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution, the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation, and the Family Firm Institute.
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Kardasis and Thorpe photos courtesy of Neponset Valley Senior News/Rick Booth
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