| 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 Geriatric Care Managers of New England, the Northeast Human Resources Association, the Association for Conflict Resolution International-Family Section, and the New Hampshire Conflict Resolution Association. She has presented to doctoral candidates in gerontology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston and has trained eldercare professionals from throughout New England. Arline mediates civil disputes for the Boston Bar Association Boston Municipal Court Program and she is on several divorce mediation panels. She 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 on the Board of Directors of the New England Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution and is the former Newsletter Editor. She is a member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation and serves 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 and she has received extensive advanced trainings in elder, divorce, and employment mediation. She 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. He has created and presented conflict skills trainings to eldercare professionals from around New England. Rikk serves 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.
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, studied elder issues with The Center for Social Gerontology and the concept of introducing meditation and spirituality into the mediation process at the Harvard Negotiation Program’s Insight Initiative. He is a member of the New England Chapter 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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| Honorable John R. Maher |
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Judge Maher 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 mediates on several panels including the Massachusetts Trial Court’s Juvenile Court Department where she mediates Parent/Child cases through MWI, and the Middlesex Multi-Door Courthouse - Superior Court Department where she mediates Prisoner cases. She is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution and the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation.
Crystal serves 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, 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 is a mediator, trainer and principal of Agreement Resources, LLC and Elder Decisions. She mediates workplace and family disputes including eldercare and estate issues. Blair also mediates cases referred from the District Court Department for the Massachusetts Trial Courts. 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 recently presented to 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 recently was featured in a SHRM (Society for Human Resources Management) article entitled “Conflict Management Contributes to Communication.” Blair was interviewed by CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and appeared on a segment on elder mediation which aired nationwide in February, 2007.
Blair earned an MBA in marketing and finance from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA in psychology from Connecticut College and received basic and advanced mediation training from The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, Mediation Works Incorporated (MWI) in Boston, The Dispute Resolution Center at Northwestern University in Chicago, and The Center for Social Gerontology in Ann Arbor. Blair worked as a Marketing Specialist at Prudential Bache Securities in New York and was Director of Marketing and Industry Affairs for The Straumann Company, a healthcare start-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a former Board member of the New England Association of Conflict Resolution, a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution also a member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation.
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| John Dugan |
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John Dugan is a mediator, a licensed independent clinical social worker, and a founding partner of Elder Decisions. After receiving his mediation certificate from the Harvard Mediation Program (HMP), he became the program's case coordinator, staff mediator, and advanced mediation trainer. His specialty is with families experiencing major life changes such as divorce, post-divorce, CHINS, and elder care. He has written about family conflicts for Mediate.com and has trained professionals throughout Massachusetts including at the Annual Conference of Geriatric Care Managers and the University of Massachusetts, Boston.
John is a former board member of the Massachusetts Association of Mediation Programs and Practitioners. He received his undergraduate degree from Connecticut College and his graduate degree from Smith College School for Social Work.
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