Mediation &
Conflict Resolution
Resolve it in a room, not a courtroom.
Litigation takes years, costs six figures, and hands the outcome to a stranger. Mediation usually takes a day. I am Marilynn Schuyler, and I have been mediating disputes for over twenty years, alongside a career representing both plaintiffs and defendants in workplace disputes, labor arbitration, landlord–tenant disputes, and personal relationship conflicts. I have sat in every seat at the table: federal enforcement official, counsel at an international law firm, and neutral.
How I work
Four commitments, in writing
My rate, stated upfront
An hourly fee, quoted before you commit. Most mediations are resolved within two hours.
Both sides equally heard
The process is built so nobody leaves saying the mediator took a side.
Answered within one business day
Every inquiry. If I'm in session, you still hear back by the next morning.
Your dispute, not my résumé
Sessions start with your situation. The credentials stay on the About page.
Why mediate
The math is not close.
A contested employment case runs one to three years and routinely exceeds $100,000 in legal fees per side, before anyone accounts for management time, discovery, depositions, or the effect on the team still doing the work.
Mediation is private. Nothing said in the room becomes a public filing. Both sides keep control of the outcome instead of surrendering it to a judge or jury, and the working relationship often survives, which matters when the two parties have to communicate with one another.
Save time. Save money. Save your sanity.
Practice areas
Disputes I mediate
Workplace & Employment
Discrimination and harassment complaints, accommodation disputes, manager–employee conflict, and internal grievances resolved before they become litigation or an agency charge.
Family, Civil & Relationship Disputes
Separation, co-parenting, estate, and neighbor disputes, mediated with the privacy and pace that courtrooms cannot offer.
EEO & Regulatory Conflict
Disputes with an equal-employment or civil-rights dimension, handled by a neutral who spent over a decade representing both plaintiffs and defendants, as well as serving as a mediator.
Business & Contract
Partnership breakdowns, vendor and contract disagreements, and commercial disputes where both sides want the relationship, or at least the money, preserved.
Process
What actually happens
01
Intake call
Thirty minutes, no charge. You describe the dispute. I tell you whether mediation can realistically move it, and what it will cost.
02
Preparation
Each side submits a short confidential statement. I speak with both parties separately so nobody walks into the session cold.
03
The session
In person or by video. Most mediations are resolved within two hours, and you leave with a signed written agreement.
The neutral
Twenty years in the mediator’s chair.
I have mediated disputes for more than twenty years, and I have also represented clients through mediation. I have been litigating for both plaintiffs and defendants in the same kinds of disputes I now mediate.
That range matters in the room. I can usually tell each side how their position will read to the other, and to a regulator or a jury if it ever gets that far. Parties tend to move when they hear it from someone who has spent decades guiding both sides to resolution.
Full backgroundBefore it becomes a dispute
Conflict resolution
Facilitated conversations, conflict coaching, and team interventions for problems that need fixing while they are still problems, not cases.
Conflict resolution services →Tell me what the dispute is about.
A first conversation costs nothing and is confidential. If mediation is not the right fit, I will say so.