Sheila . Gutterman
Sheila Gutterman, Esq., is the Co-founder, President, and Shareholder in the law firm Gutterman Griffiths PC. Sheila and the firm hold an AV Preeminent status ranking in Martindale Hubbell the highest rating available to lawyers and law firms. Sheila is a prominent family law litigator, mediator and credited with being the "Mother of Collaborative Law" in Colorado. For eighteen years, Sheila has given the BARBRI BAR Review lecture and video and has written the outline on Family Law in Colorado for lawyers who are studying for the Bar exam. She has literally taught and mentored thousands of law students and new attorneys in family law. Sheila has chaired and held all offices in the Colorado Bar Association's Family Law Section. She has served on numerous commissions including the Colorado Supreme Court Commission on Families and Children. She chaired the Denver Bar Association's Barristers Benefit Ball (for two years) which raises money to provide legal assistance to the poor and needy. Sheila is an Advanced Practitioner in the Association for Conflict Resolution (200+ mediated cases). Since the early 1990's, Sheila has lectured on offering clients a range of options as they go through the divorce process. Gutterman Griffiths has some of the toughest family law litigators and, also, one of the strongest Alternate Dispute Resolution departments in the state. Sheila advocates using the medical analogy: First, Do No Harm; Informed Consent and Triage. Sheila has been a pioneer in both mediation and Collaborative Law. In the 1980s, she lectured nationally on mediation as a non-adversarial alternative to the courtroom in family disputes. In the 1990s, Sheila founded the Colorado Collaborative Law Professionals as a state umbrella organization to oversee developments in Collaborative Law. She conducted or sponsored 27 Collaborative Law workshops; published dozens of articles on the subject including two in the Colorado Lawyer and wrote the definitive textbook: Collaborative Law A New Model for Dispute Resolution, which is currently being used in law schools nationally. At the same time, Sheila has been a leader in strengthening the Colorado court system. She helped restructure the family law court system to be more economical, efficient, and responsive to public needs. Sheila is a board member and membership chair of the Colorado Judicial Institute, a Colorado non-profit organization devoted to judicial independence and excellence through the enhancement of knowledge about and trust in the Colorado Legal system, composed of attorneys and non-attorneys.
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