I mediate and arbitrate complex commercial disputes, the former with ADR Services, Inc. in Century City and the latter with the American Arbitration Association's Expedited Commercial Panel in downtown Los Angeles. 

I am one of the two founders of She Negotiates Consulting and Training, whose name says it all.  I write a monthly column for ForbesWoman unsurprisingly called She Negotiates.  I also write for Forbes On the Docket Legal Blog.

I blog on negotiation here where I pay attention to the settlement of legal disputes and at She Negotiates where I pay attention to the benefits to and challenges of women negotiating on their own behalves as well as on behalf of those they love and care about.

I act locally and think globally in everything I do, personally, professionally, and politically.

Thanks for stopping by!  If I can be of service, please call me directly (323.217.5162) or email me at victoria@shenegotiates.com.  You can follow me and She Negotiates on Twitter here and here. My Facebook page is here; the Facebook page for She Negotiates is here.

The next She Negotiates month-long online coached negotiation training begins on September 16.

My most recent blog radio interview is here.

I'll be speaking at the PLUS Foundation Women's Leadership Initiative "Raise the Curtain and Raise the Bar" on September 1, 2010, at 2:30 p.m. at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City. Speaking with Victoria on Leadership, Empowerment and Success will be Lori Fouche, President, Commercial Insurance, Firemans Fund Insurance Co. and Alexandra Glickman, Area Vice Chariman, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.  Pauline Morley, Senior Vice President of the Professional Indemnity Agency will moderate.

I'll be returning to the X2 HealthCare Network for its next annual XScape to provide two days of negotiation training to women health care executives in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2011.

My Mediation and Arbitration Services

I help attorneys resolve the same type of complex commercial case I litigated for more than a quarter century (!!) with such firms as the Philadelphia-based Pepper, Hamilton; the Los Angeles-based Buchalter, Nemer and the San Francisco-based Hancock, Rothert & Bunshoft (recently merged with Duane Morris) 

I'm a neutral for ADR Services, Inc.

I received my LL.M. in Conflict Resolution from the Straus Institute and my law degree, Order of the Coif, from University of California at Davis King Hall School of Law .

Recent Speaking Engagements

Preventing and Breaking Negotiation and Mediation Impasse by Understanding the Symbolic Meaning of Money at the ABA ADR Section's 12th Annual Spring Conference in San Francisco on April 8-10, 2010 (with Mediator and Professor  Inga Watkins of the Howard Univrsity School of Law.

Co-instructor (with Lee Jay Berman and Doug Noll) for full-day seminar on Legal and Insurance Terms of Art and Settlement Strategies at the American Institute of Mediation, November 2009.

Negotiating from a Position of Weakness for the California Association of Licensed Investigators Semi-Annual Conference, November 6, 2009.

What Every Litigator Should Know About Enforcing and Avoiding ADR Clauses with the Hon. Michele Flurer, mediator Rebecca Callahan, Esq. and attorney D. Brian Reider of Best, Best and Krieger, LLC, September 10-13, 2009 at the Grand Hyatt, San Diego, California.

Two-day negotiation training for Qwest Communications' Legal Department, Denver, Colorado, May 2009.

Speaker, Social Networking for Attorneys and Neutrals at the Fourth Annual Los Angeles Twitter Conference, Friday July 31, 2009, at the Los Angeles House of Blues on Sunset Blvd

X2 Healthcare Network: Winning the Negotiation: Negotiation as Poker Game. Keynote address. Las Vegas, Nevada. February 2009.

ALI-ABA Webinar: ADR in IP Litigation with IP litigator R. David Donoghue of Holland + Knight. February 2009.

Recent Publications

Forbes: On the Docket  Collected posts for Forbes blog: "On the Docket"

Negotiation 101:  Gender Wars or Gender Peace and Prosperity?  ForbesWoman, September 2009

Negotiating Gender:  Why So Few Women Neutrals?  ABA Journal: Law Practice Today, April 2010

Take Steps to Ensure that Mediated Settlement Agreements Can Be Enforced (with Deborah Rothman) The Los Angeles Daily Journal, October 20, 2006, reprinted at Mediate.com

Mediation ‘Magic’ Happens When Neutrals Revitalize Justice Issues, Los Angeles Daily Journal, July 22, 2008

Email Communication Can Be Dangerous During Litigation, Los Angeles Daily Journal, June
2008

Bullying, Rigidity are Surefire Negotiation Deal Breakers, Los Angeles Daily Journal, May 14, 2008

When Talks Reach an Impasse, Mediators Work Their Magic, Los Angeles Daily Journal, April 30, 2008

We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, The Advocate, October 2009 (the Journal of Consumer Attorneys Associations for Southern California)

Shame by Any Other Name: Lessons for Restorative Justice from the Principles, Traditions and Practices of Alcoholics Anonymous, Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Journal. 5(2): 299-324 (2005)

I was interviewed by American Public Media's "Marketplace" reporter Joel Rose in a segment entitled Consumers Display Negotiating Nerve in February of 2009 (podcast and transcript at link)

I was featured in Interview and Negotiate Like a Lawyer in in August 17, 2009 issue of The Ladders.

My short fiction, literary non-fiction and poetry have been extensively published in the small University Press.  She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the r.kv.r.y. quarterly literary journal.