Five Days | Wine Country & Redwoods | Limited to 25 Practitioners | International Reach
An Invitation to Shape the Future
This is not a training. This is an intensive exploration together of uncharted territory—where neuroscience meets collaborative practice, where self-reflection and emergent learning systems inform team processes, where behavioral economics, body-mind awareness practices, and restorative justice concepts converge to deepen our capacity for facilitating lasting resolution.
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Join up to 25 advanced collaborative divorce professionals and mediators from diverse states and nations for five days of rigorous intellectual challenge and immersive learning. If you are ready to grow as a voice for child-centered, values-based interdisciplinary team-based family conflict resolution practice in your community—championing deep and durable resolution that enables parents to cooperate constructively and raise healthy children—this seminar is for you.
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The seminar is designed to be career and life-changing for its participants. We believe that bringing the right people together in the right environment, with sufficient time and focus, can fundamentally shift not only how we understand and approach our work, but who we are when we enter a new conflict resolution system with a new client and team.
What We'll Explore Together
Integrative Conflict Resolution Perspectives
Conflict Theory • Neuroscience of Conflict Resolution • Behavioral Economics • Moral Theory • Adult Attachment Theory • Body-Mind Awareness Practices • Emergent, "Kind" Learning Systems • Cutting Edge Research Discoveries
Beyond Settlement to Transformation
Expand your sense of purpose from negotiating transactional agreements to facilitating transformative resolution that supports healthy children, families, and communities.
The Art and Science of Interdisciplinary Teams
Embrace the deepest potential of collaborative practice by learning how every collaborative team can become an emergent system that supports, rather than thwarts, deep and durable resolution while expanding the ability of team members to work together at their highest professional potential.
Leadership Capacity and Personal Growth
Explore sophisticated concepts in divorce conflict resolution and the personal challenges involved in reaching your highest potential in this work, while building leadership capacity—both your own and within your professional community.
Grow Your Global Peer Network
Build lasting collegial relationships with leaders from diverse communities, states, and countries—an ongoing support and learning network that will help you be an effective catalyst for excellence in your own practice community.
The Immersive Experience
Format
The seminar format is immersive and intensive, with substantial time for collegial exchange across disciplines and practice styles. Morning and afternoon sessions will be complemented by evening gatherings with pioneering guest presenters over dessert and coffee. Living together at the retreat center is integral to the experience—fostering spontaneous discussions during breaks and down-time that further evolve ideas sparked during formal sessions. This is where strong collegial connections form and where some of the deepest learning happens.
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The Setting
Set in secluded hills among mature redwoods and surrounded by notable vineyards, Bishop's Ranch provides a distraction-free and beautiful environment for serious, sustained learning. This historic rustic retreat center in the heart of Sonoma County's wine country offers the kind of space that fosters creative, self-reflective thinking and meaningful professional connection. [The wine country is a geographical, agricultural, and cultural designation for a region that has much to offer for those who don’t, as well as those who do, have interest in fine wines.]
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All-Inclusive Investment
The seminar fee of $6,200 is all-inclusive, covering accommodations, all meals, and intensive small-group programming throughout each day and evening. The integrated nature of this immersive experience means that accommodations, meals, and intellectual/experiential learning are woven together and cannot be separated. This structure ensures the kind of sustained focus and community-building that make transformative learning possible.
Pauline H. Tesler, M.A., J.D.
Healdsburg, California
Director, Integrative Law Institute
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As co-founder and first president of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, Pauline played a crucial role in launching the global collaborative divorce movement. Author of the field's first two foundational books—Collaborative Law: Achieving Effective Resolution in Divorce Without Litigation (American Bar Association, now in its third edition) and Collaborative Divorce (HarperCollins)—her work has shaped how practitioners worldwide understand and practice collaborative family conflict resolution.
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Pauline has taught pioneering trainings and workshops worldwide to thousands of collaborative lawyers and their colleagues which extended collaborative practice to more than twenty nations across six continents, from Israel to Brazil, Ireland to South Africa, Australia to France. Her groundbreaking course "NeuroLiteracy 101: Law and the Human Brain," developed with psychiatrist Thomas B. Lewis, M.D. (author of A General Theory of Love), has introduced hundreds of professionals to important practical applications of behavioral economics, positive psychology, adult attachment theory, and other cutting edge fields for deeper and more durable divorce conflict resolution.
Co-recipient of the American Bar Association's inaugural "Lawyer as Problem Solver" award and a member of the U.S. State Department’s Fulbright Specialist program, Pauline brings five decades of experience as a test case litigator, certified family law specialist, pioneering change agent, writer, thinker, leader, and visionary teacher to this advanced seminar.
Olivia Fürst, J.D.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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A dynamic catalyst for the remarkably swift spread of interdisciplinary collaborative divorce practice throughout Brazil, Olivia is a recognized leader and pioneer in her country's family conflict resolution landscape. She is the recipient of the prestigious Innovare Prize in the Legal Practice category—Brazil's highest judicial honor recognizing practices that enhance the justice system and positively transform the country's conflict resolution culture—awarded for her groundbreaking project implementing Collaborative Practices in Family Law.
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Olivia brings international perspective and innovative leadership expertise, as well as more than a decade of in-depth experience in collaborative team practice, to the Sonoma Sessions immersion experience. Her work has been instrumental in establishing collaborative practice infrastructure across Brazil, training nearly 2,000 professionals, and championing a paradigm shift toward respectful, interdisciplinary approaches to family conflict resolution.
Pioneering Guest Presenters
Informal evening sessions will feature leading thinker-practitioners who have shaped the field from its earliest days, offering diverse perspectives on the evolution and future of collaborative practice.
Limited Enrollment
Participation is limited to a maximum of 25 enrollees to encourage profound conversations and deep engagement with the material.
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Group Enrollment Incentive
We offer an enhanced discount for professionals who register in groups of two or more at the same time on the same online enrollment form. This encourages using the seminar as an opportunity to build your own core group of immediate colleagues who speak the same language and approach the work you will be doing together from a deeply informed transformative perspective. Return home with a team of peers who share a commitment to working together at a shared sophisticated level of understanding and excellence, thereby catalyzing sustainable change in how conflict resolution is practiced in your community.
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Pricing and Available Discounts
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Base Fee: $6,200 (all-inclusive)
Group registration discount (2+ colleagues registering online on the same enrollment form): 15%
Discount for members of sponsoring/collaborative organizations (with discount code): 10%
Discounts are not cumulative.
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Inquire about discount details and installment payment options at thesonomasessions@gmail.com
Sponsored by:
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The Integrative Law Institute
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For more information:
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This seminar is for experienced divorce conflict resolution professionals (lawyers, mediators, mental health, and financial professionals) who want to explore the transformative potential of interdisciplinary collaborative divorce conflict resolution practice in their own professional lives