Connie Kratovil-Lavelle, Esq.
Founder & Executive Director
Ms. Kratovil-Lavelle is an attorney, mediator, and collaborative law practitioner. She has been a leader in expanding the use of alternative dispute resolution in the state of Maryland, including expanding the use of mediation, collaborative law, and community conferencing for families and youth with cases before the Maryland courts. For over 25 years, she has helped individuals and families address and resolve their conflict, both in court and out of court, and has worked with statewide legal service organizations and with the Maryland Judiciary to develop policies and programs to assist Maryland families to resolve their legal conflict in a way that leads to better and more just outcomes.
In 2015 Ms. Kratovil-Lavelle envisioned a collaborative law process that would be more accessible, more affordable for more people and a process that would be simpler, more efficient, and faster in helping people in divorce and custody cases reach agreement. With collaborative colleagues, Ms. Kratovil-Lavelle developed the Expedited Collaborative Process that was first utilized in the Prince George’s County Circuit Court for family law cases, the first court-based collaborative law program of its kind in the country. The Expedited Collaborative Process model was presented by Ms. Kratovil-Lavelle and colleagues at the 2017 annual meeting of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals in Seattle, Washington.
Ms. Kratovil-Lavelle established the Collaborative Law and Justice Center (CLJC) as a legal service and social justice organization that aims to: promote the peaceful resolution of conflicts through collaborative law and other forms of alternative dispute resolution; provide pro bono and reduced fee legal services to persons of low and moderate-income; offer restorative justice services; conduct public information campaigns regarding our democratic system, including the legislative process, voting rights and laws, civic engagement, the roles of the three branches of government, comparisons with other forms of government and risks to democracy; and, to otherwise address issues of social justice, particularly economic justice. The CLJC is currently developing an economic justice program to increase homeownership for low-income Marylanders and to increase access to capital and for low-income and middle-income entrepreneurs through micro-grants and micro-lending.
Ms. Kratovil-Lavelle supports various non-profit organizations serving victims of domestic violence and served as a consultant managing and overseeing the Economic Empowerment Center (EEC) of the Mid-Shore Council on Family Violence, a program serving five (5) counties in Maryland. The EEC project aims to help clients who are victims of domestic violence or victims of sexual assault achieve financial independence through legal and non-legal services that are delivered using a holistic model.
Ms. Kratovil-Lavelle has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors including:
2003 Maryland Legal Services Corporation Special Recognition Award for Outstanding Support for Access to Justice
2005 Daily Record’s Maryland’s Top 100 Women of 2005
2005 Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence Special Recognition Award for developing screening tools for courts and service providers prior to referring for mediation
2005 Maryland Legal Services Corporation Award for Outstanding Support for Access to Justice for establishing and operating the state’s first regional pro bono referral agency
2007 Maryland Legal Services Corporation Arthur J. Machen, Jr. Award for rendering extraordinary service in Maryland by improving the civil legal services delivery system
2007 Mid-Shore Council on Family Violence, Above and Beyond Award for legal representation of victims of domestic violence
2011 The Community Mediation Maryland Commitment to Collaborative Conflict Award for developing a program for courts to refer low-income parents to no-cost mediation services to develop parenting plans and agreements
2012 Maryland Access to Justice Award for developing programs within the Maryland Judiciary
2013 The Community Conferencing Center Annual Award for developing programs in alternative dispute resolution for children and families
2015 Maryland Collaborative Practice Council, Collaborative Practice Trailblazer Award
2017 Women’s Law Center of Maryland Access to Justice Award
2019 Civil Justice, Inc., TrailBlazer award for developing a reduced fee legal service program
Ms. Kratovil-Lavelle is serving currently as the Chair of the Maryland State Bar Association, Alternative Dispute Resolution Section, a member of the Maryland Court of Appeals Standing Committee on Pro Bono, and she serves on many statewide committees and boards and is a frequent speaker and panelist at judicial and legal conferences. She received her LLM at Georgetown University Law Center, and a JD from the University of Baltimore School of Law, and a Bachelor of Arts from Gettysburg College.
