In our new video for our website, we tell you about ourselves, Jonathan and Amy Kales, the husband-and-wife team that make up the Northern Virginia divorce mediation law firm of Kales & Kales.

Jonathan has been practicing law in Northern Virginia for more than twenty years. His interest in mediation began in law school in the 1990s, and he become a Virginia Supreme Court certified mediator in 2006. Ten years ago, he dedicated his practice exclusively to mediation and collaborative divorce.

Amy started her career doing insurance coverage work at a big firm in D.C. but has been exclusively practicing Virginia family law for nineteen years. She has been co-mediating with Jonathan for approximately 7 years and all of their mediations are now conducted as co-mediations. In other words, they mediate together as a team.

As divorce mediators, Amy and Jonathan have complementary strengths. Jonathan is an outside-of-the-box and creative thinker. Amy is a little more linear. She thinks in outline form, takes notes during the mediation sessions, and forwards those notes to the clients at the end of each session. Additionally, Amy and Jonathan bring both a male and female perspective to their mediations. For example, we may hear things in different ways, and it’s not unusual for us to say: “We heard what you said differently. Is this what you meant, or is that what you meant?”

Finally, with two mediators at each mediation session, in other words, two sets of eyes and ears, Amy and Jonathan have a better ability to observe things like body language and tone than a solo mediator, which can be important in an area as sensitive as divorce.