As a social worker early in her career, Ms. Keating worked first hand with the difficult life issues of the elderly who suffered from dementia and the physical disabilities of old age that required nursing home care, and with others who had little or no income to provide themselves with shelter and medical care. She worked as a paralegal in indigent legal services and sought to provide guideline exceptions for those in need of legal aide services such as landlord tenant issues, domestic relations (divorce), public benefits and consumer issues.

As a defense attorney, she worked as a drug court attorney, and sought to help defendants with addictions stabilize their lives through the services of the court system’s drug court program. Ms. Keating also defended juveniles charged as delinquents in the juvenile court system. She has volunteered as a family advocate in juvenile dependency court and the Family Law Facilitator’s office that handled all aspects of child custody and support, restraining orders and divorce.

Ms. Keating is an active volunteer and provider of pro bono services. She has served as a volunteer mediator for North County Lifeline and as a salaried grant-funded Mediator with the Small Claims Division of the San Diego Superior Court. She currently is a volunteer mediator with the Small Claims Division as a North County Bar Association member.

She has been named as a San Diego County Volunteer of the Year, and has been honored by the Florida Bar for her committee work, the San Diego Superior Court for her services to the court system, and by the North County Bar Association. She is a recipient of the State Bar of California Wiley W. Manuel Award for Pro Bono Services, and has served on a state Bar Committee, writing and publishing an original mock trial for statewide mock trial competitions and helped edit a Legal Guide for Young Adults Florida Bar publication.

Ms. Keating has extensive experience in mediating civil matters before lawsuits are filed and after they are filed and in litigation. Her expertise and efforts to “truly listen…to resolve” have resulted in very high-resolution rates in many dozens of cases. She has resolved cases in all areas of civil law, medical malpractice, insurance claims, employment law, probate, homeowner’s disputes and collections, and landlord tenant issues. She received her mediation credential from the Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution of Pepperdine University’s School of Law. Ms. Keating is a panelist on the San Diego Superior Court Mediation Panel, and the North County Bar Association Mediation Panel.

Ms. Keating mediates all issues in family law, domestic partnerships and divorce. She was trained in collaborative law by Stu Webb JD and Associates, of Phoenix, Arizona, cofounder of the Collaborative Law Institute, Woody Mosten, JD of Mosten Mediations of Los Angeles, California, and the Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution of Pepperdine Law School, Malibu, California. She herself has trained mediators in the law and ethics of mediation and has presented continuing legal education programs in mediation.

Ms. Keating uses the collaborative co-mediation model of mediation in family matters, whenever possible, to reduce the cost and stress of marital and domestic partnership dissolutions. She works with therapeutic professionals to create resolutions that enable parties to lessen the inevitable pain that parting creates. Concentration on the future financial, physical and emotional health of dissolving couples is the aim of Ms. Keating’s divorce mediation practice.

Ms. Keating is trained in the practice of General Business law Litigation.