Katherine Eisold Miller

I have always had a keen interest in people. I come from a family of therapists but I always thought myself too opinionated to actually be a therapist myself so I decided to pursue another passion of mine: justice. Once enrolled in law school, it didn’t take me long to realize that law school is not about justice so I returned to my interest in people and focused my education and my career on the intersection where the law meets people in their everyday lives. My early career was at a firm where about half our practice was matrimonial work and the other half child welfare litigation.

As I gained experience in family law, I quickly realized that there had to be a better way to help people settle divorces than what I and my colleagues were doing. When I took my first mediation training in 1990, I was hopeful that this was the solution I was looking for. By integrating mediation ideas and skills into my divorce negotiations, the possibility to find mutual solutions that didn’t create long-term division was much more likely. After 10 years of serving divorcing clients, I found myself going through my own divorce. I’d like to say I applied all the lessons I learned from going through this process so many times as a lawyer, but I did not. I felt a tidal wave of fear for the well-being of my son and daughter.

As a litigator, my observation had been that it was impossible to keep children out of the middle no matter how much everyone said they wanted to protect them. More times than I want to admit, I’d seen children used as a bargaining chip — viewed without a voice or needs of their own. I was unwilling to take that risk with my children. When I saw the risks to my children, it came home to me how destructive divorce litigation can be for children.

So much so, I got out of the field altogether. I quit my job and began taking an intent focus on investing in the one person I seemed to be ignoring my entire life — myself. I realized I had been going through life doing everything I thought I was supposed to, without being in touch with what I really wanted. I had become a guest in my own skin. By grabbing hold of my own reins, I found freedom and hope in myself. That’s what empowered me to take control of my life and my future.

It is that venture that led me to form the Miller Law Group because I wanted to run a law firm where we think about our clients as people first and truly protect the interests of their children. This is where true strength and advocacy lies and this is why we are able to help our clients get the best results possible. I am also a director at the Center for Understanding in Conflict where, for more than 15 years, my colleagues and I teach other professionals mediation, collaborative law and other conflict resolution skills.