Portland Divorce Mediator Matthew House, J.D.:
Education and Training
I have a law degree from the University of Idaho College of Law, which I completed in 2005. At the University of Idaho College of Law, I specialized in family law, taking courses in Divorce, Property Division, Community Property, Children and the Law, Domestic Violence, and Juvenile Law. I passed the Oregon Bar Exam in 2005 on my first try, but I chose not to enter the practice of law so I could focus on divorce mediation exclusively. While I was in law school, I took a required semester course on Legal Ethics (also called Professional Responsibility), and I realized that the adversarial system produces more problems than it solves.
When I first set my sights on becoming a family law attorney, I intended to pursue positive outcomes for families. I did not understand at the time that not all divorcing people had positive and selfless visions for the future of their families. After completing my Professional Responsibility course, I discovered that my ethical obligations as a practicing attorney could mean taking positions that I knew were unwise or unfriendly to the other members of the family, especially kids and teens, but if I were representing someone, I would have to pursue that person's chosen outcome as long as it did not conflict with the law or my professional ethics. On that basis, I decided that I needed to apply my law degree in some other way -- one that would allow me to remain independent of an adult client who might have an agenda motivated by spite or resentment. For that reason, I became a divorce mediator.
Some people, even a few in Portland, attempt to mediate divorces without the benefit of a law degree. Three years of law school provided me not just knowledge of the law but also training in critical thinking about the law that I could never have gotten elsewhere. I cannot imagine succeeding as a family law professional without that background, and I remain skeptical of those who try to practice mediation without a degree in the field in which the dispute arises.
Law school provided me a strong foundation in a number of legal specialties. As I took the courses during my three years of law school, I would have been hard-pressed to imagine ever using some of them in my career. Besides my comprehensive training in family law, additional courses that are part of the standard law school curriculum -- Taxation, Bankruptcy, Contracts, Business Associations, Creditors' Rights, , and Civil Procedure, Legal Research, and Legal Writing -- also help me daily in my work as a divorce mediator. Even courses such as Torts, Criminal Law, and Constitutional Law enhance my ability to do this work because those topics occasionally come up in the decisions that I help my clients make. It is always nice to be able to pull out knowledge I gained in law school many years ago and make it available to clients in a relevant scenario, even for certain topics that I never expected to use again after completing those courses.
Including my training, I have 15 years of experience in mediation, and I have had my own divorce mediation practice in Portland and Beaverton since 2005. Having earned a law degree, I have had extensive training in law and divorce mediation (more than 1500 hours) in Idaho and Oregon.
Prior to law school, I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Oregon in 2002. I majored in Spanish and had planned to become a high school Spanish teacher before an offer came my way to attend law school on a full scholarship. I jumped at the chance, and the past 15 years have rewarded me with hundreds of opportunities to lead my clients and their families out of stress and chaos, helping them create something more civil, financially stable, and forward-looking.
When I first set my sights on becoming a family law attorney, I intended to pursue positive outcomes for families. I did not understand at the time that not all divorcing people had positive and selfless visions for the future of their families. After completing my Professional Responsibility course, I discovered that my ethical obligations as a practicing attorney could mean taking positions that I knew were unwise or unfriendly to the other members of the family, especially kids and teens, but if I were representing someone, I would have to pursue that person's chosen outcome as long as it did not conflict with the law or my professional ethics. On that basis, I decided that I needed to apply my law degree in some other way -- one that would allow me to remain independent of an adult client who might have an agenda motivated by spite or resentment. For that reason, I became a divorce mediator.
Some people, even a few in Portland, attempt to mediate divorces without the benefit of a law degree. Three years of law school provided me not just knowledge of the law but also training in critical thinking about the law that I could never have gotten elsewhere. I cannot imagine succeeding as a family law professional without that background, and I remain skeptical of those who try to practice mediation without a degree in the field in which the dispute arises.
Law school provided me a strong foundation in a number of legal specialties. As I took the courses during my three years of law school, I would have been hard-pressed to imagine ever using some of them in my career. Besides my comprehensive training in family law, additional courses that are part of the standard law school curriculum -- Taxation, Bankruptcy, Contracts, Business Associations, Creditors' Rights, , and Civil Procedure, Legal Research, and Legal Writing -- also help me daily in my work as a divorce mediator. Even courses such as Torts, Criminal Law, and Constitutional Law enhance my ability to do this work because those topics occasionally come up in the decisions that I help my clients make. It is always nice to be able to pull out knowledge I gained in law school many years ago and make it available to clients in a relevant scenario, even for certain topics that I never expected to use again after completing those courses.
Including my training, I have 15 years of experience in mediation, and I have had my own divorce mediation practice in Portland and Beaverton since 2005. Having earned a law degree, I have had extensive training in law and divorce mediation (more than 1500 hours) in Idaho and Oregon.
Prior to law school, I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Oregon in 2002. I majored in Spanish and had planned to become a high school Spanish teacher before an offer came my way to attend law school on a full scholarship. I jumped at the chance, and the past 15 years have rewarded me with hundreds of opportunities to lead my clients and their families out of stress and chaos, helping them create something more civil, financially stable, and forward-looking.