BIOGRAPHY

Monica Vantoch is originally from the Northeast, receiving her law degree from Northeastern University in Boston and her undergraduate degree from Smith College in Northampton, MA. She holds memberships with the State Bar of California, the Santa Cruz County Bar Association, the Family Law Bar Association of Santa Cruz and the Collaborative Practice of Santa Cruz County.

Previously, Monica maintained a family law practice in Santa Cruz, working as a divorce attorney. Monica has dedicated her practice to divorce mediation, leaving behind her work in divorce litigation, simply because she does not believe in it. Her experience continues to show the positive impact on families and individuals when couples use mediation and remain outside of the family court system.

She has helped hundreds of parties reach resolution through mediation and negotiation. She has completed hundreds of hours of mediation training and receives continuing education in a variety of advanced mediation techniques and intensive divorce mediation trainings. Her mediation trainings have included: Collaborative Law Training with Nancy Cameron and Susan Gamache from Collaborative Divorce Vancouver, Divorce Mediation and Collaborative Practice Training with Chip Rose from The Mediation Center of Santa Cruz, Mediation and Conflict Resolution Training with Nancy Heischman at the Conflict Resolution Center, Divorce Mediation Training with Nancy Foster at the Northern California Mediation Center, Divorce Mediation Training with Gary Friedman from The Center for Mediation in Law. She has also been trained in Nonviolent communication (NVC) with Marshall Rosenberg from Nonviolent Communication Santa Cruz (NVC) and has continued to participate in NVC practice groups.

For Monica, mediation has been more than a business, but rather her life's work. She has worked in various roles and functions to facilitate dialogue to help people with differing viewpoint reach satisfying resolutions. She acts as a mediator with the Conflict Resolution Center in Soquel, CA for the community mediation program, the teen-parent mediation program, and the victim-offender mediation program through the District Attorney's Office at the Santa Cruz County Courthouse. She has served as a pro bono attorney with the Family Law Facilitator in the Santa Cruz County Courthouse, and guest lectured for the Children and Divorce Seminar at University of California Santa Cruz. Monica currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Divorced Father's Network in Santa Cruz and has previously worked with the Walnut Avenue Women's Center in Santa Cruz in divorce and custody, including domestic violence.

Throughout her career, Monica has been active in the public interest legal community. Before relocating to the West Coast, Monica worked for Greater Boston Legal Services, advocating for the asylum of victims of human rights violations. She has also worked on ground breaking anti-discrimination civil rights litigation with GLAD in Boston. In 2003, she was engaged in negotiations regarding healthcare reform in prisons with Justice Now, in Oakland, CA. Prior to attending law school, she worked in the Southern United States at the Center for Democratic Renewal, working with African American communities and Ku Klux Klan members to reduce racial conflict.

Monica is fluent in Spanish, and has lived and worked internationally, including throughout Latin America. Monica worked in Cyprus to help prepare model legislation for the country's reproductive and health care policies for its accession into the European Union. In 1997, she worked in Germany with the City of Karlsruhe's Bureau of Immigrant Integration, facilitating dialogue for dispute resolution between immigrant communities and police officials regarding stop-and-frisk procedures and racial profiling. After her work with the city, she was recruited to work for the University of Karlsruhe to provide conflict coaching to university groups around ethnic conflict.

In her free time, Monica can be found sitting in silence. Monica, as well as other mediators have spoken about the link between the two practices, and how meditation can enhance a mediator's practice ( "Mediation, Meditation and Electromagnetism"). She continues to practice Vipassana meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka.