Grace Dennigan
After 30 years of practice, a couple of ideas resonate and prove true over and over. One is that couples are much more satisfied with the terms of their divorce if they decide the issues for themselves rather than having a judge determine the outcome. This notion of "owning it" led Grace to want to empower clients - to educate and empathize and provide clients with the skills to decide their own fate. This has been actualized in the expansion of the practice into collaborative law and mediation.
Grace has tried countless cases and the emotional and financial toll does not equate with a superior result. The decision a judge makes rarely reflects creative thinking or the personalities of the litigants. In the collaborative process however, clients are encouraged to seek the result that really suits the individual or family without the constraints of litigation. Mediation, which can be part of the collaborative method (or not), also promotes the parties' self-determination. Although Grace is a seasoned litigator, she is a trained collaborative lawyer as well as a mediator and is dedicated to offering these services to the practice as an alternative to litigation for those clients looking for additional means of dispute resolution.
After completing law school, Grace became licensed in New Jersey and completed a judicial clerkship in Union County. She became an associate at Carchman, Annich, Socher & Shuster, a Princeton law firm, before joining the Attorney General's office in 1987. After a great deal of jury trial work there, she returned to private practice, concentrating on family law ever since.
In addition to her law practice, she teaches the Family Law for Paralegals course at Mercer County Community College as well as courses for the NJ Institute for Continuing Legal Education.
She has served as the Chair for the District VII Ethics Committee. She is a member of the Mid Jersey Collaborative Law Alliance, the NJ Association of Professional Mediators, the Mercer County Bar Association and the NJ State Bar Association.