Janine Higgins

Janine Higgins has been in private practice since 1993. Her mediation practice includes a wide variety of issues, both legal and non-legal including family, insurance, estate and business law as well as workplace and organizational conflicts. Her facilitation work overlaps with mediation since it often involves resolving conflicts within large and small groups. In this area, most of her clients are in the public and non-profit sectors, e.g. hospitals, mental health organizations, public health, agriculture, charitable organizations, and professional organizations. She has facilitated and mediated in a variety of circumstances, from half day workshops to multi-session task forces. In addition, she has also been retained as a neutral fact-finder on numerous occasions.

A graduate of the University of Toronto law school, she practised law in London, Ontario from 1980 to 1993, and was an active member of her firm's management team. She resigned from the partnership in 1993 to establish a full-time alternative dispute resolution practice in London, Ontario.

Janine has been named as a Chartered Mediator by the ADR Institute of Canada. In 1993, she completed the 210 hour Conflict Resolution Certificate program at the Justice Institute of British Columbia and since then has attended many specialized and advanced mediation training courses. She has also completed the Advanced Facilitator Program with ICA Associates Inc., the Toronto affiliate of an international facilitation organization. This program included 24 days of training and extensive mentoring. In addition to these certification programs, she has been awarded certificates in adult education, life coaching and emotional intelligence.

Janine is also very active as a trainer. She teaches Mediation, Collaborative Conflict Resolution, Facilitation, Negotiation, Family Mediation and Mediation and Negotiation Mastery at the University of Western Ontario, Continuing Studies department. In addition she teaches many customized courses for government, non-profit organizations and private industry, including the Ontario Professional Planners Institute and Bluewater Health.