About Lori

Lori M. Dobrin is an accomplished attorney and mediator with over 30 years of experience in civil litigation and alternative dispute resolution. She specializes in a wide range of civil matters, including personal injury, real estate, landlord/tenant disputes, insurance subrogation, and medical malpractice.

Lori serves as a panel mediator for ARC and the U.S. District Court (Central District), and she frequently acts as a judge pro tem, settlement officer, and settlement master for various courts throughout Southern California. Her extensive training includes completion of Pepperdine’s highly regarded “Mediating the Litigated Case” program, along with ongoing continuing education in mediation. Lori holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law and a B.S. from the University of Florida, graduating with highest honors.

In addition to her legal work, she is an active leader and mentor in the legal community, holding positions with several bar associations and professional organizations.

What personal values guide you in your mediation practice, and how do they influence your work?

Exemplifying kindness and optimism in my interactions with others is something I strive for every day. As a mediator I make sure my first impression with parties or their lawyers starts with a smile and an upbeat demeanor (even if its over the phone)–this disarms them and gently helps to diffuse the anxiety, skepticism, fear and uncertainty they may feel about the process.

I do my best to infuse my innate warmth and empathy I feel towards parties in hopes of creating a safe space where they can open up and share vulnerabilities, concerns and desired outcomes. One of the greatest compliments I have received is when my children have said, “thanks for listening without judgment.” I try to incorporate this in every mediation, to make participants feel heard and validated.

What do you believe are the best practices for preparing for a mediation session?

Preparation is the key ingredient to success. It starts when the parties first engage with me when they choose me to be their mediator. When I send my initial introductory letters to the attorneys, I emphasize my request to receive briefs well in advance of the mediationso I have time to digest them thoroughly.

This enables me to have time to set up separate confidential pre-mediation calls with each attorney to go over issues beneath the brief–perhaps concerns about their case or client that are too sensitive to put in writing. This is also the first opportunity I have to establish a shared rapport with the attorneys—usually they are impressed that I have taken the time to speak with them, read their briefs carefully and remember the details.

During the call I ask questions and share some observations that encourage them to shift their mindset from adversarial to problem solver. The attorneys see that I have fully invested in their case; this translates to their own investment in the mediation, which ultimately is transferred to their client’s trust in me and the process.

How do you personally approach building trust and rapport with the people you mediate?

From the outset, I show the parties that I truly care about what they may be experiencing as a result of the dispute or incident that brought them before me. Showing empathy and an acknowledgment of how they must be feeling through my carefully chosen words, tone, facial expressions and body language demonstrates that I am intently listening to them. 

My objective is to create a safe and confidential space for the parties to share and be open to having a productive, candid conversation. When dealing with the room holding the purse strings, I try to find some nugget of common ground—my many decades of life experiences usually yield some shared experience, location, or close degree of separation that lends itself to a deposit in my mediator “trust” account, which seems to close the gap when cases are able to resolve.

What are some of your hobbies or interests outside of mediation?

Once I take off my mediator cap, my other favorite pastime is to don a chef’s hat and apron to flex my creativity in the kitchen. Cooking is a form of therapeutic relaxation and while I use recipes for inspiration, I usually tweak them a bit to make it my own. Sharing my culinary creations with family and friends is emotionally very fulfilling—I cook with heart and zeal so it’s a way of showing love on a plate. 

Interestingly, I find there are a lot of comparisons between cooking and mediation—the preparation, knowledge of ingredients and technique of knowing what will make the dish most palate pleasing are skills I incorporate in both endeavors. The goal is for everyone to leave the table more satisfied than when they arrived