Michael Dwyer has been named Lawyer of the Year three times for Family Mediation in Portland by Best Lawyers of America (2019, 2017, and 2015). Listed in Best Lawyers and Oregon SuperLawyers, Michael provides the highest quality mediation services for families. He has taught at the Straus Institute for Conflict Resolution at Pepperdine College of Law and Willamette College of Law. He is committed to providing client-oriented mediation services customized to the needs of his clients.
Michael Dwyer has been named Lawyer of the Year 2019 for Family Mediation in Portland by Best Lawyers of America. Michael was previously honored as Lawyer of the Year in 2017 and 2015.
Michael has been consistently recognized for his work in mediation and conflict resolution. Listed in Best Lawyers and Oregon SuperLawyers, Michael provides the highest quality mediation and collaborative law services for families.
He has taught divorce mediation at the Straus Institute for Conflict Resolution at Pepperdine College of Law. He is committed to providing client-oriented mediation and collaborative law services customized to the needs of his clients.He has been listed in Best Lawyers of America for Family Law Mediation since 2009 and in Oregon SuperLawyers for Alternative Dispute Resolution since 2007.
Michael also has a long, distinguished career as a trial lawyer. He has litigated or reached successful settlement in hundreds of litigated cases. He has long been an Preeminent AV-rated attorney by Martindale-Hubbell, the highest lawyer rating given to a lawyer by his peers for skill and ethics.
Michael served as the 2008-09 President of the Multnomah Bar Association.
Michael Dwyer has mediated over a thousand family and divorce cases since making the transition from trial lawyer to mediator-lawyer many years ago. In making that transition, he underwent extensive training with some of the country’s finest teachers of conflict resolution, including Jim Melamed, Ken Cloke, Gary Friedman, Chip Rose and Robert Benjamin. Today, in addition to providing mediation and collaborative law services, he teaches, including divorce mediation at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine College of Law.
I strive to offer clients leadership, guidance and support as they experience the enormous pain and stress of family conflict and upheaval.
My intention is to serve all my clients with intelligence, compassion and dedication. I truly wish for each one of my clients, and all members of their families, to be happy and to resolve their conflicts successfully. I want them to thrive.
I am committed to listening deeply to my clients, to understanding their deepest needs and goals, and to helping them achieve the fairest, quickest, least expensive, and most satisfying resolution possible.
I am committed to solving problems for my clients and their families, and never inflaming conflict. I am committed to helping clients avoid unnecessary, expensive and damaging court battles. Whether I am working as a mediator or lawyer, I am committed to crafting a fair settlement agreement.
But I will never sacrifice fairness and justice to promote a settlement agreement. That creates false resolution. On those occasions when the parties cannot reach a fair settlement agreement outside the courtroom, I will help my clients obtain the justice they deserve at trial. If I am unable to represent clients myself, such as when I have been serving as a mediator, I will help my clients obtain high quality representation.
University of California Los Angeles, B.A. (1974), magna cum laude; Loyola of Los Angeles Law School, (1977)
Michael Dwyer charges $350 per hour for mediations. Flat fees apply to some services.
Clients do not pay a retainer. We want satisfied clients who feel that the cost of our service is fair and reasonable.
