Ms. Petza is widely recognized as one of the foremost conflict engagement specialists concentrating in mediation, negotiation and facilitation. Since she was nominated as a Mediator by a court judge in 2003, during her legal career she resolved over 2,000 mediation and arbitration cases. She has deepened her knowledge and skills through hundreds of hours of alternative dispute resolution trainings.
Based in New York, she is an internationally recognized specialist in complex cases and highly-charged conflict. Ms. Petza is trilingual in Portuguese, English and Spanish. She is an expert in design services to help multiple stakeholders work together to achieve common goals. She has also facilitated organizations and individuals with diverging interests that require effective communication to bridge diverse perspectives, cultures and sectors to help all parties achieve sustainable and cost efficient solutions.
As a CDRC Mediation Manager, she has implemented successful mediation programs both in Queens Small Claims Court and in various administrative agencies in New York City. She has also oversaw more than 350 ADR cases and she has advised hundreds of attorneys and individuals internationally through the ADR process. She has also published articles on ADR, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution.
Her experience and expertise include mediation and facilitation in the following matters:
- Family, Divorce, Custody and Parenting
- Commercial, Employment and Business
- Workplace and Organizational Conflicts
- Group and Public Facilitation
- Elder and Estate matters
- Restorative Justice
- Internal Conflict Resolution Systems Design
While living in Paris, France Dorothy Kaldi obtained a master’s degree in International Relations from the Sorbonne. There she received a global education in how nations relate and interact. Upon her return to New York City, she became an attorney. She practised law for several years, as a French language e-discovery contract attorney for several large corporate law firms and as a litigator in family, civil and criminal court in New York City. In court, she witnessed how people relate and interact within the legal system. She was struck how the legal system complicates and prolongs many situations and rarely answers the direct needs of the litigants. In any litigation there is always a winner and a loser. Ms. Kaldi believes Mediation allows the parties to self determine their resolution; therefore, potentially each party wins. When her mother suffered a massive stroke, she was plunged into the world of elder care where she learned that the spirit of collaboration is more effective than the adversarial spirit of litigation. It was within this context, that Ms. Kaldi discovered Mediation as a better alternative to litigation and she decided to reinvent herself as a mediator.
Dorothy Kaldi is a CDRC certified Mediator. She was trained in Mediation at Community Mediation Services where she also completed her apprenticeship and currently is a volunteer mediator. In addition, she also completed several advanced trainings in Attorney Client Fee Dispute Mediation, Divorce Mediation, Special Education Mediation and Elder Care Mediation. Though she considers Elder Care Mediation to be her specialty, she has a lot of experience as a community mediator. She has mediated many residential disputes as well as criminal mediations, divorce mediations, custody and parenting mediations as well as many business and contract disputes. She can conduct mediations in French and in Hungarian.