I am Elizabeth Rose and I have been a practicing attorney since 1999, a career I chose after I was established as a professional, a wife and a mother.

I returned to law school in 1993, almost ten years after graduating from Wheaton College. After college I had a successful career in the retail industry, followed by marriage and the birth of two of my three children. 

I chose New England School of Law's special part-time program, designed specifically for students with young children to create a schedule that complemented and respected their responsibilities at home. It was a perfect fit for me. My third child was born at the end of my second year. I took a semester off to care for her and graduated Cum Laude, 5-1/2 years after I began. I took and passed the Massachusetts bar exam that same year.

I love the law; I find it enormously challenging and stimulating. And the practice of mediation, working together rather than as adversaries, has a continuing value for all of us and is a very rewarding part of my practice.

Working with my clients allows me to bring all the parts of my life together - lawyer, mother, wife, and professional. I understand the complexities of your life, I live them myself, and I want to use my skills to make a real difference.

Why I Do What I Do

My first job out of law school was with a wonderful attorney in Newton. He had a general practice as a sole practitioner. Though I have great admiration for him and still refer people when need be, I learned very quickly two important things that I have carried with me into my own practice: I have a major issue with attorney fees and I feel that "adversarial lawyering", as I have come to call it, fails people.

I worked in his practice only for a short time when I realized these things. This fundamental difference in how I view the law and my role as an Attorney, so contradicted what I was asked to do, that I soon left.

My life as the kind of Attorney I wanted to be had begun.

I quickly discovered that what helps people the most also fulfills me the most; helping people work together to create relationships that will last them as they move forward in their lives- emotionally, professionally and legally.

I gave of my time through the Woman's Bar Foundation, lending my support as I represented abused woman through their divorce. This work gave me my first taste of divorce work along with the importance of mediation. Most of the husbands in my cases did not have legal representation of their own. Though I could not advise them I did have the legal obligation to explain the process to them and this interaction, limited though it was, became a mediation. I worked within these often extremely volatile relationships, to achieve an outcome that protected my client emotionally, physically and financially while reaching a fair agreement with their spouse.

As an actor within the New England Theater and Film community, I know first hand the struggles of an artist. Working with my peers as well as my clients I have been fortunate enough to help create some extraordinary film collaborations and artistic relationships and have retained my clients for many years. Again, the focus is on coming together to create a vision and protecting all involved artistically and legally.

My first Couple's Mediation came from a divorce referral. I am very proud that this couple, who felt that they could no longer be married, so valued my help that they referred me to a couple who wanted to stay together. My goal is to focus on the pieces that keep us connected- as couples, as people, as a society, and to work within the structures of each relationship to move it forward in a healthy and fulfilling way.

Though I have only been working with Liz for about two years now - both on matters where we could advise each other and on one matter as opposing counsel - I have been extraordinarily impressed with her knowledge, her professionalism and her compassion for her work and for her clients.  I would refer my own clients to Liz without reservation.

Stuart Hamilton, Esq.