Durham Certified Family Financial Mediator

Welcome to the Barri Payne Mediation website. Barri Payne is a Durham lawyer who is a Board Certified Specialist in Family Law and a Certified Family Financial Mediator. Near Duke Hospital and Duke University campus, her office is especially convenient to the doctors, nurses, academicians, and grad students employed and attending there. The office is also convenient to attorneys coming from Durham, Orange or Wake Counties as the office is just off Interstate 85N in Durham.

Barri emphasizes in minimizing conflict and helping clients to move through divorce and the issues associated with divorce as quickly and easily as possible. Family law attorneys who had utilized Barri’s services as a mediator have found her straight-forward and approachable. She puts clients at ease and helps them think creatively about how to resolve their issues and move toward a brighter future.

Mediation is an informal, out of court process where the parties can share information with a neutral mediator about the conflict so that the mediator can help facilitate an amicable resolution. As a mediator Barri has had special training to help people speak openly about their goals and negotiate resolutions without going to court. Mediators do not have to be lawyers and they do not give legal advice to the parties or represent them in court. However, choosing a mediator, such as Barri, who does practice family law and is familiar with the process, the local Judges and can foresee and help you weigh the various costs, benefits and likely outcomes of your case is extremely helpful. The mediator is not a judge who makes decisions for the parties. Instead, the mediator helps the parties to make their own decisions and decide how to resolve their conflict. Decisions reached this way are more satisfying and more likely to be followed because the parties have had input and a level of control in the process that they do not have in Court.

Barri Payne’s experience as a lawyer, Board Certified Specialist in Family Law, and Certified Family Financial Mediator has uniquely prepared her to help parties resolve issues through mediation. She enjoys helping people talk through their issues to reach a common understanding of the problems and possible solutions to those problems.