Denise Coggiola

At the age of 47, Denise left a successful career in sales to become a professional peacemaker, conflict consultant, and mediator. She had spent 25 years in strategic sales positions selling to major corporations, negotiating with customers, and helping companies resolve business conflicts. Although she had a successful sales career, she had a desire to do something more and make a difference. She began a new career being an instrument of peace for families.

Her prior career and life experiences put her at an advantage because conflict resolution is more than a single skill. It combines many human skills, such as the ability to listen, articulate, advocate, empathize, analyze, and facilitate all while managing and caring about people and their problems, issues, and values. These are life skills that Denise puts into practice as a mediator and marital/divorce coach. Denise believes that resolving conflict is not by chance but by a process.

Denise knows that life throws some curve balls. She said, "I did not plan to be a single mom to a 1 year old and a 3 year old at the age of 30, but with faith and hope I discovered that more often than not what at first appeared to be roadblocks and setbacks were actually the very things that got me where I was meant to be." She truly believes that God places all of us in our current situations and future situations for divine reasons. Only by completing these experiences with your heart and mind open will you able to accomplish your divine mission, too.

Current Professional Memberships and Activities

• Volunteer Mediator SMU Mediation Center at Legacy
• Member, Conflict Resolution Network, Dallas/Ft. Worth
• Member, Dallas Chapter of Texas Association of Mediators

Denise Coggiola is a Degreed and TMCA Credentialed Mediator serving the Dallas area.

There are several ways to achieve a divorce. Denise Coggiola focuses on processes that emphasize peaceful solutions that don't further damage fragile relationships. Mediation can be helpful at all stages of the legal process. Divorce mediation can be useful for:

• Pre-divorce coaching 
  Collaborative divorce 
  Traditional divorce 
  Post-divorce coaching 
  Mediation to avoid a divorce

Pre-Divorce Coaching

Before you file for divorce, you may have questions about family or financial issues and may not understand the legal process. Denise can help you to:

• Focus on what matters most to you
• Get support in difficult and emotional times
• Get the information needed to move forward in your life
• Find ways to preserve relationships that mean the most to you
• Discover your strengths and put them to use

Denise can help you plan for:

• Child custody and visitation
• Child/spousal support
• Division of assets
• Division of debts
• Other issues

Collaborative Divorce

In a collaborative divorce, the parties strive to reach a fair settlement through a series of meetings between the two parties. The primary focus is to identify the priorities, goals, needs and interests of the parties, and help them progress towards and create a settlement that is consistent with their priorities, goals, needs, and interests. The parties make their own decisions based on their own standards.

Too often the traditional system of divorce unnecessarily damages already fragile relationships.  Collaborative divorce is an alternative divorce process through which the parties commit themselves to resolving all issues of the divorce by negotiated agreement without resorting or threatening to resort, to costly legal proceedings.

As a collaborative divorce mediator, Denise is a neutral mediator to help both sides. Denise will help both parties:

• 
  Understand the different paths to achieve a divorce
• Consider what divorce will mean for you and your children
• Identify and express what both parties want
• Communicate clearly about issues that matter most
• Manage your emotions and express them clearly
• Draw on your strengths
• Work with each other to develop a plan for shared parenting
• Achieve your goals in the divorce process
• Consider and achieve your goals for the future

The collaborative process is designed to be less time consuming, less expensive, and less confrontational than traditional adversarial divorce.

Why choose a Degreed Mediator?

Mediation is a field that is not yet regulated and therefore the standard of expertise and training for mediators is often hard to judge.  Many mediators have had only a minimum amount (usually 40 hours) of "seminar" training. Others tack mediation onto another related practice as a sideline.  A degreed mediator has the education, skill, experience, and training to realize that the mediation setting is neither a courtroom, nor a counselor's office. It is unique, and when managed well, very effective.

If I already have a lawyer, why do I need a Mediator?

Regardless of the stage of a dispute--whether it's already in litigation or not there yet--mediation can make a difference. Mediation provides:

1. A framework to negotiate. Mediators are negotiation experts who understand how to turn the parties into more effective negotiators. They define your interests, aim to meet them, and maximize your gain--yours and the other side's.

2. Focus and structure. Good mediators are skilled facilitators who run mediation like an efficient business meeting. They have the ability to cut through the sparring, posturing, and argumentativeness to help parties get down to business. They push parties to develop an agenda, identify key interests, and create a realistic action plan which both can commit to and implement.

3. A dose of reality. One of the challenges is the client with unrealistic expectations about the value of their cases or the likelihood of success at trial. Mediation allows clients a first-hand glimpse into the strengths of the case of the opposing side or gives a preview of how sympathetic a plaintiff will be in court. The mediator brings to the negotiating table skill in reality testing along with the ability to guide parties through risk analysis--which can make settlement seem far more attractive than the alternatives away from the table.

4. Reality for the other side. Mediators will be asking the hard questions of all sides in a dispute, not just the one you happen to be on.

5. Overcoming barriers to agreement. Mediators are proactive in seeking out and addressing issues that are preventing the parties from reaching resolution.

6. Greater satisfaction. What's not to like about a process that can save you time and money and enable you to walk away with a solution tailor-made to meet your interests?

Denise Coggiola‘s primary office is located at:

1333 McDermott Drive, Suite 200, Allen, TX 75013

Denise also works with people via the internet through tools such as FaceTime and Skype to accommodate people’s needs for flexibility.

Phone: 214-534-8799


Email:   [email protected]