BIOGRAPHIES:

MEREDITH McKELL GRAFF, ESQ. founded McKELL GRAFF, PLLC in March, 2003. Prior to that, she worked as an associate in the area of Family Law with the Longview, Washington law firm, WALSTEAD MERTSCHING, P.S., and as a Family and Elder Law mediator with the Portland, Oregon law and mediation firm of STEVEN ALLEN SMITH, P.C. She is actively licensed to practice law in the state of Washington, and is an inactive attorney in Utah.

Ms. Graff is a graduate of University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law, in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she focused her law studies in the area of Elder Law. She holds a masters degree in English (Creative Writing/Poetry) from Rutgers University Graduate School in Newark, New Jersey. She obtained her bachelors degree in Denver, Colorado from Loretto Heights College, which merged with Regis College to create Regis University.

Ms. Graff has been trained in divorce and custody mediation since 1983, where she trained with the Center for Dispute Resolution, now known as CDR Associates, in Boulder, Colorado. She received additional mediation training in law school, during which she also served as a volunteer mediator in the Murray City (Utah) Small Claims Court. She has mediated hundreds of hours in which most of her cases settled. She recently became certified with Washington Mediation Association and id a member of the Clark County Association of Mediators.

Ms. Graff is a member of the American Bar Association, the Utah and Washington State Bar Associations, the Clark County (WA) and Cowlitz County (WA) Bar Associations. She holds memberships in the Washington State Bar Family Law and Dispute Resolution Sections, the Association for Conflict Resolution, and Collaborative Professionals of Washington. She has served as Vice-President of the St. Helens Chapter of Washington Women Lawyers and was President of the Clark County Bar Family Law Section. She was Secretary of the Cowlitz County Bar Association in 2003, and served on the board of Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Legal Aid from 2002-2004. She volunteers for Southwest Washington Volunteer Lawyers Program.

Law is a second career for Ms. Graff, having taught college writing courses for eight years at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and Weber State University and Salt Lake Community College in Utah. Ms. Graff has taught hundreds of students as an adjunct professor and sees her teaching skills as an important part of her law practice as she continues to teach her clients about how the law impacts their lives.

Ms. Graff also worked in the insurance industry in New Jersey during and after graduate school and was licensed to sell life, health, disability, and property and casualty insurance products, and held a National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) Series 6 license. Ms. Graff received numerous awards and recognition during her tenure as a financial services representative, sales manager, and later, underwriter for one of the largest insurance companies in the U.S.

Ms. Graff is the author of a chapter in the book, Contested Landscape: Wilderness Policy in Utah and the West, ed. Dan McCool, Ph.D. and Doug Goodman, University of Utah Press, 1999. She is also the author of the poetry manuscript, "Mischpocha," a selection of family-themed poems. She is working on a book with her mother, Letters From Africa, which tells the true story of her parents' life in Kenya, Africa while her father was on his second professorial sabbatical leave. Ms. Graff's father, Cyrus M. McKell, Ph.D., was a botanist who has specialized in drought-tolerant plants.

Ms. Graff is the mother of four grown children. She fought, and lost, custody of them when they were ages 10, 8, 6 and 3, two years after a divorce. It is that experience that informs and fuels her desire to promote mediation, collaboration, and conciliation in family legal matters. Ms. Graff is also a breast cancer survivor, having been free of cancer since 1999. She is available to speak to groups about peaceful resolution of legal problems.

HEIDI ATWOOD, Office Manager / Paralegal, has been with MCKELL GRAFF, PLLC since 2007. She brings over twenty years of experience in office support and is currently pursuing her B.A. degree at Washington State University.

FIONA MCCOOL, Office Dog, has been a comforting presence for clients and their families since 2006. Fiona, a West Higland White Terrier, enjoys coming to work and when she isn't visiting with clients, stays on the lookout for squirrels.