Judge (Ret.) Linda Pearce Prestley

Most people who come to mediation have never done anything like this before. They don't have a lawyer, they aren't sure what they're entitled to, and they're worried about saying the wrong thing. If that describes you, you are exactly who Linda is used to sitting down with.
Judge Prestley spent nineteen years as a Connecticut Superior Court judge, most of them in family court, including service as Presiding Judge of the Family Division. People sometimes arrive a little nervous about that — as though they're about to be evaluated. It's the opposite. She isn't there to judge anyone anymore. She's there to explain, in plain English, how this actually works: what the law requires, what a court would expect to see, what your options really are, and what happens next. Nothing is assumed. No question is too basic. If you don't understand something, she'll stop and explain it again a different way.
What nineteen years on the bench gives you is this: she has already seen how these decisions turn out. She has watched thousands of families make choices about their homes, their retirement accounts, and their children — and she has seen which agreements hold up over time and which ones fall apart in two years. That experience is now working for you rather than being handed down at you from a bench.
Judge Prestley's path to this work started with children. Before she was a judge, she was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Connecticut, representing the Department of Education, the Department of Children and Families, and the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. In 1997 she was appointed to lead Connecticut's Office of the Child Advocate, investigating child welfare concerns and testifying before the legislature. She has also been a licensed foster parent. If you have children, you should know that this is the lens she brings to every conversation about them.
Her education includes a B.A. from Hood College, a Master's in Education from Harvard University, and her law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law. Since retiring from the bench in 2019, she has focused entirely on mediation, arbitration, and parenting coordination, with additional formal mediation training through Mediation Matters in Baltimore, Md., Mediation Works, Inc. (MWI) in Boston, MA and MVMediation in Vineyard Haven, MA. She is a certified member of the Massachusetts Council on Family Mediation and belongs to the Academy of Professional Family Mediators, the Connecticut Council for Non-Adversarial Divorce, and the American Bar Association. She is a Charter James W. Cooper Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation. She has taught family law as an adjunct professor and speaks regularly on family and children's issues. Over the years, the Connecticut family bar consistently gave her its highest ratings for ability, integrity, and fairness.
One important thing to understand: as your mediator, Linda is neutral. She is not anyone's attorney and does not take sides. For many couples, that neutrality is the relief—finally, one person in the room who isn't working against either of you. You are always free to have a lawyer review your agreement before you sign it, and Linda will tell you plainly when that's a good idea.
You do not need to know the law to sit down with her. You just need to be willing to talk. She'll handle the rest, and she'll do it with patience, warmth, and a steady hand—so that you can stay out of court, keep this private, and get on with your life.