Meet John Hoelle of Conscious Family Law & Mediation

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Hoelle.

Hi John, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
When I met Peter Fabish in 2014, we recognized a shared vision to transform how families navigate divorce and relationship transitions. Starting from a tiny coworking space with just two desks, Conscious Family Law & Mediation was born with a mission to more effectively support divorcing spouses through mindful courtroom advocacy and collaborative divorce processes.

Today, our boutique firm serves a wide spectrum of clients, with three attorney-mediators, three non-attorney mediators, and numerous contract financial analysts, working together in teams to support people in collaborating to form prenuptial agreements, estate plans, or to navigate separation and divorce. One of our proudest achievements has been maintaining – and in some cases reducing – our divorce mediation costs, despite rising expenses Colorado and nationwide. This cost efficiency stems from our unwavering commitment to innovation and our willingness to embrace new technologies and training approaches. In the last 18 months we have managed to reduce costs even further, when it is appropriate for a case to be led by a non-attorney mediator, with lawyer support only as much as needed.

We’re proud of the trust our clients have placed in us over the past decade, and we are excited about continuing to serve families with the same dedication to conscious, compassionate support that has defined our first ten years.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Our journey has been marked by continuous evolution and growth. From our early days of offering attorney-assisted collaborative divorce and fine-tuning our attorney-led collaborative mediation process, we expanded thoughtfully, bringing on talented legal professionals. By 2019, Peter and I stopped taking on litigation clients, believing this to be philosophically inconsistent with our focus on collaborative mediation. In 2021 we made the difficult decision to transition as a firm completely away from courtroom work, recognizing that this would be most supportive to our core focus of collaborative mediation. This required courage and faith that collaborative mediation represented the future of divorce practice, even though traditional legal advocacy is a tried and tested business model.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Conscious Family Law & Mediation?
Our name “Conscious” reflects more than just a brand – it embodies our core philosophy. To us, consciousness means being mindful about our operations, accountable for our impact, and continuously improving our processes. In addition, we are grateful to serve and work with so many mindful couples who demonstrate remarkable and inspiring presence with each other during challenging legal transitions. Their courage and resilience continue to teach us the true meaning of consciousness in action.

As we look toward the future, we remain committed to our founding principles of efficiency, innovation, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
My favorite childhood memory is making funny movies around my hometown with my best friend. This lead me to pursue a career in the entertainment business, which was fun, but wasn’t having the direct, positive impact on people that I yearned for. I’m grateful to have found my path to meaningful work for me, and that minimizes needless trauma for children.

Pricing:

• Median for mediated divorce for spouses with no children mediating a divorce with our firm has decreased since 2020 from approximately $8,000 to $6,300
• Median for mediated divorce with minor children has held steady since 2020 at approximately $9,400
• Flat fee for will: $800
• Flat fee for living will: $600
• Flat fee for power of attorney: $400

Contact Info:

• Website: consciousfamilyfirm.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/consciousfamilyfirm
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/consciousfamilylaw&mediation1/