Name Organization Speaking At
Allison Foster
Dr. Foster received her undergraduate degrees in Psychology
and English Literature from Emory University in Atlanta, GA and her Ph.D. in
Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of South Carolina in
Columbia. Dr. Foster is Chief Psychologist at the Assessment and Resource
Center (The ARC), a nationally accredited Children's Advocacy Center in
Columbia. Previously she served as the program's director for 17 years. Dr.
Foster also maintains a private practice (Forensic Family Associates) and holds
an adjunct faculty position with the USC School of Medicine, Department of
Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science. Dr. Foster evaluates allegations of
child abuse, conducts child custody and parenting evaluations, provides
court-ordered treatment in high-conflict families and case consultations for
attorneys. Dr. Foster is also trained in collaborative divorce and is a
certified family law mediator. She testifies frequently as an expert in matters
pertaining to children, abuse and parent-child relationships, trains nationally
and conducts clinical research. Among her professional affiliations, Dr. Foster
is a member of the American Psychological Association (APA), South Carolina
Psychological Association and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of
Children (APSAC). She is a frequent trainer for the National District Attorneys
Association, National Child Protection Training Center and National Children's
Advocacy Center.
Dr. Foster received her
undergraduate degrees from Emory University and Ph.D. in clinical psychology
from the University of South Carolina. She has been in forensic practice since
1995. Currently, she is Chief Psychologist at the Metropolitan Children's
Advocacy Center (formerly known as the ARC) in Columbia. She also maintains a
private practice (Forensic Family Associates) and holds an adjunct faculty
position with the USC School of Medicine, Department of Neuropsychiatry and
Behavioral Science. Dr. Foster evaluates allegations of child abuse, conducts
child custody and parenting evaluations, provides court-ordered treatment in
high-conflict families and case consultations for attorneys. Dr. Foster is also
trained in collaborative divorce and is a certified family law mediator. She
testifies frequently as an expert in matters pertaining to children, abuse and
parent-child relationships. Most recently, Dr. Foster returned to school. She
is a second-year law student in Mitchell Hamline's Executive JD program.
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Colleen Condon
Colleen grew up on James Island, graduating from Bishop England and the College of Charleston. After seven years working and consulting for Blackbaud (a local software company), she earned her law degree at the University of North Carolina School of Law (Chapel Hill) in 2002 and was admitted to the South Carolina Bar the same year.
Her legal career has primarily focused on Family Court matters in Charleston, Dorchester, and Berkeley Counties. In 2007, she was certified as a Family Court mediator. She has been honored numerous times for her legal work including as Best Family Law Attorney from Charleston City Paper, Lowcountry Parent Mom’s Choice Award, and Top 10 Attorney Award by National Academy of Family Law Attorneys.
As a mother, she understands the importance of setting up a new family dynamic herself for children to thrive when separation and divorce are imminent.
Colleen served on Charleston County Council from 2005 to 2016, focusing on quality of life issues. She has been recognized for her contributions to the community by League of Women Voters, Forty under 40, SC Equality, The Westies, Best Council Member by City Paper, and Trident Literacy Association.
She is also a civil rights advocate, including having fought for marriage equality and parent equality. Colleen was president of the Alliance for Full Acceptance and remains a Board Member, as well as a member of the National LGBT Bar Family Law Institute.
Colleen and her family attend St. Stephens Episcopal Church.
Colleen enjoys boating the local creeks and rivers. She reads every new mystery thriller by John Sandford, Daniel Silva, and others as soon as they come out. The office aquariums help relax all who visit our office but also remind her of great scuba trips with her adult child.
Condon Law Firm, LLC
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Gregory Forman
Gregory S. Forman is a sole practitioner in Charleston, South Carolina. A 1984 graduate of Haverford College and a 1991 Cum Laude graduate of Temple Law School, Mr. Forman has been a member of the South Carolina Bar since 1992 and practicing family law since 1993. His practices= emphasis is on family law at both the trial court and the appellate level. He has handled over 40 family court appeals, resulting in nine published victories. He is a past president of the South Carolina Bar=s Trial & Appellate Advocacy Committee and has been a mentor to numerous family law attorneys. He has an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell and is a "Super Lawyer" according to SuperLawyers.com. Mr. Forman lectures frequently on Family Law to judges, lawyers, law students, and the general public. He has had 40 articles published on family law in publications including South Carolina Lawyer, the South Carolina Trial Lawyers= Magazine, The Bulletin, the American Bar Association=s Family Advocate, and the American Journal of Family Law. He was on the Board of Editors for the 4th and 5th Editions of Marital Litigation in South Carolina.
Gregory S. Forman, PC
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Guy Vitetta
Guy J. Vitetta has been a practicing
trial lawyer since 1991 and has practiced exclusively family and
divorce law in Charleston since 2002. He has earned a
reputation for excellence in Family law representation and continues to hold
an AV® Peer Rating*, the highest given by Martindale– Hubbell , which was awarded in 2005.
This award is given to an attorney by his/her colleagues to honor their high
regard for his or her professional and ethical skills.
Guy has represented hundreds of clients
in all types of Family Law matters, including:
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divorce
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custody
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child support
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modification of prior orders and
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adoptions
Eleven years as a public defender made
Guy an effective and decisive litigator. His trial
and litigation skills are critical to the evaluation of and
strategic planning in any legal case and when a Family Law case goes to trial,
Guy employs all of those skills.
But a majority of cases involving
families are settled before going to trial. To conduct the process most appropriate to a client’s particular situation ,
Guy draws on extensive experience with all available tools, including:
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litigation
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mediation
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arbitration
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collaborative practice and
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negotiated settlements
Upon seeing the reality of domestic
relations law, Guy saw room for improvement in how family disputes were handled
in South Carolina. He sought alternatives and in 2003 became the first attorney in South Carolina trained in Collaborative Law . He is a founding member and past president of the South Carolina
Academy of Collaborative Professionals . He is also a Certified Family Court Mediator in South
Carolina and co-founded the Mediation and Meeting Center of Charleston.
Guy is seen as a leader in Family Law and has mentored many new lawyers. Guy currently serves as Chair on the Practice and Procedures
Committee of the South Carolina Bar.
Another example of Guy’s leadership is
his dedicated effort to improve the options for managing the financial aspects
of Family Law matters. In early 2016, Guy and colleague Sean Keefer,
released an innovative software program, called
Settlyd.com , for Judges and attorneys in South Carolina to assist in the
organization and secure management of client financial data. Settlyd
improves greatly the collection, calculation, and secure storage of the complex
financial data, which are central to all family legal matters.
Originally
from Philadelphia, PA, Guy graduated from Ohio’s Kenyon
College with a B.A. in history and religion. As a community activist addressing consumer and environmental
issues, Guy decided his most influential avenue for making a difference in the
community was in the practice of law. He
graduated from Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio in 1991.
He worked on appeals for Death Row inmates while clerking in the Death Penalty
Section of the Ohio Public Defender Commission during Law School. He then
served as a Public Defender in Columbus, Ohio for two years and then in
Charleston County, South Carolina for nine years before opening his private
practice in Charleston, South Carolina.
Vitetta Law Group, LLC
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J. Benjamin Stevens
Ben Stevens is a Principal in the Spartanburg, SC office of Offit Kurman, an AmLaw 200 firm with 250 attorneys in 15 offices from New York to South Carolina. His practice is limited to handling complex divorce, child custody, and other family law matters. Ben is a Fellow in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and currently serves as a national Vice President. He is also a Fellow in the International Academy of Family Lawyers and a Board Certified Family Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy.
Ben has been designated as a Super Lawyer in Family Law in multiple years, listed in The Best Lawyers in America©, and held an AV Preeminent Peer Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell for many years. Ben is currently a member of the South Carolina Bar's Board of Governors, and he previously served as Chair of both the South Carolina Bar's Family Law Council and the Family Law Section of the South Carolina Association for Justice.
Ben co-authored Family Law Essentials: A Primer for the Private Practice Before the Family Court in South Carolina, which was published in 2018 by the South Carolina Bar. This comprehensive book not only explains the substantive law and procedure, it also provides tips and pointers for a more efficient and effective family law practice. He has given presentations on family law topics locally, nationally, and internationally.
Ben graduated with honors from Clemson University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Financial Management with a minor in Accounting. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of South Carolina. He and his wife, Jenny, who is also an attorney, are the proud parents of six children, one grandchild, and four cats. In his spare time, he enjoys painting as a hobby.
The Stevens Law Group, LLC
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Jesse Raley
Dr. Jesse Raley is a practicing psychiatrist in Columbia, SC. He has been in private practice since 2011. Dr. Raley currently treats children, adolescents, and adults in the outpatient setting. He also has been a consulting psychiatrist with the Department of Disabilities Special Needs for a decade. Dr. Raley does forensic psychiatric evaluations and consultation for attorneys and courts spanning family court matters as well as other courts as well. He is board-certified in forensic psychiatry, child & adolescent psychiatry, and general psychiatry.
Palmetto Psychiatry Counsultants, LLC
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Lawrence Braunstein
Lawrence Jay Braunstein is a partner in the law firm of Braunstein & Zuckerman, Esqs, in White Plains, New York. His practice includes the areas of Matrimonial and Family Law and related civil and criminal litigation. Since 1985 he has specifically focused his practice in the areas of child custody litigation, including resist/refuse and parental alienation cases and litigation involving allegations of child sexual abuse, physical abuse, and abusive head trauma (shaken baby) in matrimonial, family, and criminal cases.
He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial
Lawyers (AAML), and a Member of the AAML-NY Board of Managers; a Fellow of the
International Academy of Family Lawyers; Member of the National Board of
Directors of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), and Past
Co-President of the NY Chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation
Courts (AFCC-NY). He is a Past Co-Chair of the New York State Bar Association,
Family Law Section, Child Custody Committee; Past Chair of the Westchester
County Bar Association Family Law Section and Past Legal Chair of the New York
State Interdisciplinary Forum on Mental Health and Family Law. He is also a
member of the Board of Directors, and Vice President of the American
Professional Society on the Abuse of Children-N.Y. Chapter; a member of the American
Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC );
and a member of the Expert Faculty of the International Society for Prevention
of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN). He serves on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and
Trauma , and is a contributor to the Journal
of Child Custody .
He regularly lectures as an invited speaker, both nationally and internationally, in the areas of child sexual abuse, physical abuse and abusive head trauma, child custody litigation, refuse/resist dynamics, expert witness testimony, courtroom psychology, trial procedures, and on various other criminal, family and matrimonial law topics to judges, attorneys, medical and mental health professionals, law enforcement personnel (State and Federal), prosecutors (State and Federal), and child protection service personnel.
Since
1999 he has served on the faculty of the New York City Police Department Sex
Crimes and Child Abuse Investigation Course and, since 2014, on the faculty of
the New York City Police Department Homicide Investigator Course. In 2004 he was
the only defense attorney invited by the FBI to participate as a member of the working
group to plan the International Online Child Sexual Victimization Symposium,
and to present to both the working group and the Symposium. In 2008 he was a
faculty member for a course entitled Expert
Witness Testimony presented to the FBI Behavioral Analysis Units. In 2013 he was a member of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) Think Tank on Shared Parenting. He is presently an Adjunct Professor of Law at Hofstra University School of Law, Hempstead, New York. In 2021 he was retained by the Suffolk County (New York) Legislature to conduct an inquiry into the death of Thomas Valva, a 10-year-old boy.
Since 2007 he has been named as one of the “Top Attorneys in the New York Metro Area” as published in the New York Times Magazine’s Super Lawyer Section, and one of the top Twenty-Five “Super Lawyers” in the Westchester County, New York, area. In 2014 he was rated “AV Preeminent” by the Martindale Hubbell Peer Review Ratings, indicating his high level of ethical standards and professional ability, generated from evaluations by other members of the bar and the judiciary in the United States and Canada. Since 2018 he has been included in “Best Lawyers in America” and was voted “Lawyer of the Year” in Family Law for 2022
More information can be obtained at
his website, www.bzesqs.com
Braunstein & Zuckerman
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Timothy Madden
Judge Madden joined
the Family Court bench in 2020 after more than three decades of private
practice. He holds an at-large seat,
and serves the state from his home in Greenville.
As a litigator, he
spent most of his professional time in Family Court. His practice included more than 25 appeals to
the South Carolina Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. He was a Fellow in
the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers where he served in leadership
positions. Colleagues in the bar honored Judge Madden for several years
by voting for his inclusion in Best Lawyers in America, Super
Lawyers, and other publications. He also served multiple
terms in the House of Delegates of the South Carolina Bar.
Judge Madden is an
active faculty member of the National Family Law Trial Institute in Houston,
Texas, where lawyers from across the country spend a week of intensive training
focused on courtroom advocacy. He authored the chapter titled
“Marital Dissolution and Child Custody” of the South Carolina Practice
Manual, and served on the editorial board for the treatise Marital
Litigation.
Before being elected
to the bench, Judge Madden’s public service included the South Carolina
Education Lottery Commission which he chaired for several years, the South
Carolina Transportation Infrastructure Bank board, and the Greenville County
Transportation Committee. His involvement with non-profit
organizations includes board service on the South Carolina Student Loan
Corporation, Welvista, and the Upcountry History Museum.
Judge Madden is a
member of the Board of Trustees of Wofford College, his alma mater. He is one of the organizers and a member of
the South Carolina Family Law Inn of Court.
Judge Madden received the Charles H. Gray, Jr.
Distinguished Service Award from Wofford College, and the Compleat Lawyer Award
from the University of South Carolina Law School Alumni. He is a Liberty
Fellow (2007).
S.C. Family Court
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