Mediation Training Faculty


Carl D. Schneider, Ph.D.
As the primary trainer for the workshop, Carl has trained several thousand divorce mediators in the United States and abroad. Currently Director of Mediation Matters, Bethesda, Maryland, Carl is a registered psychologist, licensed clinical Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Mediator with the Maryland Council on Dispute Resolution and with the Supreme Court of Virginia, and an Advanced Practitioner Member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR). Carl is the former Director (1981-1989) of Divorce Mediation Service, a group practice of 16 mediators in the Chicago area, and former Director of the Mediation Program of Woodbury College in Montpelier, Vermont. He has been on the Board of Directors of the national Academy of Family Mediators, and has been the chair of the Certification Committee for the Maryland Council on Dispute Resolution. Carl is author of Shame, Exposure and Privacy (Norton, 1992) and has served on the editorial board of Mediation Quarterly. He holds a M. Div. degree from Union Theological Seminary in N.Y.C. and a Ph.D. from Harvard University.


Sharon Pickett, MA		 Sharon has worked as a family mediator since 1999. She is a certified mediator with the Maryland Council on Dispute Resolution and serves as a Reviewer on MCDR’s Certification Committee. She is a Practitioner Member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR), the national association of mediators and conflict resolution professionals, and serves as Associate Editor of the ACR quarterly magazine and as a consultant to the CEO.

Sharon brings more than 30 years experience in education and communications to her role as a mediator. She holds a masters degree from Dartmouth College where she was also a Lecturer in Education and Assistant Dean of Students. Since 1997, she has directed Sharon Pickett & Associates, a consulting firm that provides mediation, communications consulting, and coaching for clients nationwide. Sharon co-mediates and co-trains with Carl Schneider.


Lois H. Stovall, J.D.
Lois earned her living as a full-time divorce mediator in private practice in Silver Spring, Maryland, for many years before working as a custody mediator in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Maryland.  A former domestic trial attorney, licensed in North Carolina, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., she has lectured at American University Law School, the Graduate Program at University of Maryland, and on numerous occasions as an Instructor for both the State of Maryland Continuing Legal Education Institute and Montgomery County C.L.E.I. Lois has been on the board of the Family and Juvenile Law Section for the Maryland State Bar Association. Among many activities, she has testified on numerous occasions before the State legislature representing the State Bar on family-related legislation. The former managing partner of the law firm of Harper, Connette & Stovall in Charlotte, N.C., Lois has been a partner in three small businesses and was a practitioner Member of the Academy of Family Mediators.