Bobbie O'Keefe - Collaborative Family Law Council of Central Ohio

Bobbie O'Keefe
830 East Johnstown Road, Suite B
Gahanna, Ohio 43230
Tele: 614-414-0572
Fax: 614-414-0573
Email Me

Bobbie Corley O’Keefe has been practicing law in Ohio since 1992. After receiving her Bachelor’s Degree in English from Miami University, Bobbie worked in the communications field for both the public (mental health) and private (health insurance) sectors. During that time, Bobbie received an extensive amount of para-professional training in various mental health related issues, including alcoholism and drug addiction, family systems, child development, suicide and domestic violence. She volunteered for a number of years for a community crisis hotline. Bobbie believes this experience deepened her empathy and understanding of families in crisis, especially for children and parents going through divorce.

In 1989 Bobbie decided to go back to school and attended Capital University Law School. She graduated in 1992 with honors as an inductee into the Order of the Curia. While in law school she became very interested in alternative dispute resolution and took her first mediation class. She then worked part-time through law school as a mediator in the Bad Check Division of the Columbus City Prosecutor’s Office. Since that time, Bobbie has taken a broad range of basic and advanced mediation training, as well as basic and advanced collaborative skills programs, to include the following:

Effective Legal Negotiation and Settlement Workshop, Columbus Bar Association, Columbus, Ohio (1994)
Mediation Training/Settlement Week (Franklin County Court of Common Pleas), Columbus, Ohio (1995)
Basic Mediation Training, Conflict Management Services, Columbus, Ohio (1996)
Advanced Mediation, Conflict Management Services, Columbus, Ohio (1998)
Dispute Resolution for Government Attorneys, Columbus, Ohio (1998)
Divorce Mediation (40 hour course), Conflict Management Services, Columbus, Ohio (2000)
Collaborative Family Law (2-day program), John L. McElwee, Lebanon, Ohio (2002)
Advanced Mediation (Identifying Issues and Interests), Conflict Management Services, Columbus, Ohio (2003)
Advanced Mediation (Transformative), Conflict Management Services, Columbus, Ohio (2003).
Annual Convention, Association of Conflict Resolution (attended numerous advanced mediation workshops), Orlando, FL (2003).
Advanced Collaborative Training, Nancy Cameron J.D. and Susan Gamache, Ph.D., Cincinnati, Ohio (2004)
Advanced Collaborative Training, Ellen Kay Douglas, Ph.D., Columbus, Ohio (2005)
Advanced Mediation Training, Ohio Mediation Association, Dr. Larry Fong, Columbus, Ohio (2008)
Advanced Collaborative Law Training (3-day program), Pepperdine College of Law, Pauline Tesler, Woodstock, VT (2008)

Bobbie has recently been inducted into the 2009 Fellows Class of the Ohio State Bar Foundation. Membership in the foundation is extended only to lawyers whose careers have demonstrated their dedication to the highest ideals of the legal profession and the welfare of their community. Bobbie’s other professional memberships include the Ohio State Bar Association and its Family Law Committee, the Columbus Bar Association and its Family Law Committee, Columbus Divorce Professionals, Inc. (serving in different capacities on the Board of Directors, including past-President), Ohio Mediation Association and the International Academy of Collaborative Attorneys. For several years she was on the adjunct faculty of Columbus State Community College and taught Legal Research and Writing. She has also been a speaker for the local and state bar on collaborative law and alternative dispute resolution techniques in child custody and divorce.

Bobbie’s office is in Gahanna, close to her home where she lives with her husband, three children, and two dogs.