The Office of External Affairs invites you to the annual Stout Luncheon:

Landing in the Sweet Spot: How I Accidentally Created the Perfect Job featuring Laura May Grisolano, '98, Founder and President, Bridge Mediation & Leadership Solutions

Grisolano will share lessons learned on her winding path through politics, motherhood, Big Law, mediation and business consulting.

Lunch will be provided.

Please contact Jamie Hillner with any questions at jhillner@uchicago.edu.

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Laura M. Grisolano is the Founder and President of Bridge Mediation & Leadership Solutions LLC, a Chicago-based firm providing an array of dispute resolution, conflict management, and leadership development services for businesses, non-profit organizations, families, and individual clients. In addition to her work as a mediator, Ms. Grisolano offers customized training and coaching programs, including a leadership program for women attorneys and an executive development series utilizing Hogan personality assessments. Breakthroughs in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics inform and strengthen her coaching and management consulting projects.

Before launching Bridge Mediation, Ms. Grisolano practiced law with the Los Angeles office of Sidley Austin LLP, served as a law clerk for US District Court Judge James Moran in Chicago, and worked as a special assistant to then-Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt during and after his presidential campaign.  

A higher education junkie, Ms. Grisolano recently served as an adjunct professor in the Leadership, Ethics, and Values program at North Central College (Naperville, IL), where she taught courses in Mediation, Conflict Resolution, and the Law of Higher Education.  Ms. Grisolano has served on the Board of Trustees for her alma mater Claremont McKenna College since 2006 and now sits on the Executive Committee. She currently serves as a member of The Law School’s 20th Reunion committee for the class of 1998 (and needs to finish making her fundraising calls).  She is also an Instructor for the Leadership Development Institute of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois (WBAI) and regularly serves as a judge for national law student competitions (in mediation, arbitration, and client counseling) sponsored by the American Bar Association. In 2014, she presented a workshop on The Incivility Epidemic for the Association for Conflict Resolution in Chicago, urging ADR professionals to play a larger part in the solution.

Ms. Grisolano earned a B.A. in American Studies from Claremont McKenna College in 1986 and a J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1998, with two daughters in tow.  She was honored to receive the inaugural Donald E. Egan, ’61, Scholarship at the Law School in 1997 and strives to live up to Mr. Egan’s model of integrity and commitment. Ms. Grisolano is one of twelve Law School alumnae building the new Women’s Leadership Network of Chicago.

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This event is made possible through the Stout Family Fund for Women, Entrepreneurship, and the Law, which was established in 2000 by Jon Stout, '71, and Patricia Stout to support and advance women's entrepreneurship at the Law School.