About
Resolution that protects people, not just positions.
Collaborative Concepts was founded by a litigator who spent twenty years watching what the courtroom leaves behind, and decided there was a better way to use the same skills.
Janelle Ryan-Colbert
Founder · Attorney · Mediator
Meet the founder
Twenty years in the courtroom, and what it taught her.
Janelle Ryan-Colbert is a seasoned litigation attorney and legal practitioner with more than 20 years of experience in family law, spousal disputes, estate conflicts, and business and organizational disputes.
As a skilled negotiator and litigator, she has successfully represented clients in high-stakes cases, focusing on creating practical, fair solutions to complex legal matters. Her extensive knowledge of the legal landscape allows her to approach conflict from a strategic standpoint, while never losing sight of healing and resolution.
Two decades in the courtroom also showed her a side of conflict that few people are willing to talk about: the devastation it can leave behind, long after the case is closed.
Traditional litigation is built to produce winners and losers. But most conflicts, even serious ones, aren't that simple. They involve people who will still be connected after the dispute is resolved: co-parents, business partners, siblings, colleagues. What happens during the process shapes what's possible after it. And in Janelle's experience, there are rarely any true "winners" in litigation, only varying degrees of collateral damage.
That realization is what led her to found Collaborative Concepts: a practice built to offer the same strategic, high-caliber legal skill she's honed over her career, applied instead toward resolution that protects people, not just positions.
Credentials
The experience behind the practice.
20+ years in litigation
Family law, spousal disputes, estate conflicts, and business and organizational disputes.
Bar admission
State bar(s) and year admitted, exactly as they should appear.
Mediation credentials
Mediation certifications and who issued them; Maryland court mediator roster (MACRO) if listed; professional memberships.
There are rarely any true winners in litigation, only varying degrees of collateral damage.
— Janelle Ryan-Colbert
Most conflicts involve people who will still be connected after the dispute is resolved: co-parents, business partners, siblings, colleagues. What happens during the process shapes what's possible after it. That is the reason Collaborative Concepts exists.
Where to next
Two ways to see how this works in practice.
Is this your situation?
Separation, parenting, family, workplace, business, nonprofit, school, neighbor. Eight pages, one for each kind of dispute.
See the situationsHow we help
Mediation, negotiation and restorative practices, and the three principles every case is built on.
Our approach