About Kate W.
Kate W. Haakonsen built a legal career that began in classrooms and moved quickly into partnership. She earned a B.A. from Ursinus College in 1975 and a J.D. from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 1978. Those degrees set the stage for decades of work in family law, mediation and collaborative practice.
She entered private practice soon after law school as a partner at Peck Haakonsen & McChristian. Over the next two decades she changed firm affiliations as the business of law evolved. In 1990 she joined Gussak, Jacobson, Silver & McChristian as a partner. By 1995 she had become a senior partner at Brown Paindiris & Scott LLP. Those roles reflect a steady movement into leadership positions at firms that handled family law matters and alternative dispute resolution.
Haakonsen’s professional interests pushed her toward non-adversarial approaches to family conflict. She has been a member of the Connecticut Council for Non-Adversarial Divorce since its founding in 1995. She joined the Connecticut Collaborative Divorce Group in 2004 and served as its treasurer. She is active in both state and international collaborative organizations, holding memberships in Connecticut Collaborative Professionals since 2009 and the International Association of Collaborative Professionals since 2006. In 2014 she added an advanced mediator affiliation through the Academy of Professional Family Mediators.
Her involvement in bar associations runs deep. Haakonsen has been a member of the Connecticut Bar Association since 1978 and has served as chair of its Family Section. She has also been active in the Hartford County Bar Association since 1978 and has served on its board. Those positions placed her in the middle of policy conversations about family law practice and court processes at the county and state level.
Colleagues and clients have known her for a practical approach to resolving disputes. She has spent much of her career helping families consider options beyond litigation, whether through mediation, collaborative divorce or negotiated settlements. She is comfortable in court when cases require it, and she routinely helps parties prepare for settlement conferences and mediated sessions.
She maintains a Hartford office and a main office and continues to engage in mediation and collaborative practice. Her current practice focuses on family law matters handled through mediation and collaborative processes.
