Mark A. Springfield, Family Law Attorney

MARK SPRINGFIELD has had an impressive legal career. After graduating from Wake Forest University with a double major in Economics and French, Mark attended the University of Georgia Law School. He was selected to write for the Georgia Law Review during his second year and was invited to serve on the editorial staff of the Law Review during his third year. Mark graduated from law school cum laude in 1984, passed the bar, and obtained a prestigious two-year clerkship with Judge Harold L. Murphy, U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Georgia.  After the clerkship, Mark came to Raleigh and joined the Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan Law Firm where within nine months he tried his first jury trial in the superior court of North Carolina. During his eleven years at Smith Anderson, Mark represented clients in the federal courts and in the North Carolina superior and district courts in many and varying civil and criminal matters.

In 1998, Mark left Smith Anderson and established his own law firm. In 2002, Mark received his certification as a mediator by the North Carolina Dispute Resolution Commission and began a new chapter in his legal career. After years as a litigation attorney, Mark had grown weary of the cost and destructiveness of litigation as a method for resolving disputes. He decided to stop litigating and restrict his law practice to helping his clients resolve disputes without going to court through mediation and then ultimately through the collaborative-law process.  

He has been a pioneer in the collaborative process since its establishment by the North Carolina legislature in 2003. In the years since that time, Mark has successfully helped hundreds of people navigate the difficulties of divorce without going to court, and he is one of the most experienced collaborative-law attorneys in in the state of North Carolina and in the country.

As a result of seeing the importance of solid financial planning as part of the collaborative process for divorce, Mark studied to become a financial planner and received a CFP® certification in 2010. Therefore, Mark in also available as a neutral financial specialist to guide couples through the financial portion of their collaborative divorce.

Mark helped to found Separating Together, a collaborative practice organization whose participating professionals, like Mark, are dedicated to helping couples and their families access the North Carolina collaborative family-law alternative and find more peaceful and long-lasting resolutions for differences that arise during the process of separating and divorcing.  Mark serves as president of Separating Together.

Mark is always honored and grateful when he is given the privilege of supporting and working with someone going through the painful and difficult process of divorce. His clients likewise appreciate Mark’s calm demeanor, his careful listening, and skill at facilitating solutions even when there is significant conflict.

Client Feedback:

Your compassion is one of your gifts, along with your strong intellect. And you are so calming to be near. I am so grateful to you for all you did to help me through the transition. You are a bright light on this planet.
-- Anita

I appreciate your team’s approach to divorce, the traditional approach should be outlawed. I have recommended your service to others and will continue to do so. Thank you for sitting with me during this process, both you and my ex-husband’s attorney did great work. I don’t imagine many folks getting divorced feel gratitude towards their spouse’s attorney.
-- Rose

I appreciate your ability to stay calm in the midst of emotional turmoil. Best wishes to you in your life and work. I’ll recommend the process and you to others.
-- Ron

I’m grateful to you for your continued guidance through this process which has been helpful not just emotionally and legally, but spiritually as well . . .. I want to thank you for your council, for the kindness and wisdom which you brought to me in times of great confusion and frustration and anger. Thank you for reminding me about who I am (or who I’d like to be!) and of my values and of the long term hopes when the short term solutions seemed “simpler.”
-- Michael

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and federally registered CFP (with flame design) in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board’s initial and ongoing certification requirements.