Frances Fite has been practicing law in Northern Virginia for over twenty-five years, always having concentrated her practice in the area of Family Law. Since 1991 she has also been active as a mediator in family law cases. She began her practice of law as an associate in the Law Offices of Betty A. Thompson in 1975, before starting her own law firm in 1978.
Ms. Fite was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She first came to Virginia as a college freshman, and graduated with honors from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in 1961 with a degree in Mathematics. She graduated from George Washington University law school in 1975, where she received her Juris Doctor. She was admitted to the Virginia State Bar in 1975. After practicing family law for several years, Ms. Fite became interested in finding more peaceful means of handling divorce matters, and while continuing her law practice she commenced her mediation training in the early 1980s. Ms. Fite first became certified by the Virginia Supreme Court as a Mediator in 1993 and she has since been recertified every two years in order to maintain her "Circuit Court - Family" mediation certification with the Virginia Supreme Court. Ms. Fite currently does her mediation work through her affiliation with the McCammon Group, a statewide consortium of Virginia mediation professionals.
Collaborative Law is now another alternative available to parties who wish to settle divorce matters in a private, respectful manner. By creating an atmosphere of open communication and cooperation, the Collaborative Law process allows both parties to preserve their dignity while they work toward a settlement that works for everyone involved. Ms. Fite and the other lawyers at Fite, O'Brien & Anderson have embraced this new alternative. With the firm, Ms. Fite represents clients who are participating in the mediation process with other mediators as well as clients who choose to go through the divorce process via the collaborative law process. She has had Martindale Hubbell's top AV rating since the early 1990s.
Ms. Fite was a founding member of the McLean Bar Association, served as its president in 1983 and continues to serve as a board member. She also served as a member of the board of directors of the Fairfax Bar Association from 1986 through 1993. She is a member of the Family Law sections of the American Bar Association (ABA), the Virginia State Bar (VSB) and the Fairfax Bar, and is a member of the Dispute Resolution Section of the ABA. She currently serves as a Council Member of the Virginia Joint Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution, on which she has served since 1993. In the area of Collaborative Practice, Ms. Fite is a member of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP), a current board member and former co-chair of the Collaborative Professionals of Northern Virginia (CPNV) practice group, and was a founding member of and maintains current membership in the Virginia Collaborative Professionals (VaCP), a state-wide organization of collaborative professionals in Virginia.
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