Peter D. Axelrod – Divorce Attorney

Credentials, Experience & Values

A University of Michigan Law School graduate, Peter D. Axelrod has practiced exclusively in the field of divorce and family law for the past 25 years. His experience includes trial work, collaborative divorce, and mediation. 

Peter Axelrod Divorce Attorney

Peter believes that the personal nature of family law requires a great deal more from a domestic relations attorney. After practicing for a number of years, and in order to better respond to his clients needs, Peter earned a Master’s Degree in Counseling and Guidance from the University of Arizona. His counseling experience has helped him understand family relationships and ensured skillful communications with clients and opposing attorneys.

The focus of Peter’s family law practice is to help clients:

  • Maintain strong ties with their children during and after the divorce
  • Secure their financial future
  • Gain more control over the divorce negotiations
  • Use collaborative and cooperative strategies to resolve issues
  • Complete their divorce efficiently and in less time
  • Find the tools to facilitate the ability to move on with their new lives
  • Encourage skillful communication
  • Become educated and informed during all stages of the divorce process
  • Ascertain what they need to move on in their new lives

While it is necessary to proceed to trial when reasonable settlement proposals are rejected, Peter has seen firsthand the difficulties and additional burdens the traditional adversary system can present to clients. After taking hundreds of contested domestic cases to court over the years, Peter has found that many Tucson divorce and mediation clients could be better served by providing them with a more collaborative approach to reaching divorce settlements.

In accord with his desire to help institutionalize a more cooperative negotiating process, Peter helped organize and became a founding member of the Collaborative Law Group of Southern Arizona (CLGSA). The attorney-members of this groundbreaking legal consortium offer a collaborative-based settlement process to divorcing spouses.

Divorce Mediation is another desirable alternative for parties who wish to settle their legal differences without going to trial. Peter is a skilled and experienced mediator and trainer in this form of dispute resolution. Many of Arizona’s mediators have completed the 40-hour divorce mediation training program designed by Peter and Phoenix mediator Joan Tobin.

Curriculum Vitae

  • Member, Arizona State Bar
  • Master’s Degree, Counseling & Guidance, University of Arizona
  • Member, Domestic Relations Section, Arizona State Bar
  • Member, Domestic Relations Section, Pima County Bar
  • Founding Member, Collaborative Law Group of Southern Arizona
  • Graduate, University of Michigan Law School
  • Past President, Mediation Association of Southern Arizona
  • Trainer, 40-hour divorce mediation course
  • Chapter Co-Author, Handling Child Custody Cases (Shepard’s/McGraw-Hill, Inc.)
  • Author, “Beyond the Law”, Arizona State Bar Journal
  • Author, “Divorce Mediation”, Arizona State Bar Journal

I had learned the true practice of law.
I had learned to find out the better side of human nature and to enter my clients’ hearts.
I realized that the true function of a lawyer is to unite parties riven asunder.
The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases.
I lost nothing thereby.
Not even money; certainly not my soul.

Mohandas Gandhi

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