Gisele M. Goetz brings 39 years of diverse experience in business, legal, and mediation to Hollister & Brace. As well as bringing a wealth of litigation and transactional experience to the firm, she is responsible for developing the firm’s Mediation Section.
Gisele has been practicing law since 1985. Her practice has included advising individuals, corporations and partnerships. During her career she has handled many complex business and real property disputes as well as disputes involving insurance, title insurance, environmental issues, energy, oil and gas, water, shareholder disagreements (including a dispute in the Chancery Court of Delaware), partnership disputes, trade secret litigation, construction, employment and contract disputes.
Gisele also handles complex business and real property transactions including the negotiation of the abandonment of oil & gas wells, cost sharing arrangements, the joint operations of oil & gas properties, development agreements between commercial and residential developers and oil and gas producers, and the purchase and sale of oil and gas interests.
Gisele has advised boards of directors, management, and staff on ongoing operations, litigation, and human resource issues. Gisele’s wealth of experience includes serving as outside counsel to a water agency which she says makes her a “water nerd”. She has also worked in-house in the oil and gas industry as general counsel to a large independent producer, and advised oil and gas companies on their operations in California.
For the last five years, Gisele has served as a mediator for the Santa Barbara and Ventura Courts and has served as a private mediator. Gisele mediates a wide range of disputes including business, personal injury, landlord tenant, oil & gas, real property, construction and water. She is on the mediation panels of the Ventura and Santa Barbara courts, the Conflict Resolution Institute, and the California Association of Realtors.
Gisele teaches Real Property law at the Ventura College of the Law and participates with colleagues from Pepperdine, CSU Channel Islands to teach a Mediation Certification course several times a year through the Conflict Resolution Institute. Gisele teaches negotiation strategies and the negotiation process. She also is a guest lecturer on the alternative dispute resolution process for a CPA course at UCSB.