Last Day for Ron Ousky Tampa Advanced Collaborative Training Early Bird Pricing!

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Former International Academy of Collaborative Professionals President Ron Ousky is coming to sunny Tampa, Florida, March 4-5, 2016, for an advanced training on

Promises and Challenges:

Maintaining High Aspirations and Reasonable Expectations

(Strategies for getting the most out of promising collaborative cases and for achieving acceptable outcomes in the challenging cases)

If you are an attorney, mediator, financial professional, or mental health professional who is interested in increasing the quality of your collaborative law practice, then you should register immediately as today (Friday, January 29) is the last day to receive the early bird pricing.  The training is hosted by Next Generation Divorce.

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Name Change

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If you live in Tampa Bay, Greater Sarasota, or elsewhere in Florida and you are looking to change your legal name, Family Diplomacy: A Collaborative Law Firm can help you.  Whether you seek to correct your birth certificate, honor a loved one, or turn a new leaf in life, Family Diplomacy will sit down with you and set a plan for moving forward.

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Jennifer Gunnin Guest Speaker at Collaborative Staff Training

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Family Diplomacy is proud to announce that our own paralegal, Jennifer Gunnin, is scheduled to be a guest speaker at a unique collaborative training geared towards managing attorneys and staff: Managing Your Collaborative Practice for Passion & Profit.  The training is hosted by Joryn Jenkins of Open Palm Law and also includes a guest appearance by internationally renowned collaborative lawyer and mediator Forrest (Woody) Mosten.

Managing Your Collaborative Practice for Passion & Profit is taking place this Friday, January 22, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time at the Hillsborough County Bar Association building, located at 1610 North Tampa Street, Tampa, Florida 33602.  Registrants may also attend via live stream over the internet.

Below is from a recent flyer:

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Next Generation Divorce Honors Hillsborough Judge Ashley Moody

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As one of my last duties as president of Next Generation Divorce, I had the opportunity to induct Judge Ashley Moody of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit as an Honorary Member of the collaborative practice group at our December holiday party.  Judge Moody, based out of the Edgecomb Courthouse in Tampa, Florida, has been a strong supporter of the use of collaborative family law as a method to help families resolve issues related to divorce and other matters in a private, nonadversarial, and respectful setting.

Judge Moody’s induction into Next Generation Divorce was announced in the January 15th edition of the Florida Bar News:

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Video 3: Catherine Conner on Structuring A Collaborative Practice Group

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In a series of videos for Cutting Edge Law taped in 2008, leading collaborative lawyer Catherine Conner discusses creating, building, and structuring a collaborative practice group.  Catherine Conner is one of the founders and a former president of the Collaborative Council of the Redwood Empire, a collaborative practice group out of California, and Catherine would go on to become president of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals.

A collaborative practice group is a network of independent professionals dedicated to helping people resolve disputes outside of court via the collaborative process.  The collaborative process is a form of alternative dispute resolution where each party has an attorney, and the parties sign a written agreement that says that their attorneys will only be focused on resolving their dispute privately; the attorneys cannot be used by the parties to fight in court against one another.

Some collaborative practice groups only have attorneys as members, while other practice group are interdisciplinary and also include mental health professionals and financial professionals.  Some practice groups promote the use of the collaborative process in all sorts of civil matters such as employment law, contract disputes, business dissolution, medical malpractice, or other matters, while other practice groups focus on one area of the law, such as family law.

You can find Catherine’s video on structuring a collaborative practice group after the jump:

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Video 2: Catherine Conner on Building a Collaborative Practice Group

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Before Catherine Conner was president of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, she was the president of the Redwood Empire collaborative practice group, one of the leading practice groups in the nation.  In 2008, Catherine taped a series of videos for Cutting Edge Law on creating and building a collaborative practice group.

You can find video 2 of 3 after the jump (and video 1 here and video 3 here):

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Video: Catherine Conner on Creating A Collaborative Practice Group

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A collaborative practice group is a network of independent professionals who promote the use of the collaborative process to resolve disputes outside of court.  A practice group is similar to a local bar association (i.e. Hillsborough County Bar Association, St. Pete Bar Association, etc.), in that it provides an opportunity for professionals to get to know one another and to increase their skills so that they can better serve clients.  Practice groups are oftentimes also used to help educate the public about this form of alternative dispute resolution that is most often utilized in divorce and family law matters.

In 2008, Cutting Edge Law interviewed Catherin Conner, a California attorney and immediate past president of the Redwood Empire practice group, on creating a practice group.  You can find part 1 of 3 videos after the jump (and 2 of 3 here and 3 of 3 here; the other video will come in later posts and are also available on the Cutting Edge Law website):

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Pasco Adoption Judge Retires

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Sixth Circuit Unified Family Court Judge William R. Webb enjoyed his last day on the bench granting adoptions.  From the Tampa Tribune:

NEW PORT RICHEY – He just as easily could have spent the day romping with his 2½-year-old grandson or reading the novel he never had time to open while serving as a circuit court judge for the Sixth Judicial Circuit.

Instead, Judge William Webb, 67, spent New Year’s Eve, the first day of his retirement, at the Pasco County Courthouse — officiating at the adoption of a group of children he had shepherded through the court system.

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Do You Need A Divorce Second Opinion?

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As the New Year is upon us, many people are reflecting upon the past year and determining what changes need to be made for the coming year.  If you have been going through a tough, litigious divorce in Florida in 2015, perhaps it is time to reassess your divorce strategy and divorce process.

According to the traditional family law model, divorce is a zero-sum game where each party hires attack dog lawyers. The lawyers not only show their client in a positive light but also tear the other party down.  Traditional divorce lawyers engage in damaging opposition research, through depositions, interrogatories, requests for production of documents and things, and requests for admissions.  Of course, the other attorney defends against opposition research with objections, motions for protective orders, and discovery requests in response.

Traditional divorce lawyers then set public hearings on motions to compel, motions for contempt, and motions for attorneys’ fees and costs.  Even after these motions are heard, parties may still be years away from a final trial.

Does this sound familiar?  Are you unhappy about the path that your divorce has taken?  If so, you may want to consider getting a second opinion on your divorce.

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