When a couple has children, and they are getting divorced, they set up a child custody schedule to determine where their children will sleep at night. But what happens when spouses have a bird? Will a Tampa Bay divorce judge set up a “bird custody” schedule?
Bird Custody
No, a judge will not create a bird custody schedule, but a couple can agree to such a schedule through a private form of dispute resolution such as collaborative divorce.
Financial advisers are tasked with protecting their clients’ wealth. And financial advisers want to help clients going through divorce make smart decisions and preserve their assets. On December 8, 2016, the professionals and staff of the Sabal Trust Company in St. Petersburg, Florida, learned how collaborative divorce can safeguard their clients’ wealth, time, and privacy.
Sarah Hoerber, Tanya O’Connor, and Adam B. Cordover at Sabal Trust Company
Sabal Trust is the largest employee-owned trust company in Florida, and its Principals and staff are invested in creating a strategic approach to its clients financial security and growth. That is why they invited Family Diplomacy managing attorney Adam B. Cordover along with forensic accountant Sarah Hoerber and Brandon attorney Tanya O’Connor to discuss collaborative divorce.
Anthony Mazzola
BUL 3310 – 0002
November 23rd, 2016
For this assignment, I had the pleasure of interviewing Adam Cordover. Mr. Cordover practices in Family Law and works for a company named Family Diplomacy: A Collaborative Law Firm. During the interview, I received a lot of great insight on a new field of law that I have never heard of before, and overall had a great, memorable experience. I mostly used the sample interview questions for this assignment, but I also added a few of my own as I listened to his responses.
-Why did you become an attorney?
“I became an attorney because I like to figure things out. I was always good with puzzles and it seemed like the law was encoded and used all of these complicated terms. I wanted to get to know what all these terms meant and how to decode these terms. Going through law school and becoming a lawyer has helped me out on that.” This response was really interesting to me because most of the time the answer to this question is to help better society or help people out, which is also true for Mr. Cordover as mentioned later, but the idea of law being like a complicated puzzle was a very interesting point to me.
-What type of law do you practice?
“I practice collaborative family law. What that means is that I help families who are going through divorce and other family law matters outside of court. I am not a divorce trial attorney. I practice exclusively out of court dispute resolution.“
If you are separating from your spouse and you are grieving, you are not alone.
In the video below, Canadian divorce lawyer Brian Galbraith discusses the pain he went through during his own divorce.
George Melendez is a close friend and colleague of mine here in Tampa, Florida. He is an attorney who, like me, has a firm belief that most families can resolve their disputes outside of court, and he is a strong proponent of collaborative family law.
In a recent post, George laid out his philosophy on collaborative practice and wellness. You can find a portion of the post below.
Divorce court here in Florida is a terrible way to resolve disputes. Divorce litigation is an adversarial proceeding where husband is pitted against wife, mother is pitted against father.
And it is the children who end up suffering the most.
But don’t take my word for it. Tampa psychologist Stephanie Moulton Sarkis writes about the consequences of high conflict divorce on children:
Tampa attorney Adam B. Cordover lead a workshop at the 17th Annual Educational and Networking Forum of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (“IACP”). The Forum took place in Lake Las Vegas, Nevada, and was attended by hundreds of attorneys, mental health professionals, financial professionals, mediators, and other supportive of helping families resolve disputes respectfully and privately via the collaborative process.
Cordover lead the workshop alongside Barrie, Ontario lawyer Brian Galbraith and Seattle, Washington attorney Kevin Scudder. The program was called “Collaborative Multiverse,” and the idea was to lead a townhall-style debate and discussion among experienced collaborative practitioners on issues affecting collaborative practice.
Brian Galbraith, Adam B. Cordover, and Kevin Scudder at the 17th Annual IACP Forum (2016)
One topic that was discussed was determining the best collaborative model to use for each particular family. Different parts of the world predominantly use different arrangements of professionals to resolve divorce and other issues. In Florida, the main model that is used is known as the Neutral Facilitator model, where each party has an attorney, a neutral facilitator with a mental health licensure helps with parenting issues and ensures discussions are future-focused, and a neutral financial professional aids in creating family budgets and ensures financial transparency and disclosure.
One of the great things about collaborative law is that families are not handcuffed by the over-scheduled dockets of judges, nor are they bound by the confines of the overcrowded courthouse. This provides families and professionals with a lot of freedom on how, when, and where they make long-lasting decisions and resolve disputes.
Still, it can sometimes be daunting to organize meetings around the busy lives of spouses and practitioners. Here are four tools to help communication in collaborative cases, and the best part is that do not cost a dime.
One of the toughest initial tasks of any collaborative divorce case is to find a time that works for all of the professionals to plan out how to best help out the family. Similarly, carving a time that also works for both spouses for the first full team meeting adds two more calendars to consider.
Fortunately, Doodle provides an easy and free way to help coordinate schedules. Simply go to their website, provide some basic information such as title for the event, location, description, your name, and your e-mail address, and then fill out a grid for all of the proposed dates and times of your meeting. Next, provide the e-mail addresses of the people with whom you need to schedule, and Doodle will send out a message inviting everyone to fill out the grid. Every time someone responds, you will get a notification, and Doodle will indicate the date(s) and time(s) that works best for everyone. If no time and date works for everyone, simply create another Doodle.
I have found that in person meetings are generally the best way to communicate in collaborative cases. However, in person meetings are not always possible, and sometimes they are not desirable.
In May 2016, Tampa hosted the 4th Annual Conference of the Florida Academy of Collaborative Professionals. The conference ended up being the largest gathering of collaboratively-trained attorneys, mental health professionals, and financial professionals in the organization’s history.
You can find a video of highlights of the conference after the jump.
The World of Collaborative Practice Magazine is an online forum for collaborative professionals to write about news as well as the latest trends in collaborative practice. On September 15, 2016, the Magazine published the transcript of an iHeart radio interview from here in Tampa of a father discussing his collaborative divorce. The father, “Claire,” appeared with his collaborative attorney Julia Best Chase, along with Family Diplomacy managing attorney Adam B. Cordover, who represented Clair’s wife.
You can find a portion of the article reproduced after the jump.
