Tag Archive for: collaborative family law

Collaborative Training for Family Law Staff

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When a potential client calls your firm, who is the first person with whom she speaks?  When a potential clients arrives at your office, who is the first person that he sees?  If you are a collaboratively-trained attorney, mental health professional, financial professional, or mediator, there is a good chance that your staff is the first voice that a potential client hears, the first face that a potential client sees.

How is that staff member representing you?  Is that first interaction being used as an opportunity to familiarize the client with the term “collaborative practice?”

Joryn Jenkins

Those first interactions are but one of the many different skills that a friend and mentor of mine, Joryn Jenkins, will discuss in her unique collaborative training geared towards professional staff.

The training will take place in Tampa, Florida, on January 22, and it will also be streamed live for professional staff that is outside of the area.

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A Friendly Divorce in Tampa Bay

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Have you had friends or family members who have gone through a War of the Roses divorce?  These are divorces where each spouse hires a “pit bull” attorney, they both engage in a scorched earth strategy, and they try to win at all costs, even as both of them tend to lose.

If you do know people who have experienced this, you have probably wondered whether divorce needs to be this way.  Is there an alternative?  Is there a friendly divorce?

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Video: Separating Together

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A collaborative practice group out of North Carolina called Separating Together has put together an excellent video that emphasizes that divorce is not only a legal process, but it is also an emotional, logistical, and financial process.

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You can see the video below:

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A Low Profile Divorce for High Profile People

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We see it in the news and magazines all of the time.  Publicly available divorce documents accuse a celebrity of secretly supporting a child born out of wedlock.  Sports figures’ assets and judgment become public spectacles.  Politicians and their spouses lob accusations at each other for all to see.  Businessmen’s private details and dirty laundry end up as front page stories.

Fortunately, your divorce does not need to be in the public eye.

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Potential Drawbacks to Collaborative Divorce

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I strongly believe that the vast majority of Tampa Bay spouses who are considering divorce would be best served by engaging in the collaborative divorce process, where attorneys are used as problem-solvers rather than gunslingers. Decisions such as where children will sleep at night are made by parents rather than judges, and interactions between the parents are private and confidential rather than public and discoverable by their children in the future.

And yet, I would be remiss if I were to not underscore that there are potential disadvantages to the collaborative divorce process.  In fact, in 2009, the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution, Collaborative Law Committee Informed Consent Subcomittee published its draft Suggested Protocols to Obtain Clients’ Informed Consent to Use a Collaborative Process.

From the Suggested Protocols, families who are considering the collaborative process should know the following:

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Video: Collaborative Practice in Brazil

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Collaborative divorce is a relatively new concept in Tampa.  It is counterintuitive to think that attorneys would promote a concept that keeps divorcing spouses out of court.  Further, who would think that attorneys would be willing to take a step back, and allow (i) mental health professionals to take the lead in emotional divorce discussions and (ii) financial professionals to be the point people on the division of assets and debts and other support topics.

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And, yet, that is what collaborative lawyers do.

Collaborative practice is growing around the world, including in Brazil.  Below is a video in Portuguese that discusses collaborative divorce in Brazil:

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Video: Stu Webb’s Collaborative Divorce & Jazz

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Stu Webb is an attorney from Minnesota who one day decided that he no longer wanted to be involved in the destruction of divorce court, and so he created collaborative divorce.  Collaborative divorce is a private process where spouses become teammates rather than opposing parties, and attorneys focus on problem-solving rather than fighting.

Oftentimes accountants, psychologists, financial planners, therapists, and others are used to make sure that not just the legal needs, but also the emotional and financial needs of the spouses are met.

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Collaborative Divorce has become more common here in Tampa Bay as families and attorneys realize that the court system should be seen as a forum of last resort, rather than first resort, to resolve personal issues.

Now, as it turns out, Stu Webb is not only the founder of collaborative divorce, but he is also an avid fan of Jazz.  You can find a short video he helped create comparing collaborative divorce to jazz after the jump.

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Money Talk 1010 AM: Mediation Divorce and Collaborative Divorce

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I recently had the opportunity to appear on Money Talk 1010 AM on the “Let’s Talk Law” Radio Program.

I was joined by Pasco and Pinellas family law attorney Audrey Jefferis, and we discussed, among other things, the similarities and differences between mediation divorce and collaborative divorce.  The radio program, which you can listen to after the jump, was recorded in the St. Petersburg studios of Beasely Broadcasting.

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Radio: Can Therapy Save A Marriage?

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I recently attended the 16th Annual Forum of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, and I had the opportunity to attend a workshop led by Gary Direnfeld, a social worker and collaborative professional in Ontario, Canada.  He was an excellent speaker and was discussing cutting edge ideas on helping families.

Gary was recently on a radio program to discuss an age-old question: Can therapy help save a marriage?

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Video: 25 Years of Collaborative Divorce

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Collaborative divorce and family law began 25 years ago, in 1990, when a Minnesota attorney named Stu Webb decided that he simply no longer wanted to be part of an adversarial divorce process.  He strongly felt that divorce did not belong in the court system: decisions about where children should sleep at night should be made by the parents, and discussions of financial issues should happen around a private conference room table rather than in a public courtroom.

And so, he developed collaborative divorce, where parties agree from the very beginning that their collaborative attorneys cannot be used to fight it out in the court system.

The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals has put out a video commemorating 25 years of collaborative practice.  You can find the video below the jump.

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