Yes, it's great coverage in the sense that it's a message that will be read
nationally and it doesn't mangle the core elements of collaborative
practice. And given what the existing picture of divorce is like, here and
in Canada, it will very likely lead clients to be interested in talking
with collaborative lawyers.
However, if you read the comments to the post, you get the clear sense
that it's now time to roll up the sleeves and get a more nuanced message out
there.
The story and the reader posts all come from a very constrained "litigation
matrix" perspective, in which getting signatures on legal papers is the sole
agenda, and reducing collateral damage is the identified benefit of
collaboration. That's important, and good, but it's the least of it in my
mind. To my mind, the power of CP doesn't reside in what it avoids, nor
its speed or cost. The real virtue of the process is the transformed
understanding of what goals professional services in a divorce can help a
couple/family aspire to and achieve, and from that perspective CP is
different in kind, not just degree, from what's preceded it.
We are able, in an integrated team collaborative model, to facilitate a
transformation of the family system from one dysfunctional household, to two
households that can provide the highest quality parenting of the children
that this particular couple is willing to aspire to and capable of achieving
with skilled team support during the "opening" that is the flip side and
silver lining of the suffering of a divorce. to get there requires deeper
and broader conversations, based on a richer base of fact and feeling, than
any of the cour-annexed models I've ever seen aims for or achieves. In the
process, a deeper and more durable resolution of conflict can be achieved,
not always, but often enough, when the couple is committed and the team is
skillful. and the individual adults often come out of the divorce with a
sense of integrity and with an enhanced ability to move through the
high-stress post-divorce period in ways that foster health.
This is a far more complex message than what lawyer Epstein is talking about
when he says,
"I believe that the system works better if the lawyer has reasonable control
over the process (mediation.) Collaborative law believes the client should
be in control. One of the advantages of a lawyer is that I'm objective about
the outcome." His focus is lawyer centric, and is all about a piece of
paper that slices and dices and divides up measurable widgets. And he's
wrong about the "client being in control." That is a very simplistic
understanding of what collaborative practice is, or can be, about.
Pauline H. Tesler
Tesler, Sandmann & Fishman
163 Miller Avenue, Suite 4
Mill Valley, California 94941
Telephone: (415)383-5600
Facsimile: (415)383-5675
Web:
www.teslercollaboration.com
www.collaborativedivorcebook.com
www.collaborativepracticesfbay.com
Blog:
http://www.collaborativedivorcenews.com
This message may include privileged lawyer-client communications. If you are
not the intended recipient, please delete and destroy all copies, and notify
this office.
Please do not send confidential information via email unless you are already
an established client. No legal advice can be given via email except to
established clients.
Thank you.
On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 6:15 AM, Gary Direnfeld
<gary@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
Great article on Collaborative Law in Canada's largest daily newspaper:
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/578198
Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW
Interaction Consultants and I Promise Program Inc.
20 Suter Crescent,
Dundas, Ontario, Canada L9H 6R5
(905) 628-4847
gary@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <gary%40yoursocialworker.com>
Parenting: www.yoursocialworker.com
Teen safe driving: www.ipromiseprogram.com
Gary Direnfeld is a social worker and expert on matters of family life.
Courts in Ontario, Canada, have deemed Gary an expert on child development,
parent-child relations, marital and family therapy, custody and access
recommendations, social work and an expert for the purpose of giving a
critique on a Section 112 (social work) report.
Services include counselling, mediation, assessments, assessment critiques
and workshops. Go to his website to read his many articles and view clips of
television and radio appearances: www.yoursocialworker.com
