Hi Ron - I can send you a couple I guess... both of which are sort of
illustrative of the good and not-so-good in Collab work:
a) On a collaborative file some time ago, I was acting for the Husband,
and my colleague was acting for the Wife. One of the significant issues was
contact between a child and her father - my client. During the course of
the discussion about parenting, the mother became quite agitated, and let
her temper get the better of her, at which point, my colleague firmly
advised her client that disparaging comments of the husband were not
productive and were inappropriate in the collaborative process. Not wanting
the woman to feel she wasn't heard, I then paraphrased her concerns in a
more appropriate fashion, along the lines, of "I understand you are upset, I
get that, but if I hear what you are saying, your concern is.."
At this point, the woman appeared confused, stopped talking for a moment,
and then pointedly asked her lawyer, "why is it that he is so nice to me and
you're not?"
b) Less positively, I had a collaborative file where my client wandered
into my office, pre-meeting, and had his baseball cap in hand during a brief
discussion of the matters to be discussed. We then sat down at the board
room table with other counsel and my client's wife - who to my embarrassment
threatened to immediately leave unless my client removed his hat which he
was now wearing, the front of the hat reading, "Suck It Up Sister". To no
surprise, we were not successful resolving matters collaboratively.
If I think of others, I'll pass them on.
Rob Harvie
Lethbridge, Alberta
-----Original Message-----
From: CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of ronousky
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 6:20 PM
To: CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [CollabLaw] Funny Stories about Collaborative Practice
Hello Everyone,
I am working on a little project that involves, (believe it or not)
collecting stories about funny things that have happened in
Collaborative Practice. So, if you have a funny story to share, please
send it to me at ron@xxxxxxxxx.
Thanks,
Ron Ousky
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