Pauline Tesler: Thank you for spending the time clarifying the differences
between a neutral expert, and those who work with an interdisciplinary
collaborative team such as divorce coach, child specialist and financial
planner. It is a bit confusing in Texas. There is a divorce coach in Houston
who is basically a financial planner, and the newly organized Collaborative
Law Institute of Texas lists along with Attorneys, Mental Health
Professionals, Financial Professionals, and Divorce Coach/Planners
Professionals. Although I have been a mental health professional/marriage
and family therapist for 29 years, because Im a cognitive/behavior
psychotherapist I frequently refer to myself, especially to male clients, as
a relationship coach. I have registered for additional training in Jan. that
Bob Bordett is helping to organize in Dallas, along with the two Chip Rose
led trainings in Fort Worth and Fort Lauderdale. My original training in
Wisconsin did consist of a team of an attorney, divorce coach and financial
planner. Thanks again, Pauline, and I hope to meet you someday.
Patricia Plettner
Dallas, Texas
plettner@xxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: PHTesler [mailto:phtesler@xxxxxxxxxx] ;
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 7:05 PM
To: CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [CollabLaw] Use of Neutral Experts
The use of neutral experts is not the same as embracing the
interdisciplinary collaborative team model. The former is standard
operating procedure--in the sense that most collaborative contracts mandate
that any experts retained will be retained as neutrals within the
collaborative umbrella,subject to the same disqualification provisions as
the attorneys. These experts work under the direction of the collaborative
lawyers and serve the legal negotiating process in one way or another.
The interdisciplinary team is a group of allied professionals who each work
independently with the divorcing couple within a consistent model of
professional collaboration across professional lines. While the result
for lawyers is to greatly enhance the clients' ability to negotiate at the
legal table, and while all the professionals do coordinate their work with
one another, each of the nonlegal professionals does work independently with
the clients on an agenda that is uniquely within that professional's
expertise.
The most powerful configuration I'm familiar with is two mental health
coaches, a child development specialist, and a financial specialist. The
latter two do function in a neutral capacity, but as members of a de facto
interdisciplinary team that has learned the additional skills needed to
collaborate as professionals as well as the skills needed to work
effectively with clients. They aren't the same as neutral experts retained
by lawyers to assist the legal process (e.g., business valuation experts).
My own experience has been that two coaches can function in a collaborative
case in quite a different way with clients than a single neutral mental
health person who is working in the same realm of reaching parenting
agreements. The difference is directly analogous to the differences in
how a single mediator works with two clients, as distinct from how two
collaborative lawyers work with clients. There is a kind of support and
advocacy built into the two-person model that many clients value, and an
enhanced ability to help each client deal separately with short term issues
relating to the divorce trauma that are not couples issues any more, but
rather individual issues, and that are not really therapy issues, but more
short term and focused. For instance, in Vancouver, we saw a demonstration
by Susan Gamache and Deborah Brakeley that included teaching the more
distraught spouse some specific stress reduction techniques that cou! ld be
used immediately at the legal fourway table.
The best trainings in this kind of interdisciplinary team collaboration
that I've experienced are offered by trainers drawn from each of the
disciplines, who have had significant experience working directly with
clients in collaborative interdisciplinary teams. (The soon-to-be-adopted
IACP Standards for interdisciplinary trainings emphasize the importance of
trainers having experience both working with clients and training in a team
model.) The challenges and the learning curve for all professionss are
significant (just think of how much lawyers need to retool in order to
learn to collaborate effectively together and then cube it for the three
professions involved) and it's wise to learn initially from people who have
had direct experience with these challenges. Nancy Cameron and Susan
Gamache in Vancouver, Peggy Thompson and Nancy Ross and Mark Hill in
California, and Talia Katz and Vicki Carpel Miller in Arizona,! all have
substantial "on the ground" experience in interdisciplinary collaboration
with clients, and train effectively in the interdisciplinary team
collaboration/coaching model.
Pauline H. Tesler
Tesler, Sandmann & Fishman
Telephone: ( 415) 383-5600
Facsimile: (415) 383-5675
Websites:
www.lawtsf.com
www.divorcenet.com/ca/tesler.html
This message may include privileged attorney-client communications. If you
are not the intended recipient, please delete and destroy all copies, and
notify this office. Thank you.
----- Original Message -----
From: Patricia Plettner
To: CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2003 2:27 PM
Subject: [CollabLaw] Use of Neutral Experts
Re: Use of "Neutral Experts". I live in Dallas and have been a marriage
and
family psychotherapist for twenty-nine years, belonged to the American
Society of Trial Consultants since 1996, and have been a mediator since
July. I have received training at Harvard, Pepperdine and Wisconsin,
besides
Dallas. Recently, I attended a Collaborative Law Institute in Madison,
Wisconsin and was encouraged to offer my services as a "Divorce Coach" and
"Child Specialist" to collaborative law firms in Dallas. The team concept
is
very appealing to me. The collaborative attorneys in the Midwest said that
they used "Neutral Experts" (as Texas Family Code refers to me) about 50%
of
the time. I have joined the American Bar Association (Associate Member)
and
the Family Law and Dispute Resolutions Sections. I also plan to attend the
Basic Chip Rose training in Fort Worth in January, and Chip Rose's
advanced
training in Fort Lauderdale in February. A Wisconsin collaborative
attorney
graciously gave me a private ID and password to the website of the
Collaborative Law Institute of Texas, which I am considering joining.
However, I have not heard back from either of the Chip Rose Training
contacts, or from the Houston attorney, whose ID and website I have been
using. Do the Texas-based (especially Dallas area) collaborative attorneys
plan to use neutral experts?
Patricia Plettner
plettner@xxxxxxxxxxx
4216 Lovers Lane
Dallas (University Park) Texas
75225-6920
214-369-3029
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