The Collaborative Practice Team of Professionals as your “crew” when the sailing gets rough.  ed.  People are becoming increasingly vocal about the fact that lawyers and the legal system are not equipped to properly address the emotional issues involved in family law matters. Judge Michele Lowrance, a domestic relations judge in the Circuit Court of Illinois, wrote in her book titled The Good Karma Divorce (Lowrance, 2010), “The court system was not built to house these emotions, and attorneys are not trained to reduce this kind of suffering.  Divorcing people expect relief far beyond what the legal realm can provide from their...

by Lee Chabin, Esq.        Here are some additional thoughts from Mr. Chabin on the value of the Collaborative Practice approach to divorce: http://www.nyparenting.com/stories/2013/2/fp_divorcecolumn_2013_02.html              Every divorcing couple has a choice to make:  How will we get divorced?  What process shall we use? The answer can have tremendous repercussions, emotionally as well as financially for your children as well as for yourselves. In this column, I will discuss one process:  Litigation (going to court). Litigation is usually the most expensive, antagonistic and emotionally difficult process for ending a marriage.  I’m...

Involving our hearts in Collaborative Practice is not just a metaphor.  The organ that pumps our blood, also contributes to our thoughts.    Check out what Stu Webb and Deborah Brakeley had to say about actively involving our actual hearts.  Work that they’ve been sharing for several years at the IACP Forum along with Peggy Thompson and Jennifer Tull, who were not able to join us for this conversation. This heart work makes for interesting companion thoughts as research also tells us more about the brain.  See my interview with Pauline Tesler for those advances. “Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing...

The Initial Interview.  The professional / client relationship begins there.  And goes smoothly – or haltingly – forward, or possibly downward.  Particularly in Collaborative Practice matters, that first meeting can impact the functioning of the entire Team, including the clients. I sat with Woody Mosten and Susan Gamache, two well known Collaborative professionals who have each begun to offer training for professionals focused on this critical, but often under explored, part of the process.  Here’s the video Read about the trainings they offer here: click on ‘slideshare’ to print your own copy of these....

Pauline Tesler, our friend and the Director of the new Integrative Law Institute at Commonweal, talks to us about just what is Integrative Law and how it will be changing how all attorneys see, and do, their work. You can follow ILI at their blog here and at facebook here. Check out their first training in January 2013: Registration is available by clicking here Click ‘slideshare’ above to download or print a copy of this material. ************* “Talking with…” is an ongoing set of videotaped discussions between carl Michael rossi and others who train, practice and/or have an interest in Collaborative Practice....

‘People of faith’ do face divorce.  It can present them with additional challenges in terms of available support and in maintaining their very faith.  It can seem as if they must leave their faith at the door as they enter the divorce process.    Danette Perry, MBA, MSW, LSW, has been actively working within the Collaborative Practice process, along with other local professionals, to integrate clients’ faith and related concerns within the process.  Within the Collaborative Practice approach there is a great opportunity to, as she puts it “…embrace our beliefs and integrate the virtues of our faith… [and...