Bucks County Collaborative Law Group Annual Retreat

This weekend I am attending the annual retreat of the Bucks County Collaborative Law Group. We will talk and share stories, hold workshops and reflect on the nuances of communication between two divorcing spouses. Essentially, we are a group of lawyers, financial planners and divorce coaches who have seen it all and “seen the light.” We’ve been to court, counseled those in misery or tried to help splitting family units retain their financial momentum.

We’ve come together as an association because we each believe there must be a better way.

If you haven’t seen it, look at our association’s web site. It not only lists our members, but offers some vital information to you, the divorcing spouse, about the power you can gain over the process by taking an equal seat at the negotiating table. For some, it’s a real problem to feel in control while discussing assets, custody and divorce. Most marriages add up to a laundry list of the skills both partners have; when you split, the spouse with stronger communication skills might become more dominant while the spouse with better knowledge of numbers may be better at calculating the financial cost of a split. Collaborative Law helps even the playing field. Its primary purpose is to restore dignity to a process that by its nature can leave a person feeling exposed and vulnerable.

In a sense, Collaborative Law is the opposite of the wedding industry. Newly engaged couples often spend their time booking the hall, the band, the caterer, buying the dress, taste testing the cake – and millions of vendors stand ready to sell them everything from personalized drink napkins to $10,000 dresses. There are reality television shows that do nothing but explain how to create the perfect wedding. In contrast, there are relatively few outlets for newlyweds that teach how to build a durable marriage. Such voices tend to get drowned out in the marketplace. It’s not uncommon for couples to begin marriage with a lot of wedding debt and little or no advice on how to blend their backgrounds, incomes and aspirations.

Ideally, counseling, workshops and ‘practice, practice, practice’ keep the couple together. But when the decision to divorce is made, Collaborative Law can be corrective to overly optimistic or pessimistic expectations of either spouse. The dialogue at the negotiating table usually includes a neutral counselor and a neutral financial planner. Cross referencing views and analyses in this way has the effect of empowering both spouses while helping them each craft a realistic future for themselves.

At the retreat this weekend, we expect to put ourselves into situations that mirror how our clients might react or feel at the negotiating table. It’s one thing to provide services to clients going through a divorce. It’s another thing to put ourselves in their shoes for a change. It can be illuminating.

Of course we’ll discuss issues related to the process of Collaborative Law, but our chief mutual concern as professionals is finding ways to be sure that you, our clients, understand this option is available to you. In a culture of publicized celebrity divorces and reality TV, it can be difficult to be heard.

This weekend, the Bucks County Collaborative Law Group will be a group of professionals talking to each other. But we’ll be thinking about you.