Can You reaLLY be both a Litigator anD a CoLLaborative attorneY?
Collaborative law Section
Continued from page 28
collaborative divorce practice over almost a decade, I have come to be amazed by how much my litigation practice has informed my judgment and the advice I give to clients in my collaborative cases. For example, in collaborative cases, one of the fastest ways an attorney or a client can derail the process is to focus on a“ position.” In litigation, the entire case is ultimately about positions. To understand this dichotomy is to understand one of the fundamental principles of the collaborative process. In collaborative cases, the“ position” can be the biggest enemy we face. Instead, the focus must be on the parties’ genuine interests. For instance, there is an often underestimated, but nevertheless enormous, difference between“ my client needs permanent alimony,” on the one hand, and“ my client would like to have financial stability and security,” on the other hand. If you can keep this type of distinction in mind as you proceed through a collaborative case, you can use it over and over again, not only to assist yourself, your team, and the clients to reach a truly interest-based resolution of the case, but also to manage your client’ s expectations and to reinforce to your client the benefits and wisdom of choosing the collaborative approach.
To be clear, positions can absolutely divide people( a / k / a parents), both during a case and afterwards. Positions cause people to shut down lines of communication, but perhaps even worse, they create expectations that make our jobs as attorneys more difficult as we try to facilitate a final settlement. And I have found that understanding this concept also helps me counsel my clients in litigated cases. For example, the ability to“ tune in” to a person’ s real interests, as opposed to allowing all their perceived“ wants” to control, can be a very effective tool when counseling a client about settlement in any context.
So if you are in a collaborative case, every time you hear that voice inside you that tells you to“ make an offer” to the other side to just get a deal done, or to start out the case by saying something like,“ My client says the house must be sold because he wants his equity now,” you should try to recognize that this is just the litigator inside you. That litigator can be a helpful guidepost, but he can also be your enemy if you let him take control of the collaborative process.
Author: Michael Lundy – Older Lundy & Alvarez
Adopt-A-Veteran Initiative
thanks to the hCba Community services Committee and our members, more than 20 veterans were assisted through our annual adopt-a-veteran initiative in october with the James a. haley veteran’ s hospital. Pictured is CsC Chair Lara Lavoie with representatives from the veteran’ s hospital, as they were picking up the donations from the Chester ferguson Law Center.
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