HUNTER‐GATHERER COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE

This article describes the development of a practice group based on a hunter‐gatherer model, with the mission of providing high quality collaborative divorce services, with an emphasis on protecting children and divorcing partners, and expanding access to middle‐ and lower‐income families. The practice group professional disciplines include law, mental health divorce coaching, co‐parent coaching, financial analysis, and case administration. These professionals have collectively associated their individual practices to address challenges facing their collaborative practices. With common purpose, the practice group builds skills, generates client base, nurtures trust, and lays a common knowledge base. Collaborative divorce teams formed from its members serve divorcing families with efficient, cost‐conscious, interest‐based negotiation processes that protect children and help parties productively move on with their lives.     

KIDS' TURN

Reported in this article is an innovative group program for children whose families are going through divorce. The Program is sponsored by the San Francisco court system. This program provides an orientation for children to help them cope with divorce. The program also involves the parents. The goals of the program are to demystify the separation process, provide a safe place for children and parents to discuss their feelings, provide a culturally sensitive context, provide information regarding other resources, and teach communication and problem-solving skills.     

A REVIEW OF ONLINE DIVORCE EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Divorce education programs first surfaced over four decades ago. Today, many states mandate parents to participate in a divorce education program before their dissolution can be finalized. Changes in the technological landscape have allowed innovative practitioners to create online divorce education programs, yet these programs have not been formally evaluated for quality. Adapting a research design for evaluating face‐to‐face programs, we created an online divorce education review form and reviewed online divorce education programs that parents use to meet court‐mandated requirements. Results reveal that online programs have significant potential to help divorcing parents, yet there are areas of online program content and instructional strategies that can be improved. Program content that includes legal and court focused topics or modules, or that offer advice for families facing special circumstances such as domestic violence, could be enhanced. Additionally, most of the instructional strategies were passive. With this research, recommendations were made for improving program content and instructional strategies for online divorce education programs.     

The Parenting Coordinator as Peacemaker and Peacebuilder

Parenting coordinators serve as case managers in high‐conflict families with the goal of protecting the children from parental conflict. Parenting coordinators are peacemakers and peacebuilders who identify and help set up structures in the family to support peace between the parents. The family court should promote and develop equipoise in litigants and professionals. Because parents who continue in conflict postdecree often have difficulty empathizing with their co‐parents and with their children, they might benefit from meditation training to increase mindfulness, empathy, and compassion. Self‐compassion training could also increase well‐being and more effective co‐parenting and aid in building peace in the family.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Parenting coordination is a child‐focused intervention with high‐conflict parents that can help protect children from their parents' conflict.
• Parenting coordinators are peacemakers who resolve disputes between the parents and facilitate negotiation and communication between them and help them make decisions.
• Parenting coordinators are also peacebuilders who help identify and build structures and processes in the family system to strengthen interparental peace.
• Equipoise can be developed in litigants and professionals through mindfulness and compassion training.
• Family court judges can work with parenting coordinators in a team approach, in a manner similar to what occurs in problem‐solving courts, to benefit the families and the judicial system.

     

Court‐Based Interventions in Spain for Families in Divorce Transition: Challenges in the Implementation of (Co)‐Parenting Coordination

Families facing separation or divorce in Spain encounter a number of obstacles, including a primarily adversarial and slow justice system, nonspecialized courts and judges, and a lack of resources to help them through the process. Recent legislation at the regional level (autonomous communities) is moving toward emphasizing shared parental responsibility and introducing parenting plans, while at the national level, legislation advances slowly. One of the main challenges professionals are facing in high‐conflict couple separation is protecting children from the effects of being in the middle of their parents’ conflict. Traditional psychological, legal, and social services are insufficient to support parents and protect their children from interparental hostile conflict—which can be exacerbated by litigation, professional intervention, domestic violence, or addiction. This article illustrates, through a case study, the implementation of parenting coordination in Spain. Different jurisdictions in Spain are slowly implementing (co‐)parenting coordination, an in‐depth intervention designed to support these families. The objective is to help families focus on children's needs and follow the court‐approved parenting plans or court orders, reduce relitigation, and improve parental communication and conflict resolution skills. This article analyzes different aspects and challenges relating to the implementation of parenting coordination in Spain. Recommendations are then made to address them.     

Unbundled Services to Enhance Peacemaking for Divorcing Families

Unbundling, also known as limited‐scope representation, has been adopted by judges, the organized legal profession, and divorcing parties. Unbundling is a legal access approach to better and more affordably serve unrepresented divorce litigants as well as to assist overburdened and underfunded courts. This article will focus on another critical benefit of unbundling: the ability of divorcing professionals to provide information and support to divorcing families to help reduce family conflicts. This article shall discuss four unbundled peacemaking roles that lawyers can play: (1) Collaborative Lawyer; (2) Lawyer Coach for Self‐Represented Litigants; (3) Lawyer for Mediation Participants; and (4) Preventive Legal Health Care Provider.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Overview of limited‐scope lawyering roles
• Impact of unbundled representation on peacemaking
• Best practices of noncourt lawyering

     

THE SELF‐REPRESENTED LITIGANT: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE BENCH AND BAR

It is widely accepted that the number of self‐represented litigants has skyrocketed nationwide, especially in family law cases. Although nationwide comprehensive data on the number of self‐represented litigants do not exist, anecdotal evidence supports the belief that self‐representation is increasing. The challenge for courts and the entire legal profession is how to respond. Most observers in Indiana would agree that the traditional model of family law litigation—both spouses represented by lawyers settling their disputes before a judge—is no longer the norm in family law cases. Judges face a dilemma: assisting a self‐represented litigant to level the playing field against a represented party is seen by many as violating impartiality, even if the assistance is rendered to create a just result. In an effort to address the situation, the Indiana Supreme Court created the Pro Se Advisory Committee in April 2001. This article explores the long‐range implications of the issue of self‐represented litigants on Indiana's court system in hope that it will provide some insight for other jurisdictions. The first part of the article addresses the numbers of self‐represented litigants by tracking growth or declines in self‐represented cases and assessing whether there are any pockets of self‐represented litigants geographically or in certain case types. The second part of the article puts Indiana into context with the rest of the nation and reviews national trends. The third section reviews Indiana's response to self‐represented litigants over the last decade. The fourth section reviews current and ongoing projects in Indiana. The article concludes that the issue of self‐represented litigants will not fade away and that the challenge that guides the legal profession is how we provide equal access to justice for all who enter our courthouses.     

Lawyers’ wellbeing and professional legal education

Abstract

THIS PAPER examines the wellbeing and satisfaction levels of lawyers in the workplace. It argues that research suggesting a crisis in the legal profession in the United States is comparable with research on wellbeing and levels of satisfaction for lawyers in Australasia. Some reports in both jurisdictions are critical of conventional legal education and practical legal training programs, which do not encourage students to develop personal and interpersonal skills that can improve self‐awareness, communication skills and the capacity to manage stress and anxiety. Consequently, law students are allowed to assume that these “soft skills” are less important for lawyers compared with cognitive skills such as “knowing the law” and “thinking like a lawyer”.

The paper describes the preliminary results of research conducted with graduates of the School of Law at the University of Newcastle Australia. The results confirm existing research to show that clinical legal education programs that expose law students under supervision to clients with real cases may promote the development of interpersonal skills, which in turn may help them cope with stressors in legal practice, especially in the first few years post‐admission.     

Perceptions of Remote and Walk‐In Service Delivery in Family Law Cases

In recent years, the number of litigants representing themselves without legal counsel has increased across the United States. Courts have responded by creating programs and services to help litigants represent themselves. Self‐help centers nationwide use different models to deliver legal advice and information to unrepresented litigants. Some offer court‐based, walk‐in self‐help centers. Others provide services remotely via phone, web, email, video conferencing, and live chat. In Maryland, self‐help center services are offered at walk‐in centers and remotely by phone and live chat. This article examines litigants' perceptions of in‐person and remote delivery of legal advice and information on family law matters. Results revealed that all three service delivery methods have high satisfaction rates, but chat users were less likely to feel as though they knew what to do next. They were also less optimistic about their case than were phone or in‐person users.     

Trauma‐Informed Interventions in Parent–Child Contact Cases

Parent–child contact problems may arise in the context of high conflict separation/divorce dynamics between parents. In cases where there are parent–child contact problems and children resist or refuse contact with one of their parents, there may also be incidents of child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, or compromised parenting that can be experienced by a parent or child as traumatic. The circumstances around separation and/or post‐divorce often result in intense stress for families. In this paper we distinguish between the stressful circumstances that may arise as a result of high interparental conflict and pulls for alignment from a parent, and the real or perceived trauma as a factor which contributes to resistance or refusal of a child to have contact with a parent. Interventions to address both trauma responses and the resist‐refuse dynamics are differentiated and discussed. After screening and assessment, the intent is to treat trauma responses with short‐term, evidence‐based therapy, either before or concurrent with co‐parent and family intervention.     

Disputed child custody: strategies and issues in mediation

Disputed child custody is a significant life stressor for both adults and children. Recent efforts have been made to develop a model for family mediation and subsequent clinical strategies that can attempt to address the stressors involved in divorce and perhaps resolve, through mediation, the posttrauma stress experienced by both spouses and children. Reviewed is the literature on the impact of separation and divorce on families and the use of family mediation to resolve disputes. It further addresses psychologic factors involved in the mediation process and the possible effects of mediation on divorce. An established family mediation model for treatment is presented in detail, as are clinical issues often addressed in the family mediation process. Issues and import for clinical application and research are offered.     

HOW COURTS HELP YOU HELP YOURSELF

This note is the result of an in-depth analysis of existing state judiciary websites and how they have and will continue to affect self-represented divorce litigants in the United States. It surveys all existing state court websites and examines what resources they provide to pro se litigantsd. It also touches on private divorce-related websites and offers some comments about their utility to pro se litigants as an alternative and a supplement to court-based websites. This note calls for courts to adopt programs and policies that facilitate the process of getting a divorce for those who choose to represent themselves, and make those programs and policies available to the pro se litigant via the Internet.     

The “Right Paper”: Developing Legal Literacy in a Legal Self‐Help Clinic

Legal self‐help is the fastest‐growing segment of legal services in the United States, and a significant addition to the repertoire of programs aimed at opening up access to justice in the civil legal system. Few studies, however, have examined how such services work in practice. Through ethnographic research and analysis of meetings between unrepresented litigants and attorneys offering advice in a legal self‐help clinic, this article expands the empirical investigation of access to justice to consider what legal self‐help looks like in actual practice. In this article, I follow the concept of the “right paper” to analyze the process through which legal self‐help litigants develop legal literacy, including the role of lawyers in helping them to do so. The article concludes by discussing what such practices reveal about recent efforts to open up access to justice and also about the dynamics through which people come to think about law and, especially, how to use it.     

PRO SE DIVORCE LITIGANTS

With the increased number of divorce litigants appearing pro se in the past century, trial court judges and court personnel are forced to deal with their conflicting obligations with more frequency. It is virtually impossible for a trial court judge to ensure all litigants have a fair and meaningful trial without compromising their neutrality. Likewise, court personnel are allowed to give out legal information but not legal advice, with the definition of legal information and advice not neatly packaged into two separate and distinct categories. Consequently, changes must be made. This note suggests various solutions that can be imposed to either reevaluate the role of trial court judges and court personnel so that they no longer have conflicting obligations and are able to accommodate the needs of the pro se litigants or implement services that can provide pro se litigants with other avenues of obtaining information and assistance.     

Communication in family court: financial remedy proceedings from the perspective of litigants in person

The article presents a rationale for communicative, conceptual, cognitive and procedural challenges experienced by litigants in person in financial remedy proceedings. The article also explores oscillation between written and spoken legal genres and narrative development strategies which litigants in person have to use throughout different stages (from the early stages of starting proceedings, filling in court forms and providing documentation, through the negotiation process to interaction in court). While legal professionals express themselves in paradigmatic legal mode influenced by legal acts and legislation, litigants in person tend to express themselves in narrative mode similar to everyday storytelling. The objective is to investigate obstacles litigants in person experience during the process originally designed by legal professionals for legal professionals. The article evaluates different options for empowering lay people involved in legal proceedings and argues for the need to provide more specific support for different stages of family proceedings.     

THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN CANADIAN FAMILY LAW PROCEDURE

"Family law procedure" differs greatly from "civil procedure." Canadian jurisdictions and common-law jurisdictions have copied English reforms of merging law and equity. Canada unlike the United States confined legislative authority over divorce to the federal government under the British North American Act. The Canadian federal government enacted the national Divorce Act of 1968, which had a homogenizing effect on substantive family law across Canada in both custody and support matters for a number of years. There are many pressures for fragmentation of procedure specifically, dealing with the provincial courts. Modern family law procedure is much more like civil procedure. If inquisitorial methods are used or if discovery is limited using "simplified rules" for smaller cases, family law procedure will become two different tiers-one for self-represented litigants and litigants where the stakes are small and the other tier would be one that operated under the "normal" rules of civil procedure.     

Does Level of Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Predict the Content of Family Mediation Agreements?

This study investigated whether reported levels of intimate partner violence (IPV) and/or abuse (IPV/A) victimization are related to reaching agreement and to the content of mediation agreements of parties seeking to resolve family‐ and child‐related issues. Whether or not parties reached agreement was analyzed for 105 cases at a law school mediation clinic. Agreement content was coded for the 71 cases that reached agreement. Levels of IPV and IPV/A were determined separately for males and females, using a standardized measure. Regression models were utilized to examine reports of IPV or IPV/A as predictors. Results indicated that mediation may help families with a reported history of IPV and IPV/A address a variety of concerns; levels of partner violence/abuse predicted numerous issues in mediation agreements, including arrangements regarding legal custody, parenting time, holidays, child exchanges, interparental communication, safety restrictions, counseling referrals, child support, financial arrangements, and other miscellaneous topics (e.g., relocation). However, some findings were consistent with concerns raised about the use of mediation with parties reporting IPV and IPV/A; for example, increasing levels of male‐perpetrated IPV/A predicted increased likelihood of making an agreement to share legal custody. Further research is needed to resolve the longstanding debate of whether divorce mediation is an effective and safe process for parties demonstrating IPV/A.

Key Points for the Family Court Community
• This study adds to the debate of whether divorce mediation is an effective and safe process for parties demonstrating IPV/A.
• It examines whether reported levels of IPV and IPV/A victimization are related to reaching agreement and to the content of mediation agreements of parties seeking to resolve family‐ and child‐related issues.
• Results provide some evidence that mediation may help families with a reported history of IPV and IPV/A address a variety of concerns.
• However, some findings are consistent with concerns raised about the use of mediation with parties reporting IPV and IPV/A.
• Findings have implications for the practice of family mediation with parties reporting a history of IPV or IPV/A.

     

Book Review: Game Theory and the Transformation of Family Law by Kenneth H Waldron and Allan R. Koritzinsky

In this book, Waldron and Koritzinsky, provide a stimulating and interesting new way of understanding the impact of traditional approaches to divorce on families and divorcees. They ask whether the structure of divorce can be altered so that the payoff systems for a divorcing couple lead toward a more constructive and cooperative approach. Waldron and Koritzinsky encourage us to understand how what appears to be irrational behavior actually makes sense when you analyze the payoffs built into the divorce process and argue that we can change that system to reward more constructive behavior. They also urge us to look at subjective payoffs as well as objective outcomes. Their application of game theory yields rich insights to divorce practitioners, but it is important to remember that a rational actor model can only go so far in explaining the complexities and variations of the divorce process.     

An Interdisciplinary Case Management Protocol for Child Resistance or Refusal Dynamics†

High‐conflict parental separation cases associated with child's estrangement or contact refusal take an unusually large amount of court time and generate high emotional costs for parents and children. This paper reports on a study of a research‐based pilot project and protocol, called the Parenting Conflict Resolution (PCR), which is intended to reduce parental conflict, improve interparental communication, and support or restore the parent–child relationship. The protocol was developed at the Superior Court in Quebec City (Canada), and involves single judge case management, and lawyers' commitment to have the child's best interests as their primary consideration and to guide their clients to trust the process. The assigned judge and lawyers have the ongoing involvement of a mandated psychotherapist, taking a family systems approach with the case. The PCR also requires the parents to participate in a psycho‐educational, introspective group program to work on co‐parenting and communication skills. Ongoing communication between the professionals involved in the PCR is required to ensure cohesion and accountability. This pilot project was implemented with 10 high‐conflict families, 6 of which presented with the child's resistance or refusal to see one parent. A qualitative data study was undertaken into the experiences of all the participants. The most salient result is the resumption of parent–child contact in all six contact refusal cases. Discussion highlights key elements to successfully address these cases: (a) interdisciplinary program delivery, (b) systemic understanding of the contact problems, (c) focus on the child's best interest, (d) single judge assigned to the case, (e) lawyers' support of the parents' participation, and (f) psychotherapist reporting to the court.