When people get divorced, one of the biggest emotions they experience is a lack of control—either because their partner initiates the breakup, or because the legal part of uncoupling is in the hands of professionals and going at their pace based on the court-specific timeline.
Years ago, when I started practicing Collaborative Divorce in addition to what was then a mostly litigative practice, I did so because I saw so many benefits to my clients. Taking control of their divorce and deciding its timeline was one big part of that.
Now that Transitions Legal has become fully a Center for Collaborative Divorce and Mediation and eliminated litigation as an offering, every single divorce case that we take on is in the hands of the people divorcing.
That’s pretty amazing, when I think about it.
Alisa Peskin-Shepherd, family law attorney
My job as a family law attorney is to shepherd people through a pretty tough time in their lives. Even when you’re the one initiating a divorce, there is still a period of mourning, a letting go of what you had hoped would be forever, a transition from one way of life to another unexpected and uncharted one.
Most people feel anxiety and overwhelm when things are beyond their control. That’s natural. Whether it’s keeping the house clean or getting all your work done or waiting for a reply from someone else on something that matters to you, whenever important tasks are in someone else’s hands, we can’t help but feel uncomfortable.
Now, I am delighted to be able to give my clients the control they need and want.
Of course, because of the nature of divorce itself, each individual spouse doesn’t have total control. Divorce involves two people and their shared assets and family members. There are a lot of moving parts, so it is never completely in one person’s control.
The brilliant part of Collaborative Divorce and Mediation is the way it gives divorcing spouses some measure of control over how the divorce process goes, what they end up with after the divorce is final, and when and how all of this takes place.
Both processes put the divorcing spouses in the driver’s seat. Yes, there are details to negotiate and compromises to make. But these are still the clients’ choices to make. Just like how fast it goes and the values that guide the process — all under their control.
Not the courts.
Not court-based professionals who have no vested interest in the outcome of the case.
Not a judge sitting in their courtroom who doesn’t know either of you or your kids.
The control is yours. And that’s the way I’d like to keep it.
Effective this month, my law firm is now known as Transitions Legal:Collaborative Divorce & Mediation Center.
It’sa small changefrom theprevious—law offices of Alisa Peskin-Shepherd—but meaningful. This year,I’vetaken the leap to let go of litigation—a restrictive and limiting process.
This is not a decision I made quickly or took lightly.It’staken months (years, really) for me to feel confident doing so because litigation is what everyone knows, andlet’sbe honest, litigation is a guaranteed income stream, so it’s hard for many lawyers to let it go.
Butwhen January hit, and all myDecemberinvoices weresent, I felt like I was on the right path.
The way I practice family law has changed over time but also, the times have changed. Throughout it all, my values have remained steadfast.
When I created Transitions Legal, I proudly took what I called a “mediative” approach to litigation, wearing my Mediator hat even when litigating to more compassionately resolve divorces and other family law issues for my clients.
Family Law Has Changed Over Time
Alisa Peskin-Shepherd, at the beginning of Transitions Legal
When I first started in family law, Michigan had just formed the family court division—specific judges who handle all of the divorce and other family-related cases, and ONLY these types of cases.
Family court judges become specialized in the complicated issues that arise around the emotional, financial and legal issues facing families. Their work is driven by the motto: “one judge, one family,” which means a judge is assigned to that family, along with their Friend of the Court staff, for as long as the family is in the system.
Previously, any circuit court judge without the specialized knowledge, understanding and patience required for family law could be called on to handle family law cases.
Can you imagine?
Another change in my years of practicing has been a movement away from the default position of mothers getting custody of the children, childsupportand alimony tothe expectation that mothers will work, even ifthey’vebeen at home raising kids during the marriage.
This change troubles me. Every family situation is different, so creating a cookie-cutterexpectation is unfair.
That’sone bigreason motivating my move away fromlitigation—it’s limiting, it imposes uninformed societal trends, without considering what is best for a particular family!
Keeping Divorce Out of Court
Keeping divorce out of court helps familiesdeterminetheir best path for movingforward.
Another industry change has been asignificant evolution in parenting time.When I started practicing family law, fathers got “visitation.” Then,maybe theygot alternate weekends with their kids or a weeknight dinner.
Now, the court starts with a default of 50/50 parenting time split equally between both parents, and demands that attorneys make a case for anything different.
This isn’t law (though some would like it to be). It’s a societal ideal that does not fit every family.
(Read about what 50:50 parenting time really meanshere.)
Like everything with divorce, parenting time shouldbe designed specifically for that family. Just like you can’t expectstay-at-homemom to go back to work and start earning an income that is sufficient to support herself and her children, you can’t expect a dad to all-of-a-sudden know how to manage their children’s morning routines, make lunches, and get them out the door for school on time if they haven’t had to do it before.
Alisa Peskin-Shepherd’s Evolution as a Family Law Attorney
As the industry has evolved, I have, too.
Early in my career, I saw how the court system often hurt more than helped families in conflict.I pouredhard work, anxiety, and time intoacustody battle thatwent to late-stagemediation, and the Mediator leaned back in his chair with an air of, “It’s up to you.”
Right then,I wanted to become a Mediator because I sawhow it could reducethe stress on me. I wasn’t yet thinking about how Mediation could benefit my client or be better for a family.
But the more training I got, and the more I practiced Mediation, learning from great Mediators like Sheldon Larky and Zena Zumeta, I learned different styles and how much more satisfied my clients were with their outcomes.
Then came the Collaborative Divorce process that, like Mediation, offers families a way to resolve divorces out of court, with an intentional design to be family- and child-focused.
Over the years, I’ve continued my education and training, elevating my skills as a Mediator and Collaborative Divorce attorney. Now, I use Insight Mediation to facilitate conflict resolution, not just in Mediation, but in all my out-of-court work with clients.
Why Out-of-Court Methods Work So Well
Alisa Peskin-Shepherd customizes every client case to suit their specific needs.
In Mediation,couples can come in beforethey’veretainedattorneys, talk about what they value, and discuss the outcome they’d like to achieve in their divorce.
In Collaborative Divorce, clients are supported by a team of professionals. In both Mediation and Collaborative Divorce, a divorcing couple has the ability to talk to each other—not through attorneys who tell them what they can and cannot have because of a judge’s protocol or biases.
As a Mediator and an attorney committed to out-of-court processes, Ilove helping people converse directly, toward clearly understanding one another, to move forward with confidence.
That makesa big differencein divorce outcomes.
Divorce Does Not Have to Be a Battle
Nowadays,I prefer to practice where lawyers are not adversarial.When my career began, it was a given that lawyers would duke it out in court but be best buds outside of it.I threw in with the best of them, but I hated how it made me feel.
Turns out, my gut aligns with the neuroscience, which I’ve been studying in recent years. Conflict is driven by fear that peoplebring into the room, and that fear prevents them from truly hearing and understanding the other person.
When you actually understand why conflict happens, you can help clients more.That’swhy I do this work—to help clients get from a place of chaos and crisis to a place of productivity and contentment.
I founded Transitions Legal with the belief that divorce is neither good nor bad. It is simply a transition between one state of being to another, a new beginning with a world of possibilities!
Letting go of the limitations of litigationis one more step in the direction of helping couples end marriages without unnecessary combat, keeping conversations productive, child-centered, and based on their values and priorities.
That is work I can be proud of and get excited to do!
If the Covid pandemic taught us anything, it’s that the way we always thought we had to do things may not be the only way. In fact, when it comes to the legal system, and in particular, family law, the old way of divorcing may not be the best way at all.
I believe the future of divorce is outside of court. We’ve already seen a shift to Zoom hearings, and while at the start of the pandemic, it felt difficult and strange and not ideal, this necessary switch taught us that we can, in fact, find better ways to serve couples seeking to dissolve their marriages.
I don’t want to say that I’ve known this for a long time, but I have. Since I started practicing Collaborative Divorce, and as long as I’ve been a Mediator, I’ve seen firsthand that when a couple breaks up, the court system can’t look out for what’s best for them or their families.
By definition, a system needs to move people through quickly, and not necessarily efficiently or with an eye toward individual needs and circumstances. But a good attorney or legal team can.
Driven by the Insight Approach to Conflict Resolution, I approach Mediation with curiosity. This approach makes me more effective when there is conflict between divorcing parties. But instead of giving direction, I have learned to ask questions. My curiosity has a calming effect as a client reflects in providing a response to my question. In turn, their spouse has opportunities to reflect on what they understood which is often not what is intended. With curiosity, we loop through their intentions and understandings. It is so rewarding to feel the shift toward better understanding leading to new ideas and solutions.
The Insight Approach helps me educate and empower clients to help them evolve through the course of their divorce. It’s a more holistic approach, which might sound touchy-feely and hard to understand, but now I have tools to make it way more concrete.
The more I get involved in this approach, the more I see how different it is from how typical family law practitioners do divorce. From the beginning with a client, I talk to them from a place of curiosity, so their experience is going to be different from the start all the way through the completion of their divorce.
Another tool that my Transitions Legal team employs with our clients is the Our Family in Two Homes workbook, which we give to every client before they begin their divorce to help them articulate their values and goals. If you start with their values and concerns, you can skip the arguing part. Seriously!! Doing the work beforehand helps me guide clients to the outcome they’re happy with.
Once you know how to do divorce with these thoughtful approaches, you can’t help but use it everywhere. It’s already built in to Collaborative Divorce, which by definition seeks to divorce through a team approach that brings not only the spouses to the table with their attorneys, but also with the support of a team that might include therapists, financial advisors and more.
The idea of Insight is not to tell people what to do. In the moment, when they’re going through their divorce, they might want to be told, but ultimately, it’s up to the client. I know how overwhelming and futile it can feel to be going through the end of a marriage you didn’t expect to end. No one does! But that doesn’t mean it’s OK for a lawyer to make decisions for their clients.
I can make suggestions or recommendations, but if the ideas come from the clients themselves, then they’re more likely to be happy with the outcome.
There are so many stories of court-based divorces where a client agrees to settle and then comes back to the lawyer months or even years later, unhappy with the settlement. The lawyers say, “But you agreed to this.” And that may be true. Or maybe they felt exhausted and pressured to just finish the darn thing or agree in the moment, but ultimately it never aligned with what they’re most concerned about and what they value.
A court is designed to make decisions for people. To put people in positions of power to apply the law as objectively as possible.
But a divorce is anything but objective. Which is why I see the future of divorce moving outside of court and staying there.
If we want families and individuals to thrive, we must approach each divorce with curiosity and questions to guide the people involved to their ultimate best destination. Every single client is unique, with their own interests, desires and challenges. A court can’t see that, but you can bet we can. And that’s the only way to achieve the dissolution of a marriage with concern, care and compassion for the people most affected by it.
Hear from a satisfied Transitions Legal client below why she appreciated the process that took her divorce outside of court.
Family law work is not easy, and the cases aren’t exactly fun, but over several decades of working as a divorce and family law attorney, I do have a few favorite cases – mostly because of how the cases unfolded or the outcomes we were able to achieve.
My primary goal above all else in divorce and family law cases is to see a client go through a transformation and be better off at the end than they were when they walked into my office.
I facilitated a mediation once where I had both clients in the same room, and we were talking about parenting time. It’s not a popular move to have both clients in the same room. Most mediators go from room to room to talk to each client separately. But I prefer to keep the clients together, and the wife was sharing her concerns with the husband about how to divvy up the parenting time.
The husband listened to her concerns, and actually understood. By having them talk to each other in a respectful way about their concerns and what was underlying any resistance, I was able to see a shift in the husband as he developed understanding for the wife. This happened because they were talking directly to one another, and not through attorneys.
When you can see people changing in front of you, and opening up their minds, it’s very satisfying.
Another favorite case was with an older couple who’d chosen to end their marriage through Collaborative Divorce. It was a very difficult situation because one spouse came out as gay and the other spouse felt deep betrayal for so many years of not knowing the partner’s true identity.
But they’d been married for so long, and he truly cared about her, which is why he stayed in the marriage for so long and denied his own identity. When he finally came out, the care that he felt for her didn’t change. However, her trust did because she felt blindsided by so many years of hiding.
Why I consider that case successful is that there were issues not just between them, but which affected the whole family. They were grandparents already, and they worked hard to develop renewed mutual respect for the sake of their family.
He said, “I know I have to give her time, and allow her to be angry,” and the team was able to help her process and resolve her anger. Collaborative Divorce features a team approach, which includes a therapist who can help clients move through emotions during the divorce process. In this case, the team could allow her to be angry in the room without judgment, and maintain mutual respect.
This was so helpful when issues arose that related to relationships with their children and grandchildren. A lot of people mistakenly think Collaborative Divorce means there’s peace and harmony during the divorce process—they couldn’t be more wrong!
Collaborative Divorce is my favorite way to practice family law because it’s just a more humane approach. And when you have a good team, like we did in that case, you can work well together to achieve the best outcome for all involved.
Divorce and family law is hard work. But I still enjoy doing it because I love helping people. I want people to feel good about their decisions, and every day I remember that I’m helping people move forward.
Even when a case is particularly difficult, I hope that at least the experience my client had was good and satisfactory and they know I did my best to give them the information they needed. That’s the first step toward making choices they can feel good about.
It’s when we go to court and the sides are just too far apart, that a case is disappointing. In those instances, I know it’s going to cost a lot of money, and nobody is going to be happy. My favorite cases are thoughtful, client-focused and thorough. Difficult divorce cases are stressful for every person involved, me included. So let’s celebrate the good ones and work hard to make sure they far outnumber the bad ones!
I read an interesting blog on LinkedIn recently quoting an entrepreneur named Bruce Kasanoff who said he believes compassion and boldness can coordinate.
Of course they can!! This is one reason I practice family law, and one reason I am known for being different than other divorce attorneys.
It never occurred to me that I couldn’t be both compassionate and an achiever – and I’ve always believed that divorce can be a compassionate process! Most people don’t, I know, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try to show up with both capacities and weave it into my work with clients.
One of the ways an entrepreneur can stand out from the competition is by listening to her instincts and living out her values. That’s what I try to do every day. And it’s not easy, believe me.
That post by Bruce, whom I don’t know but would like to meet, said, “Compassion creates meaning in our lives. Combine that with a drive to achieve big things and you will make the world a much better place.”
True, true.
I chose to build a career in family law because I wanted to help people. Particularly, families.
People come to me at a difficult time in their lives, wrapped up in emotions but with real needs to make a change and move forward productively. It’s imperative for a family law attorney to recognize the emotional state of their clients even as they proceed in a professional manner.
The truth is that any professional should bring compassion to their work. I don’t believe in separating personal and professional entirely. Of course, we don’t need to blur lines or take things personally when they’re really just business. But we don’t stop being human when we get to the office.
And in this line of work, you see good people at bad moments. There must be not only room for compassion, but a concerted effort to lead from your values and get your clients to do the same.
That’s one reason we use a fantastic tool called Our Family in Two Homeswith every client who comes to Transitions Legal. It’s a resource that guides clients to articulate their values before they go deeper into their divorce process, preparing them for the decisions they will need to make and for the work they will do with us. That way, they can proceed from a place of values and clarity and minimize the number of mistakes or hurdles along the way.
Think about where you might be able to infuse your work with compassion – and what the impact might be on the success of your work, and also your connection with your clients.
Effective this month, my law firm is now known as Transitions Legal:
Like everything with divorce, parenting time should
Another tool that 
I chose to build a career in family law because I wanted to help people. Particularly, families.