The field of family law is exactly what the words say: law related to families. That means more than divorce.
In Ohio, where I grew up and returned for law school at Case Western Reserve School of Law, the common nomenclature is domestic relations. Reflecting on the work I do, I believe Ohio has that right. The work I do as a Family Law Mediator and Attorney is all about relationships.
In decades of practice as a family law attorney, I’ve learned a thing or two about relationships. What works, and certainly what doesn’t. So when a person is deciding whether to split from their spouse, I can help.
Even if they decide to stay together, the workbooks that I offer every client are great tools for couples to use to open discussions about themselves, their relationship, what they want, and what they don’t want. Check out Our Family in Two Homes and Designing Our Future Together.
Know Your Partner, Know Yourself
Some religions require pre-marital counseling to look at many of these issues, and I believe all people should do this work before they commit to a long-term legal relationship.
But the truth is most of us don’t. And so when we run into challenges and conflicts, we often don’t know what to do. Divorce these days seems like an easy out, but it is not!
Photo by Tuyen Vo on Unsplash
And because no relationship is easy sailing at all times, it benefits every person to examine who they are, who they want to be, and how they want to show up in relationships.
This resource can help couples find new ways to get through inevitable conflicts.
Try Everything First
Something else I offer is relationship mediation. Because there are things in your marriage that can lead to divorce, why not bring in a neutral third party who can help you work through conflicts and avoid a breakup?
Some people are averse to therapy or couples counseling. As a lawyer with deep skills in shared financial and property assets, I often help couples navigate conflicts over money, and what lurks behind those disagreements.
Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash
Also when it comes to kids, there’s benefit in bringing two people together instead of just talking to your own therapist. This way, you gain a different perspective on the challenges. I can recommend Co-Parenting Counselors and other professionals skilled in guiding couples through these bumps in the road.
But of course, a family law attorney is in the business of managing the legal aspects of marriage, including post-judgment issues that arise for divorced families.
Alternative Approaches to Conflict Resolution
So many people want to avoid returning to court post-divorce, but they don’t know how to handle issues that arise. I use my skills in Collaborative Divorce and Conflict Resolution to help people resolve conflicts.
We find a way to work together by thinking outside the box, being creative. In high-conflict cases, many attorneys believe there are only one or two options, court being the prevalent one, letting a judge decide a family’s fate.
I disagree. There are a host of options to satisfy both clients, and by having a discussion about what matters most to each parent and getting creative, we can come to resolution without court intervention.
What all of these situations share in common is a willingness to talk about what’s behind a particular issue, so you don’t get entrenched in a war where you end up hating each other.
What all of these situations share in common is a willingness to talk about what’s behind a particular issue,
Even couples who divorce don’t start out hating one another. They may be sad that the marriage is ending or mourn the death of the dream of forever.
But the combative practice of traditional court-based divorce can lead to pretty bitter rivalries and opposition between former spouses.
Build & Keep Trust
I try to help couples maintain the trust they have, build trust on a different level, and find new ways, calmer ways, to work through life’s challenges. We all face them at one time or another—why not bring our best selves to face whatever comes, and use the skills of a family law attorney to benefit all involved?
Alisa Peskin-Shepherd, at the beginning of Transitions Legal
Sometimes, despite nearly a dozen years of leading Transitions Legal, I like to look back on my legal career and reflect on how I gathered the confidence and the courage to go out on my own.
It was a gradual process, where I went from being an associate attorney in mid-sized law firms to joining two seasoned practitioners as their third partner, before starting my own firm. In that partnership, I had the support of knowing I was part of a team, but we brought in and worked on our own cases, so it was a good step toward becoming my own rainmaker.
Nobody was paying me, then; my income came from the cases I attracted and resolved. I was also responsible for expenses, albeit sharing those expenses with two seasoned practitioners who had been doing it for a while. I didn’t question things, I trusted them.
And then, when I felt ready to grow and take the next step in my professional career, the partnership dissolved over a difference in values, and that gave me the push to go out on my own 100%.
Lynne and I kayaking on the Huron River – friends and colleagues!
But I wondered how to get my name out there and even struggled with it for a while, until I found my marketing consultant and now good friend, Lynne Golodner. We met through a mutual friend. I hadn’t even come up with a name for my new law firm. Lynne helped me settle on branding, identity, marketing messages, everything—from website to social media to public relations to strategy. We still work together to this day, and now I’m known for my thoughtful, unique branding and marketing, and other attorneys are copying what I’ve been doing since 2013.
But it wasn’t just confidence that came out of that relationship. It was the wisdom that a professional needs the support of other professionals to really make their mark. Yes, I am an accomplished attorney. I am the expert on Family Law.
But any entrepreneur needs a team to run their business. What I learned from Lynne was to trust myself to spend the money and that by hiring the right support professionals, it would generate income, build my credibility, build my business.
That’s been the biggest lesson of all: to know what I do well and farm out what may not be my strong suit (like bookkeeping).
Creating a team of experts has given me the confidence to grow. Finding the right people for every role. Because I don’t have time to do everything, so I have to trust other people to get the job done right.
I love learning, honing my skills as a Collaboratively trained family law attorney and mediator, and bringing new skills to the table!
In 2024 thus far, I’ve continued to learn more about the Insight Approach to Conflict Resolution, as a curious mediator, diving deeper into the theory and the practice. In other blogs and social media posts, I’ve mentioned the challenge and difficulty in learning this wise, comprehensive approach like here and here and here.
As I reflect on my skill-building for the year, Insight remains the strongest area where I am continuing to grow. I wish I had more time to read because there’s a lot of material about the Insight Approach for resolving conflicts, though I am conscious all the time about practicing the curiosity piece and wondering more instead of assuming I know what is best for my clients.
I’ve noticed the reaction from my colleagues when I’m asking more questions. Some are supportive, saying, “oh, that was a brilliant question!” as they see our clients reflect and open up their communication about an issue. And others are resistant, thinking I’m wasting our time by probing deeper.
Part of the Collaborative Law Divorce Process is being committed to clients driving the decisions, as opposed to us telling them what to do. I ask questions to help them find out what information they need so they can make a decision. How can you make a beneficial decision without all the necessary information?
In litigation, I was always the attorney known for attention to detail, and it annoyed a number of my colleagues on the other side. But I have to practice in the way that I know to be in my clients’ best interests!
Some colleagues have said, supposedly in jest (but I know better!), that my attention to detail drove them crazy. But that’s why clients come to me. I often operate in ways different from the way most attorneys practice, but I believe in my commitment to my clients. Annoyance may come from not really understanding the process of the Insight Approach, so I invite colleagues to participate alongside me many times!
I’ve expanded my skillset this year in other ways, too, largely due to free webinars offered by the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals. As busy as I am, I make time to attend monthly opportunities for professional development.
No matter how long I practice family law, I know I have more to learn. It makes me a better lawyer and fills my skillset with options to benefit my clients.
One more thing I’ve learned this year is that most people who come to me want to use the Collaborative Law process to divorce. Often, their spouses do not. That’s frustrating, but I am so heartened to see a growing desire to divorce through a Collaborative Legal Process. I look forward to the time when more attorneys are on board to close the gap in ways to approach Family Law.
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.
I love learning, honing my skills as a Collaboratively trained family law attorney and mediator, and bringing new skills to the table!
I’ve expanded my skillset this year in other ways, too, largely due to free webinars offered by the 
I chose to build a career in family law because I wanted to help people. Particularly, families.
That’s one reason we use a fantastic tool called