Workshop

I had the opportunity last week to attend what may be the best professional workshop I've ever taken part in. It was a three-day seminar in Advanced Collaborative Practice taught by Pauline Tesler and her colleague David Fink.

First of all, Pauline, who practices in northern California, is the guru for collaborative law. In terms of the depth and commitment she brings to it, she is just the best. Second, this workshop at University of Maryland Law School in Baltimore had a limited group of just 15 people, including seven of us from the DC practice group, so the sessions were tailored to our specific needs and were enormously beneficial for that reason.

This is not the place to go into detail about the actual workshop. It was mostly techniques and role-playing, so difficult to describe anyway. In essence it was about being able to understand better what your client is saying, and to help the client understand what they want. Because most of us taking part already had a lot of experience in collaborative, it was particularly helpful for us in taking our practice to the next level.

My other takeaway was that I'm more convinced than ever that collaborative really is the way to go for most divorce cases, and it encourages me make that case with new clients who are amenable to it.