What can collaborative divorce offer?
We strongly believe that collaborative divorce can help families avoid prolonged conflict. An experienced collaborative divorce attorney can find creative solutions. They can serve as mediators, problem solvers, and give expert guidance.
Being family law professionals can be extemely challenging. Using our experience has given us insights into how to manage times of uncertainty, transitions, and how to look for growth.
Jennifer Hargrave sat down with Jody Johnson to discuss how collaborative divorce and family law attorneys can help families avoid prolongued conflicts.
Jody is board certified in family law and she is also a credentialed master collaborative law professional, which is the elite status that only a few hold.
Our firm prides itself in presenting accesible and high quality information and resources to our clients and community in Dallas. Check out the rest of our divorce and family law podcast episodes here.
See the full conversation between Jennifer Hargrave and Jody L. Johnson below:
Jennifer Hargrave:
Thank you, Jody, for coming and talking with us about collaborative divorce.
Jody Johnson:
Well, thanks for having me. I’m excited.
Jennifer:
One of the first questions I want to ask you is, how did you learn about collaborative divorce and decide to become involved in collaborative divorce?
Jody:
I heard about it really early on. I think that was about 1999 through Larry Hanson, John McShane who somehow had been at a conference or something and heard about it, and came back to Dallas and reached out to several of us and told us about it at that time.
Jennifer:
What was it that spoke to you? What was it about this new process?
Jody: Well, honestly, when I first heard about it, I was kind of scratching my head because I was like, “Oh. Everybody’s going to get together and they’re not going to go to court.” And I was like, “That sounds awesome. But how in the world is that going to work?” So it wasn’t until I went to a training. I actually did one with Stu Webb up in Minneapolis who’s the lawyer that came up with the idea and I was just hooked. What hooked me in was the team approach of bringing in the neutral mental health professional, the neutral financial professional, and how the process addresses way more than just the legal problem.
Jennifer:
It really helps provide a more holistic approach to really resolve the other issues that are going on in the relationship as well. What do you see is the big difference between negotiated when you’re negotiating a litigated divorce and when you’re negotiating in a collaborative divorce?
Collaborative Divorce Focuses on Families
Jody:
I think that the main difference is just that the focus in a collaborative divorce is your client. And then secondarily looking at the whole family and negotiated from the perspective of what’s going best work for this restructured family going forward. Whereas negotiation in a traditional divorce setting is all about what’s the law, what do we think is going to happen at the courthouse, and can we get a better deal legally regardless of whether that’s actually what’s best for the client.
Jennifer:
I think people don’t know and understand that really our courts are constrained by the Texas Family Code. And so their options are so limited in terms of how they can help the family. Not to mention the time, right, in front of the judge. We just don’t have very much time to really have the court consider all of the dynamics. And in a collaborative divorce, that’s really different.
Jody:
Oh yeah. I mean, people- I love the fact that our meetings are spaced out. People have time to process, prepare, think about what they want to do. Whereas court, I mean, even under the best circumstances, I mean, you can get noticed for a hearing in 3 days and you just have to get prepared and your client and you’re trying to make decisions very quickly. It’s just a very stressful situation to make decisions and something like that fact.
Jennifer:
Yeah. I love that you’re bringing that up because in collaborative, we’re sitting around a table. I mean, these days we’re on Zoom but we’re sitting around a table which is a much more natural way to have a conversation about tough issues. As opposed in the courtroom, you have these constraint time limits. You have constraints on what you can talk about, right? So in collaborative, if somebody, if something’s important to somebody, we’re going to have space to talk about it. In the courtroom, it doesn’t work that way. Just because you think it’s important, may not be relevant for the court to consider.
Jody:
I mean, as you know, there’s some courts where the time clock is actually projecting on the screen. It’s just like in your face the whole time. I think for a lot of clients, that’s just kind of shocking like they see the time ticking down.
Jennifer:
And then they start slowing down or stuttering or falling over themselves because it’s stressful when you’re on the stand. It makes everything go longer. We can’t send signals to our clients, speed it up.
Jody:
Right. Right.
Jennifer:
And in collaborative, we don’t have the same constraints. We can take as much time as we need within reason, of course, to address the issues. I suppose the one constraint is the fact that you have everybody’s on the clock, so to speak. So your team, you are paying them, but you have a much more natural flow of information that happens.
Jody:
Right. Right.
What’s the negotiation like?
Jennifer:
Let’s talk about the negotiation process in collaborative divorce. We rely on something called the roadmap to resolution. How does that play itself out in collaborative?
Jody:
I think it’s great. First of all, people can see a structure to it, which is helpful to them. But ideally, what we do is we figure out what information we need. There’s children. We want to know what are the topics we need to address with regard to their kids. Their estate. What are the topics? And then we start figuring out, what’s the information? We get that first. And then, we start looking at different ways to address each of those issues as opposed to just one long bullet list of a here’s the offer, here’s the counteroffer. I mean, we’re brainstorming different schedules for a child, different ways to handle the house, the retirement plan. So it’s just a much more comprehensive tailored approach for the settlement.
Jennifer:
Well, and then in more of a traditional setting, that shuffling the offers back and forth. So I just want to know, how does that usually work if you and I are representing parties in the traditional divorce and I send over our first offer, how well is that received usually?
Jody:
Yeah. Usually not well-received. The client is like, “That’s it. We’re going to trial. They don’t want to settle.” But you got to spend all this time getting them calm down. It’s like that’s a first offer. No one’s expecting that you settle there. But it’s just a lot of posturing and playing games.
Jennifer:
Right. And some of the games are on a first offer, you never want to offer everything, right?
Jody:
Right.
Jennifer:
You got to leave yourself room. It’s just like, if you’re trying to negotiate a car purchase, you’re not going to make your best offer the first time out. So there’s this back and forth. And in the meantime, the relationship is deteriorating.
Jody:
Oh yeah. Significant.
Jennifer:
Whatever relationship was there, distrust gets built in. People are insulted. And it really doesn’t matter what the offer is. I find this really interesting, right?
Jody:
Right.
Jennifer:
Because it can be, as a lawyer, you can look at it and go, “Wow. This is really actually a good offer.” But it still feels insulting to the person receiving it because you’re starting to put dollar values on things or whatever. It just is. It’s human nature.
Jody:
Sending an offer, it just occurred to me. It’s a very aggressive act. People don’t necessarily mean it that way, but that’s how it’s taken. So it’s no different than someone kind of going, “You should…” People are like, “I shouldn’t do anything.” And getting a letter is the same. It’s perceived as a list of demands. And usually, when people are feeling attacked, I mean, they can say no to something that is actually a good offer.
Jennifer:
Right. It triggers a defensive reaction. That’s the problem. And now you’re feeling defensive. It’s just how we’re wired. It’s human nature.
Jody:
Right.
Jennifer:
And that’s what I love about the collaborative divorce process is… And sometimes people are a little frustrated because they want to just get to make an offers and counteroffers. But we really have to slow things down and we don’t just jump into offers. And while it feels like we’re slowing things down, what we’re really doing is laying the groundwork for things to go much more smoothly through the divorce process, right?
Jody:
Right. That’s difficult when somebody has in their mind, the perfect solution. They want to make that offer right off the bat. I mean, 100% of the time that does not work.
Jennifer:
It doesn’t.
Jody:
One hundred percent. But it’s hard for people to understand. Like you said, if you don’t lay that foundation, you can’t get there.
