Great Collaborative Teams Can Mitigate Professional Burnout
Helping families through divorce can be incredibly rewarding. When you meet your client, they likely have worries about the divorce process, wonder about their future, hold disappointments towards their relationship ending or present various other thoughts/emotions. If the process goes well, by the end, your client is feeling more peaceful, confident, and secure moving forward with their life. Supporting this journey can certainly provide a lot of professional and personal fulfillment.
At the same time, family lawyers and family professionals are often witnessing and facilitating difficult discussions, can be on the receiving end of hurt and frustration, and are trying to find solutions to seemingly impossible problems. For family lawyers working in litigation, they are also likely having to deal with constant opposition (which is maybe a mild way to say that). Yes, conflict is a part of the job, but lawyers are humans too and being surrounded by family conflict can wear on even the most seasoned lawyer. It’s no wonder that these professionals experience high levels of burnout.
Collaborative Divorce can provide some relief
Collaborative Divorce is a process where instead of separating couples contentiously fighting against each other (and lawyers also presenting as combative), all individuals involved work together and commit to collaboratively resolving outstanding issues. The intention of choosing this process is to stay out of court, help clients be in control of their decision-making and outcomes, and for lawyers, to be resolution and solution focused, as best they can. Most importantly, the collaborative process includes other team members, like financial and family professionals, to advise and offer support as they all work together towards the same goal.
Many family lawyers are migrating over to this form of practice because they are seeing more satisfying results for their clients. The approach also encourages less conflict, therefore, is generally a more peaceful process. When already engaging in a difficult and emotional time, it is important for clients to feel that their well-being and mental health are being considered and maintained. Many family professionals are included in the Collaborative Divorce process to address and navigate the emotional aspects of family change. Their work includes exploring relationship dynamics, boundaries, communication and parenting related aspects. Financial professionals also join collaborative teams to support clients’ financial needs. The process has shown to be efficient, effective and productive; when a collaborative team works, it really works.
3 Signs of a supportive collaborative team
1. Vulnerability
Vulnerability isn’t exactly something that was taught in law school, but an ability to lower your defenses and share openly with the collaborative team is invaluable. It helps the team understand the whole picture and have the information they need to find resolution. When a professional does share and is met with validation, further trust is built and the team gets stronger. A strong collaborative team really does serve their clients’ best interests.
2. Willingness to share each other’s burdens
Even the most straightforward cases will have challenges. The “we’re in it together” attitude of a good collaborative team can go a long way. It takes some of the pressure off of one person, freeing them up to think creatively and feel supported.
3. Proposing solutions for the other lawyer
In a collaborative divorce, each spouse still has their own lawyer. In a supportive collaborative team, these lawyers actually help each other solve problems because they know that a solution for the other lawyer is still one step closer to a peaceful resolution.
Creating a new family law culture
All of the signs of a great collaborative team listed above could also appear as a list of the traits of a terrible litigator (depending on who you’re talking to). Family litigation has a reputation for being combative, often to the detriment of the families going through the divorce and the professionals involved. Despite the media’s image of a pitbull lawyer, many family lawyers actually want to help families move on peacefully, not keep them in lengthy battles. The constant, and often unnecessary, fights contribute to their own professional burnout, causing many to leave the profession altogether.
Collaborative professionals have a direct influence on the culture of family law. We can shape beliefs around how a family law case can be resolved and how a team can function. Mentally healthy family lawyers, family professionals, and financial professionals should be something that we are prioritizing — supportive collaborative teams can go a long way to achieve that.
Ryan Osbourne is a settlement-focused lawyer. He values good working relationships and has found that honesty, empathy, and a team-approach work. His hope is that this will make dealing with a lawyer much less stressful, expensive, and time consuming for his clients. Ryan believes in finding a win-win solution that works for everybody. Ryan is a trained collaborative lawyer and mediator.
Stephanie Stavro-Pearce is an experienced Child and Family Therapist providing services to young people, adults and families. As a trained Collaborative Family Professional, she supports clients through the emotional difficulties that often surface during family change and separation.
Stephanie’s focus is to facilitate the resolution of outstanding issues, while ensuring the best interests of children are continuously considered during decision making. She holds a Master’s of Social Work from the University of Toronto and is certified in Alternative Dispute Resolution from York University.
