Announcer:
Welcome to John Susko’s A Better Way to Divorce podcast. John Susko is a Florida family law attorney, whose practice is focused on collaborative divorce and mediation. And now here’s John Susko.
John Susko:
Welcome back to another edition of The John Susko podcast. Today I have the honor of talking to a person who I’ve not yet met. I have been talking to her though for a few months, and she is a collaborative lawyer. She’s living in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in Canada. She is a lawyer practicing in the Law Society of Prince Edward Island. And she went to University of Victoria Law School. And she has been active in the collaborative area since about 1998. She has tremendous energy. She has written books. She has done seminars and she’s got an active practice. And I want you to welcome
Jacinta Gallant. Did I pronounce your name right?
Jacinta Gallant:
Oh, that’s such a sweet question. It depends.
John Susko:
Well, tell me what it depends upon.
Jacinta Gallant:
Well, so it was originally a French last name Gallant.
John Susko:
Gallant.
Jacinta Gallant:
And historically, certain parts of Canada, the French language was really lost in some parts. And so really, we say Gallant.
John Susko:
Okay.
Jacinta Gallant:
And if we’re Francophone speaking, we would say Gallant. Quite a lot of people say Gallant. I think there was a soap opera person many years ago, with the last thing Gallant. But anyway, the name originated in Prince Edward Island. So it’s either Gallant or Gallant.
John Susko:
Gallant. Okay.
Jacinta Gallant:
So it’s Gallant.
John Susko:
First thing I’d like you to tell us, tell me how you got into collaborative law. Tell me about your practice before and tell me about it after?
Jacinta Gallant:
Well, sure. I mean, like many lawyers, I went to law school thinking that I really wanted to make the world a better place. Coming from a political science background, I was really interested in policy, and legislation and governance. But in fact, when I got to law school, I realized that I was quite interested in practice. So another interesting point is that my husband is a police officer.
So he was a new police officer. I was a new lawyer and I did a mix of everything. I did some criminal law, actually, he was quite helpful in that area. I did some family law, I did a bit of everything. And when I became a mother, shortly after I became a lawyer, I decided I wanted to focus so that I could work part time. And family law really suited me. I liked the people. I liked the problems.
I liked the fact that it was a mix of everything. There was emotional, psychological stuff, there was math, there was business, there’s money and I found that it was really quite suited to me.
John Susko:
So when did you start practicing family law?
Jacinta Gallant:
Darn it. 1992, I became a lawyer.
John Susko:
Okay.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah.
John Susko:
So for the first six years, you were in court?
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah, yeah. Yep. And in fact, I liked it. Like many of us who are collaborative lawyers, we can say that there’s part of the justice system and the court process that was quite enjoyable. It was a bit theatrical. I hated it with families.
John Susko:
Okay. Now, where did you first get trained as a collaborative professional?
Jacinta Gallant:
Well, interesting. I was on the West Coast of Canada. So I was in British Columbia. And we were already sort of leading the charge for mediation across the country, and so many family lawyers, when I was starting out, were getting trained as mediators. And we understood mediation is a process. And so when the collaborative law, collaborative practice movement began, we were involved in British Columbia around the same time as everyone else was, a little bit later, I think than San Francisco or Minneapolis.
But many of us were already mediators. And so we got it. And I think that when I think of my experience learning this on the West Coast, where many of us were already mediators, it was a little easier sell. Because we understood the dynamic and the importance of the dialogue to reach agreement.
John Susko:
Now, the mediation aspect going, how prevalent was it in British Columbia?
Jacinta Gallant:
Well, when I was starting out, it was becoming more and more common that if you’re a family lawyer, you’re going to take mediation training, even if you don’t end up being a mediator. But I’ll still say that many, many lawyers who want to work with peaceful approaches to divorce and still find themselves not busy enough in mediation are disappointed to find that it isn’t as mainstream, even now as we’d like it to be.
Though, I will say that it’s pretty common for people to consider mediation as a process. When collaborative came along, it was basically taking that approach and enhancing it with advocacy and the inclusion of other professionals like mental health and financial.
John Susko:
I went to the first ABA training on mediation. It was Gary Friedman, who was one of the instructors. And I came back and I thought I was going to come to McSusko a Florida mediation.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah.
John Susko:
And I was, but that wasn’t worth anything. And it never got started, even through the ’90s. So I understand.
Jacinta Gallant:
It’s a challenge. I think we’re on the cusp though. I think 10 years from now, things in family law are not going to look anything like they do now.
John Susko:
I hope so. I hope so. And where you are right now, that’s a small community, is it not?
Jacinta Gallant:
It’s interesting people think that. Of course, if you look at numbers, population wise, Prince Edward Island has 165,000 people, 165,000, so that would be like a suburb of where you are, John?
John Susko:
No, it would be my town. But go ahead.
Jacinta Gallant:
Your town. Okay. Yes, that’s right.
John Susko:
Okay.
Jacinta Gallant:
But because the way Canada is set up, I mean, Prince Edward Island is its own province. So it’s like a state. So we have great restaurants, wonderful cultural locations, we have university. So the city itself of Charlottetown, which is the capital has about 65,000 people. And we feel pretty lucky to be in a place where it’s a small center, you can still walk around the city and enjoy it. But we’ve got everything.
John Susko:
I have everything here too. But it’s a small place. I mean, I understand. I mean, I’ve been in big cities, and I’ve been in small cities, and I love this city. Tell me a little bit about what you learn in you’re, almost 30 year career, about what do people feel when they come into your office? I heard you speak about that at the forum. Tell me a little bit about what they’re going through?
Jacinta Gallant:
Wow, that’s such a good question. And I think that it goes to the heart of the work we’re trying to do John. I think so many people who have their first appointment with a lawyer are terrified. They’re terrified that they’re going to lose control of their lives. They’re worried that they have no control over decisions. And the first thing I hear from so many clients is, I don’t want to go to court.
I don’t know what your experience has been. But consistently, since I’ve started practicing family law, the words, “I don’t want to go to court or I’m terrified we’ll end up in court,” are expressed.
John Susko:
Okay.
Jacinta Gallant:
But I know other lawyers that don’t hear that all the time. And so I think that there’s something about the openness that we can show to clients meeting them where they’re at, both emotionally and in terms of the information they need, that helps us understand those concerns that I don’t think they express in every lawyers office. So I wanted to offer that other side.
John Susko:
All right. Yesterday I saw a seminar with Bob Merlin put on to do Family Law Section. And he was talking about in Florida there is no requirement. That there’s no stated requirement that lawyers have to go through all the different avenues of responsibility. Is it different in Canada?
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah, yeah.
John Susko:
Okay.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah. Well, truly, I think that certainly you have very… I would say, having now been working with so many different American lawyers talking about the laws in each state. We do have a national divorce act. So it governs the entire country. And it is child friendly. It’s parent friendly. And there is a requirement and has been for, well as long as I’ve been a lawyer, that lawyers are required to do two things.
One, make sure clients understand the importance of making efforts to reconcile, so there’s a piece around being sure that that’s really over. And second, to make sure that they understand that there’s ways that they can work things out without using the court system, and to be very specific about what those are. We have achieved one thing.
The new divorce act is going to come into effect on March 1st, and we specifically asked them to add collaborative process to the list of things that lawyers have to tell clients about and that’s a huge step forward for us.
John Susko:
Right. I mean, I won’t go through what happened in Florida, but we’re gaining on it.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah.
John Susko:
But slowly. Some of the seminars that you put together, I mean, keeping interest at the table. You talk about engaging more effectively with your clients, and the challenges of working in an interdisciplinary team, working with interest, an option generation. Can you speak to some of that? Do you remember that seminar?
Jacinta Gallant:
Oh, listen, I mean, this is my lived experience, remember. I mean, I laugh and say, I’m a bit of a conflict geek. I am the fifth of six kids. And we’re all like the same age now. And all our kids are the same ages. So I sort of grew up in this rough and tumble world of unconditional love and a little bit of chaos. And so I think I naturally came to be curious about how people interact with one another.
And when I became a mediator, and then I became someone who was teaching these skills to our colleagues, it became apparent that everyone was struggling. Everyone was learning that, yes, if we can help shift clients from their positions and demands, to understanding what matters underneath those demands, we have a lot more… There are many more possibilities for how they can peacefully make this transition.
But if we’re to be honest, a lot of lawyers will say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, we spend some time exploring interests or needs, concerns, hopes and fears,” and then they fall off the table, and we go straight to deal making. It’s a natural problem for us, because as lawyers, one of the things that we’re honored for is being good problem solvers. And there’s pressure on us to help our clients get it.
They won’t say it out loud maybe, but to get a deal, to get something done, they want it done yesterday. So the pressure on collaborative teams, the pressure on mediators, the pressure on lawyers, to get the job done can sometimes mean that, “Yeah, yeah we’ve explored all that great, now we know more.” And we go to option generation, we forget what we learned mattered. And we forget to bring that along.
So I just developed a couple of tools to help us be more structured in our process, so that we can make sure we keep those interests on the table when they’re exploring their options.
John Susko:
Well, let’s go right into your book. And explain something. I did not know about the second book and I went and looked today. And on Monday, I am interviewing or having on my podcast, Carol Hughes, who follow up in all this. She talked about a woman by the name of Mary Ainsworth, who was a Canadian. And Mary was my college counselor back in the ’70s.
So again, I mean, it was interesting that I saw the two of you guys right there at the same time. And again, I had never thought about the older adult. I mean, it’s amazing. And I had a Sunday school class that I taught, and there was a 70-year-old guy in the back room when we got to the point of getting people put their hands up in terms of divorce. He was crying.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah.
John Susko:
And I said, “Why are you crying?” Because I knew these people. And he said, “My parents stayed together until I went off to college”. So he has been holding that for 50 years. So again, I mean-
Jacinta Gallant:
What Carol and Bruce have created in that book is remarkable. I’ve got three copies at the office. Well, actually, I have three because they were so kind as to send me one after I’d already reordered two.
John Susko:
I understand.
Jacinta Gallant:
But I think that that is going to be something that we pay attention to. And that’s why… I know we’re going to talk about the workbooks. But that’s why I wanted to have a special workbook for couples who are separating with adult children.
John Susko:
Okay. Now, this book here, the first book, you and I have talked about the fact that there are lawyers down here in Florida that won’t use it if the other side doesn’t use it. And I’ve got to believe that handing this to somebody, when they walk in the door, regardless of whether they are in an adversary or not, this book is is golden.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah, well, that’s what I’ve learned too. And so as we’ve been rolling it out, we’ve been learning from all our colleagues. I mean, what I love about our collaborative community is we’re generous and awesome and enthusiastic and earnest and we really care about families. So what I started out with was to create a workbook for my own clients.
I wasn’t even thinking of an export product or anything. I just was tired of… I don’t know I was tired of situations where I was in collaborative and my client was prepared for dialogue and showed up and ended up with debase. And I don’t want to cast blame or say it was the other lawyers fault or whatever, I just got tired of thinking, I want my clients to be prepared for whatever process they’re in.
So the workbook that started was first Our Family in Two Homes, which addresses communication and conflict challenges, asks about values and trust, but does it in a really practical way, so that people don’t feel, I don’t know, that it’s inappropriate for a lawyer to be asking about it. You know how, you’ll often hear a lawyer saying, “You know, I feel like sometimes you want me to be a social worker and we have coaches for that, and we want to respect that role”.
So I think that what I’m most excited about it is that the feedback I get from clients is that going through the workbook, which is about 40 pages, it’s so accessible. They feel like they’re supported, they feel respected, because it invites them to reflect on stuff before they meet with us. So that it’s not all about the show with us.
And so my clients when they receive the workbook, by the time I meet with them, they’ve already begun to imagine who they are, how they show up with their partner, what the obstacles are in the way of getting agreement. But then it’s not positioned them in any way. It doesn’t tell them anything, just asks a lot of really good questions.
John Susko:
Right. Something I want to go back to, you mentioned that you were trained as mediator or the second youngest of six family members?
Jacinta Gallant:
Yep.
John Susko:
And that you enjoy some of the conflict.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah.
John Susko:
And I have the same feeling with mediation. I mean, it’s fun to… It’s not fun to watch. But I mean, it’s fun to work on that. Tell us a little bit… I mean, people going through collaborative do not have to come in singing Kumbaya.
Jacinta Gallant:
Right. They often don’t. If they do, they’ve sung it at the kitchen table and they were just dropping their documents.
John Susko:
I mean, tell me about some of how this book has impacted some of your clients or some of the other people’s clients?
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. It’s interesting, because I can always speak from my own experience. So I’ll do that first. But FYI, we now know from the number of lawyers and collaborative teams actually, that have been using the workbooks with their clients, we now know that what I tell you, is happening there as well. So what I learned initially, when I was just doing it with my clients, it wasn’t even in my thinking that it would be for everyone, was, I would ask the client, “Can you please do the first 13 pages of the workbook before we meet?”
Now, there’s some variation in how we all see clients, and I don’t want to get into all of that. But for a client that I know is coming for a meeting, and I know that they’re going to spend some time working with me, I want them to do the first 13 pages, which asks them to reflect on what they hope will be better if they spend time reflecting and preparing.
What they’re concerned about? What their communication style might be around thinking out loud or processing internally before you put it out there? You know, introvert, extrovert stuff. How they respond when emotions are strong, and they feel conflict coming up, which is to us, what’s their conflict style? What kind of misinterpretations do they experience with one another?
What are the behaviors that they show when the other person disagrees? So it’s very, very much asking if it’s me to reflect on who I am. But it doesn’t feel like it’s touchy feely, it’s very practical. And then it also asks about values in a really, really productive way, that’s different from just looking at abstract notions of justice, fairness, or peace.
And one of my favorite pages, page five, really digs down into trust and breaks it into workable parts. So I can give you an example of some of the things that have happened. So I say, “Please do the first 13 pages, I’ll see you on Thursday”. And when the client arrives, build rapport, do whatever needs to be done, but when the moment comes to move forward with the workbook, I’ll say, “What did you learn about yourself?”
And then because they’ve done the 13 pages that get at values, trust, communication, conflict, hopes, fears, interpretation, feedback, all those things in a really practical workbookie way, they’ll go right to what resonated with them. “I learned that my God when we argue it’s no wonder my partner’s always closing the door. I think she’s an introvert and she can’t stand me thinking out loud all the time”.
Or “Oh my God, I learned how much I avoid conflict. I hate it. And I think that what happens when we’re communicating is, I’m avoiding, and that means that he’s chasing after me to try and get me to engage.” You think that the way I’m describing this was after I do a lot of work with the clients, or after they’ve done some therapy or work with a coach, but this is what they say.
“Oh my god, I realized our trust is so broken down. But I now do see that there are parts that we do still have, and that we can restore,” because they looked at page five. I had a client say, “The values card sword,” which is an exercise and you get cards to, “was so hard to do and in fact, I hated it. But I followed the instructions, and I did it diligently”.
And she said, “I learned that what I really believe in is collaborative decision making and giving everyone a chance to be heard. But in reality, I want to be the boss. Like when I think about decision making with my spouse, it’s going to be really hard to share.”
And so these insights, they come with them. And all I do is start with, “What did you learn about yourself?” And then they talk blah, blah, blah. And then I’ll say, “What did you learn about your partner?” Because there’s elements of the first 13 pages that ask you to even imagine how you would characterize your partner, but without positioning or labeling. It’s very carefully done.
And then “Well, I learned that maybe the reason why we have so much trouble communicating is that she never leaves me alone. I need time to process and she’s always chasing me.” And so people come up with this. I have one client who read ahead to the money personality parts and said, “I figured out why we always fight about money.”
And then he got right into, “It was a bit of introvert, extrovert, but it was also just attitudes about money, fears about money.” And all I did was ask, what did you learn about yourself? It used to take me three or four hours with the client to get that level of engagement. And so then we’re flying.
John Susko:
Do you have any… Let me explain something. I don’t like to write. Okay?
Jacinta Gallant:
Right.
John Susko:
So I would put this off.
Jacinta Gallant:
You’re not alone.
John Susko:
Okay. And what problems do you see to get people to engage it? Because, again, I understand what you’re saying.
Jacinta Gallant:
I know.
John Susko:
Okay. Give me the answer, because I’m going to be starting to use it. And I want to try to use it and get it… I want to have those discussions that you have. I am a social worker too.
Jacinta Gallant:
Right, right.
John Susko:
But go ahead, tell me.
Jacinta Gallant:
So this prime’s them for the conversation. Think of it that way. A lot of people are thinking that the client completes the workbook and hands it in, no. I’d say this is your private journal, write in it or not. Because to be honest, if it were me, I probably wouldn’t write much either. I’m so extroverted. And I would keep so many things and ideas in my head. But I would still do the workbook.
But I would remember “Oh my God, this”. So I might do the box ticking things, but where there’s space for comments, I might not write it out, I might just absorb it internally and hold on to it. So I’ve seen people write a lot, and I’ve seen people write a little. When clients come back, I don’t ask them to share, I don’t ask them to open their workbook, I keep my empty copy on the table, so I can refer to page eight or nine, the communication and conflict style, or go to the trust page without them having to reveal. Okay?
So that’s one part of the question. You don’t have to take pen to paper, though as a social worker, you would know that there’s some real cognitive, psychological benefit of thinking, engaging and making and writing something out. Okay? So I respect that. So our clients are always told, “This is your journey, use it or don’t,” but they always do.
Then we have developed a digital tool called nudges. And you don’t know about this yet, because we finally have it. And so what it does is it’s an interactive… Think of like Survey Monkey. If you get a survey, you click on the button, and you’re asked to answer a few questions. Well, that’s what we’ve done with nudges and we’ve created Our Family in Two Homes platform.
So that the person using our product, can log in, put the client name in and send nudges. Some of the nudges might be just that, “Hey, how are you doing? Have you done the first 13 pages? And if so, what did you learn about yourself?” And maybe just a two question thing. And the other nudges might be very much around information that we need.
So that the client has a chance to actually reflect on their answer, instead of being on the telephone with energetic Jacinta, or in the moment and having to respond right then. The thing I learned was the magic isn’t all in the room. Right? It isn’t all about what I facilitate and draw out. Giving clients a chance to reflect on the decisions they need to make and reflect on who they are and how they show up, makes all the difference in our work. And it doesn’t feel social worker or touchy feely, though I love that stuff, too. And I think you do.
For collaborative professionals who aren’t lawyers, I do want to say very clearly that this has been found to enhance their roles. So it doesn’t replace. The fact that the workbook for the clients contains reflection, really great questions about money and parenting and gives legal information about, what are the parenting words that we use legally? What are the child support rules? What are some things that you need to think about? How is spousal support or alimony handled? How does family property work?
The law parts that are included in the workbook are intended to enhance the way we can explain things to clients so that when they’re stressed and flooded, and we’re trying to explain something, we can say, “You know what? If you review pages 24 to 27 tonight, it’s all there. And if you still have questions tomorrow, let me know.”
What coaches are saying is that when they get, and sometimes it’s a problem, clients will ask the coach or the financial person to comment on something legal. And they can say… Well, actually, it’s all in your book. And I want you to make sure you review that and talk to John about it. We can help you that with that. But coaches and child specialists who are using the resource with their collaborative teams, say just what I said.
The clients are better prepared to participate. So it doesn’t replace the coach’s role at all. It doesn’t say to the child specialist, oh, you need to use this. They’re just saying, “It’s great. Thanks for doing this.” And it also has a sister with Team communication. So if the child specialist has a meeting with the parents, and they have a tough conversation about trust, that child specialist can go back to the professional team and say, “We talked about trust, we really worked on page five.”
And these are the things which takes 45 seconds instead of two hours. And so I’m not saying it’s all about saving time. But it enhances, that coach can then know or the child specialist that john and Jacinta are already imagining what page five years is. “Oh, so they talked about boundaries, your liability, privacy, accountability, honesty, non judgment or generosity.” And a couple of things came up. This is going to keep coming up in our case, let’s let’s stay focused on page five.
John Susko:
Let me ask you something about the model that is used in Canada. We have down here in Florida, we have the facilitator model, you had a mental health person there, and perhaps a financial person. Where I’m at, it’s in its infancy. I mean, well, I’m starting to try to get a practice up and running. And after getting out of it. But again… And people have cost figures.
So we’re doing with what the clients come in with. Tell me, first of all the model and tell me what you saw in Canada while you were building your collaborative practice.
Jacinta Gallant:
Okay, I want to take that in two parts. One, I want to talk about how the various models, because they’re very similar to what’s happening in the US. And then I want to talk about the pricing question because I actually have an answer on that for that relates to our resource packages. So we’ve developed across the country, some pockets that are very focused on the alliance to coach model, so to coaches to lawyers, and there might be a financial, where the financial’s the only neutral.
And we’ve got lots of places where the mental health professional is a neutral. And we have child specialists who are always neutral, and that’s a different special role. So what we’re seeing happening though, and I would say across the country, is a better understanding of that coach role, the mental health professional role, and seeing more and more practice groups looking at both.
So the idea that there are some families that might be really well suited, or need a neutral facilitator, mental health professional, and others that really need each parent or each spouse to have their own mental health professional coach. And so it’s about choice. And one of the things that I’m really proud that we did in my community was we asked our coaches, “What role do you want to play?”
So that it wasn’t just about what’s the best process, but also asking the mental health professionals, “What do you see yourself playing, bringing the most value?” Because we found that some of our mental health professionals who were awesome, didn’t like the neutral role. They didn’t want to facilitate meetings, that wasn’t their thing.
And so we’re like, “Oh, well, what would you like to do?” And slowly, we’re developing this capacity to allow the mental health professional to name the role they want to play, which is not sweet.
John Susko:
It is sweet. But tell me what… If the mental health person does not like to run the meeting, what do you do? Do you have a lawyer step up or what do you do?
Jacinta Gallant:
So truly, if you don’t have a neutral on the case, the lawyer who wants to act as facilitator, the lawyers have to be better at facilitating a meeting. And that just means we have to have better skill. And I want to just do a shout out to the fact that there are still many, many, many communities where there aren’t enough neutrals. So we’re doing it already, and we’re kind of pretending we’re not.
So lawyers got to step up in terms of our own ability to manage conflict in those moments, where we’re trying to do our best to help this couple. And we may not have the facilitator, we may not have the neutral.
John Susko:
Let me tell you my experience in this town. I spent 2016 talking every collaborative person that would talk to me. Stu, Ron, you got him. I spent the whole year doing that. And that you are right. They’re very generous and earnest and beautiful with their time. And we got a number of people trained in our town. And I had some good mental health people.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah.
John Susko:
And the mental health people, because the lawyers that were the people that got the cases, were a little bit more marketing persons and a little bit more positional type people. And two of them got out of it. The best two got out of it, because they didn’t want to be, they were always breaking up problems between the two lawyers, not the clients. Where am I going with this?
Jacinta Gallant:
You’re going to the place that we need to go. This is happening everywhere, John.
John Susko:
Okay.
Jacinta Gallant:
And almost everywhere people think that it’s their fault. That they’ve just doing it wrong. And my heart really, really gets broken for that, because that’s what happened to my town, where I live. So, if I’m so called, like a great trainer, and an energetic person who can have an impact, that happened here. It’s happening everywhere.
I travel, truly, I’ve been in many parts of the world, where I do hear people telling me the stories of their struggle. And a lot of it is trying to find a way to team that works. That works for the clients, that works for the professionals. And so in some places, you will see this where the lawyers have developed really great skills around conflict, which is really mediation skills in an advocacy role.
They can manage a lot. And then the role of the mental health professional doesn’t have to be refereeing or managing the meeting, it can be very focused on the areas where they have tremendous skill. And I had the same experience here. They were tired of refereeing. So they said I’d rather work in a two coach model, and then you guys sort out your own stuff.
John Susko:
All right, so I got to spend some time with our mental health people to find out what they’re feeling.
Jacinta Gallant:
Well, that’s what we did. And honestly, it was very insightful to get their answers and… I’m going to just well I kind of, this is just my take, but I do think that in many ways, our mental health professionals haven’t been the ones defining their role, and they’re fabulous by the way. I always want to say I have such respect.
But in many situations, the lawyers are bringing them in to manage what we don’t think we can manage. And I don’t think that’s their job all the time. I think that would be fabulous.
John Susko:
I think this is another seminar that you’ve got to work on and I’ll help you with that if you’re game. But I mean, if you would have time. I’m sorry.
Jacinta Gallant:
No, no, it’s about… I’ve struggled so hard as a lawyer who happens to have a lot of skill around conflict resolution and communication and can sort of hide in some ways as having some abilities that the mental health professionals bring too. But I want to I want to make room for lawyers who are not like me, because they want to do this work.
Lawyers who care about families, may not all have the time or the inclination to develop the finely homes conflict resolution skills that you need to manage a collaborative case without a neutral that’s going to take that on. And I think we need to make room for those people by really defining what role everyone on the team can play, including a mediator. So you want to know what happened in our town?
John Susko:
Sure, yes. Please.
Jacinta Gallant:
We’re lucky, right? Because, we know each other. So I said very meekly, “Guys, I’m really good at managing conflict. Sometimes I want the collaborative team and I’m sitting as an advocate, as the collaborative lawyer. And I’m not using my skills, because I know I’m making room for the facilitator.” And then the facilitator will say, “I hate doing that. What are you doing?” I’m like, “Well, my role is like, we have to be careful. If I’m taking over that, then what does the other client and lawyer think?”
So we were all over this? And I said, “What if we did collaborative mediation?” And I thought it was a four letter word, I thought we weren’t allowed to say that. Because everyone was worried about watering down collaborative practice by offering new models, and I’m like, “Well, but what if the person in the group that can best manage this conflict on this case, happens to just be a lawyer, or the best person happens to be a mental health professional? Or the best person is the financial professional to manage the conflict and help manage the case?” What if?
And they’re like, “Yeah.” So we all agreed that we would start doing collaborative cases where I might take on the role of neutral. Not a mental health professional in any way. We call me the neutral facilitator, because I like the way Florida use that term. And so we’re just rolling that out now. Look, I think that it also gives the freedom for a mental health professional, who feels really strongly that their skills are in facilitation, to say, “Maybe the case will start with me and I build a collaborative team from this.”
Which is kind of like a collaborative mediation approach. Or the financial neutral might be, in my experience with our town, most of our financial neutrals were really happy to be resourced as a part of the team, but they didn’t want to become facilitators, and that was fine. Well, if one of them did want to, maybe the case comes into their door, and they’re the neutral facilitator.
It’s a challenge because, what do you do with the area of expertise you need? Like, I don’t know. But if I’m the neutral facilitator, I’m not a lawyer, I’m not giving legal advice. The lawyers are. But I’m bringing my conflict resolution skills in a way that’s unique to me, and I’m not replacing a mental health professional who has a whole other skill set that could be working on something else.
John Susko:
I understand what you’re saying. And I agree. Let me explaining, back when mediation starting, I had a case where two accountants were getting a divorce. Not that divorce, it was a non compete clause. And I talked with them, and I saw that the more the young accountants’ lawyer, who I knew talked, the angrier the older accountant got.
And am I broken two sessions, I said to him, I said, “Here’s a trial balloon. If I could get an apology, and $1,000 check with this case go away?” He said, “You bet it would.” And I shared that with the other side, 20 minutes later, they all thanked me. And that was the only time in my long career that people genuinely were happy. The result, because that’s my skill. Then I swear, I understand what you’re saying.
Jacinta Gallant:
But I think that the important thing is it’s so hard because so many people who want to do the work that we want to do, I think they should already be good at it because by the time they come to cooperate, they’re already seasoned professionals. Mental health, financial or legal. And it can be hard to spend the time then honing skills that you might not already have.
John Susko:
I understand what you’re saying.
Jacinta Gallant:
I was throwing you the pause for the cough. That’s all.
John Susko:
Thank you. Go ahead. We could continue this forever. I mean, I could be talking with you. I’d love to talk to you.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yeah, I do.
John Susko:
If you can tell me a little bit about when you have seen this book, helped to break an impasse or deal with a plot.
Jacinta Gallant:
Yep.
John Susko:
Tell me about that.
Jacinta Gallant:
There’s just so many examples. I’ll give you a couple of examples. But I want you to know that the reason the workbook has such an impact is that it prepares them for the conversations that are going to happen when they’re in a joint session. That’s the difference. So it doesn’t work to just train the professionals to be better at what we do. Because, that makes it all about us.
And we know that’s not the way it is. But everyone has tried in some small way to do more client preparation. And I basically just took a year off to create this. So here’s an example. Mom and Dad, this is a mom and dad situation in Canada, Disney World is the one in Florida, right? So before COVID, dad wants to take the children to Disney World for a vacation, okay?
Mom doesn’t want that to happen. Secretly, she doesn’t trust the hills supervises, all this stuff going on. All this fear, there’s worries about addiction and all the stuff that we see in so many cases. And so this was a mediation. So there was no child specialist or coach involved. But what happened was, they got angry at one another. “You just don’t trust me.” “Why would I trust you?” And we’ve all heard the trust argument.
So I take a breath. I opened my empty workbook to page five. I slow down. I don’t say, “Oh, stop.” You know, you said you wouldn’t use accusatory language, and call it communication guideline, I took a piece of paper, which is a workbook, I turned it to them and said, “It sounds like this is about trust.” And they looked up. So they looked at me for a moment. I said, “Yeah, so this is hard acknowledgement.”
And then I turned the page, it’s a beautifully laid out page. The thing is, they’ve already seen it, but they’re not revealing their answers. And so I said, “Okay, well, I know that you need to work on this, because you want to make this decision because the trips coming up. So which part of trusts are broken down? And which parts do you hope to restore?”
And so I turn the page to them. And I said, “Let’s start with which parts you still have.” And so they looked, their brains seemed to engage, the thinking and the feeling brain seemed to engage. She said, “I think we’re pretty good to respect each other’s boundaries, and give each other privacy.” And he said, “I would agree with that. But I also think we rely on one another. I think we have reliability.” And she looked at him and said, “I don’t think so.”
And I said, “Okay, so there’s disagreement on that. What else? Is there anything else you already have?” So they settled on, they have boundaries and privacy, not sure about reliability. And I said, “Okay, which parts do you want to work on?” So they had a bit of a conversation. And long story short, they decided that they needed to be more generous in their interpretations of one another, and to be less judgmental in interpreting everything that she says or he says to be like a stab in the heart.
So it sounds like when I’m describing it without the workbook in front of you, it sounds like, well that all sounds like what the coach would do in the room. And it is. The thing is, in the moment where our clients are arguing, and saying, “I don’t trust you.” Well, guess what, that happens in my room too. And so what I saw happen was what I think our mental health professionals can describe, which is that they went from their emotional argumentative way of being where they were their thinking brain wasn’t as attached, connected.
And then they start thinking because they’ve already seen it. It’s not contrived them, they get it. So then I say, “Okay, so you’ve agreed that you want to work on generosity, being more generous in your interpretation of one another, less judgmental, try to give a fair assessment of whatever’s coming your way, and to work on reliability.”
And then I said, “Will you give me permission to remind you of that.” “Yes.” And then of course, in the next two hours, I had a chance to remind them of that a couple of times. But they decided, what parts they were going to work on, and it wasn’t me just giving the head pat saying, “Oh, don’t worry trust will come.” So a lot of us are doing this already, John, what the workbook does is, it prepares them. And they’re not caught off guard.
But it in no way positions them. It only asks a bunch of good questions. And that is because I studied the inside approach to conflict for three years before I started this, and it’s a very different approach. So I’m really, really proud of it. But I only do it for my clients. So the fact that it’s now going around the world is like a dream come true.
John Susko:
Well, Jacinta, you should be proud of it. I mean truly, and again, the idea of having them work on it ahead of time is great. I’m going to start using that. We got to talk a little bit about it afterwards. But, it’s been a joy to talk with you. I think we will close for right now, and we may bring you back again, after I get used to the workbook so I can respond and sort of say, “Yeah, this stuff works really well.”
Jacinta Gallant:
Well, I want to thank you for your heart and your soul and everything you’re putting into this podcast.
Announcer:
This has been John Susko’s, A Better Way to Divorce podcast. John Susko is a Florida family law attorney. If you’d like to learn more about collaborative divorce or mediation, go to susko-collab-med.com or click on the link in the show notes below.