The Role of the Family Law Consultant
The family law consultant assists clients by fostering communication, translating emotions, and building trust while monitoring their pace through the legal process. The role of the consultant is to help guide the client through their emotional landscape, increasing awareness of personal obstacles (i.e. sadness and loss; frustration and anger). The consultant assists with problem solving techniques so clients can more effectively manage problems that typically distract, delay, or derail the course of the divorce. This time limited, here-and-now approach helps to mature the client from resistance to readiness.
The consultant is not a therapist (one who typically provides a diagnosis and treats for an undetermined length of time) and the role is dictated by the more significant hurdles requiring the most immediate attention. The goal is to encourage clarity for each client, pave a smoother emotional path, and promote a more mindful commitment to their divorce process. Consulting sessions explore common difficulties: communication, trust, pace, and emotional navigation. The end game for clients is a greater understanding of themselves. This promotes a more civil, respectful role in the process that can salvage family relationships for years after the divorce.
The consultant best serves the legal team by identifying potential obstacles in the family law process. The stereotypical response to divorce is a difficult, adversarial mindset that can cloud client judgment, encourage personal attack, and break down communication pathways. Consulting promotes a personal awareness of each client’s delicate emotional recipe and encourages maximum interaction in their legal process to strive for optimal outcome. This decreases animosity and expedites the process while conserving valuable resources. A consultant’s role as the medium between the law and spouse allows for the attorney to focus on their legal core competencies and commit time, energy, and resources for optimal client outcome.
Ways a Family Law Consultant can Help You
A Family Law Consultant Can…
- Teach the 10 Commandments to a Better Divorce™
- Troubleshoot co-parenting concerns to lead to a greater family values in the long-term
- Embrace personality types of both you and your lawyer as the essential variables that contribute to the legal process.
- To promote and facilitate “Goodness of fit” between your personality and your lawyer. This is essential for your best outcome.
- Identify what personality conflicts will hinder your legal process, avoiding potential breakdowns
- Help you realize the importance of recognizing your own emotional states and how they impact the legal process (Help vs. Hurt).
- Help you understand the need to recognize the emotional states of your spouse.
- Proactively manage levels of mistrust between you and your spouse.
- Educate you by normalizing the stages of divorce.
- Denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, acceptance (striving for acceptance)
- Identify your habitual communication preferences and how they impact the legal process.
- i.e. Assertive vs. Aggressive communication styles
- Assist you in regaining a sense of personal control when emotionally charged content flares up.
- Teach new skill sets to help maintain your emotional stability in an effort to maximize decision-making processes.
- Provide feedback pre-and post-legal debriefings for you.
- Facilitate the “spousal overlap” process that focuses on discussion of yourself/spouse regarding both struggles and strengths with the goal to connect the commonalities and diffuse conflicts.
