It is my opinion, after 33 years of practice, that law practice has taken a terrible turn away from serving clients’ needs and serving as true counselors for clients. The change that is called for lies in alternative dispute resolution such as mediation, collaborative law, and arbitration. The change also lies in a complete revision of the way we treat people and handle situations in the litigation environment.

Family law cases involve families. This means that the handling of the family law case impacts lives. And the lives are not just impacted for a certain situation; they are impacted for the rest of their lives. When children are involved, the impact is obvious. The divorcing couple faces a lifetime of having to work with each other as they care for their children. There are also an infinite number of lifetime events, such as birthdays, holidays, boyfriends and girlfriends, sports and other activities, graduations, marriages, and grandchildren, that are there to be shared and enjoyed. In light of this tremendous impact on lives, family lawyers have a unique and particular responsibility to look for ways to make the family law case resolve in a constructive manner.

Click here to continue reading the original article from Family Lawyer Magazine.

Everyone knows at least one divorce horror story, but we seldom hear about people who have established friendly post-divorce associations with each other. “Did you hear that Hugh and Liz are getting along well these days?” just isn’t news. Armed with their version of divorce hell, the skeptics tell us it’s impossible for a divorced couple to make peace and become friends. They outtalk the quiet and peaceful believers — perhaps because people who are doing just fine don’t feel the need to vent. “If every divorce were a ‘War of the Roses’, there would be blood on the streets!” points out Barbara Quick, author of Still Friends: Living Happily Ever After…Even if your Marriage Falls Apart.

Luckily, it’s never too late to make peace. With determination and good intentions, you can overcome the anger, grief, and sadness of losing a marriage and eventually — believe it or not — achieve friendship. Whether or not you want to be “friends” with your ex is a decision in itself, but if you have children together, finding a way to be amicable with your co-parent makes life a lot easier. Your former in-laws don’t have to disappear with the marriage either, especially if you’ve always enjoyed a good relationship with them. Unfortunately there’s no rule book for cultivating civility with your ex-spouse, your former in-laws, or even your ex’s new spouse — so we asked several experts — including people who have managed to create friendly post-divorce relationships — for some guidance. Here’s what they had to say:

Click here to continue reading the original article from iVillage.

Divorce is a sadly common practice in the U.S. According to reports, if rates continue as they are it could be as common as 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce. Perhaps the most tragic of broken unions are the ones that involve children. However, divorced couples with children have the potential to have civil and even peaceful relationships when both individuals focus directly on the children.

New research conducted at the University of Missouri offers hope for divorced parents and suggests hostile relationships can improve when ex-spouses set aside their differences and focus on their children’s needs.

“Most people falsely believe that, when people get divorced, they’ll continue to fight, to be hostile,” said Marilyn Coleman, Curators’ Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at MU. “We found in our study that’s not always true. Some couples get along from the very beginning, and, for about half of the women we interviewed, the couples whose relationships started badly improved over time.”

Coleman and colleagues interviewed 20 women who shared custody with ex-partners. Half reported having contentious relationships with their ex-partners and the other half reported their relationship to be civil and even amicable.

The reason being?

Click here to read the original article from Counsel&Heal.

Stringfellow, S.C., “Divoced Couples Relationship can Improve with Co-Parenting.” Weblog entry. Counsel&Heal. August 16, 2012. Accessed June 25, 2013, from http://www.counselheal.com/articles/2559/20120816/divorced-couples-relationship-can-improve-with-co-parenting.htm.

It’s no secret that one of the biggest challenges a parent faces after divorce is communicating with your children. All parents struggle with communication issues as their children grow, but children who have had their lives dramatically altered by separation or divorce need even more attention and diligent observation by their parents.

Children tend not to tell you when they are angry, resentful, confused, hurt or depressed. Instead, they reflect their problems through their behavior — acting out or perhaps turning inward in ways that you have not experienced prior to the divorce.

Here are some tips on ways to encourage positive and productive communication between you and your children. Many of these are obvious or innate behaviors. Some can easily be forgotten amid the challenges you are juggling in your own life on a daily basis.

Click here to continue reading the original article from The Huffington Post.

Daily we are bombarded with articles in the print media, blogs on the internet, and radio and television stories reporting the decline in divorce rates. The reason, all the media pronounce, is a byproduct of the bad economy. As the story goes, when the economy is in trouble, people simply do not have enough money to divorce. And so, they suffer, the reporters tell us, trying to put up with each other in any way they can until there are sufficient funds in their coffers to finance their divorce. Indeed, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers’ survey of its members revealed that 37% of divorce lawyers were reporting a decline in clients seeking divorce.

To continue reading this article from DivorceHQ.com, click here.

Kids wait all year for summer vacation. Now summer is here and all kinds of visions dance in your head about keeping kids busy, entertained, structured, happy, and distracted from the throes of your divorce. Combining these challenges with a multitude of potential celebrations such as graduations and weddings, it is no wonder that most divorced families view summer as a particularly stressful time.

Kids who are home from school have a lot of available time that needs to be scheduled. Some will benefit from going away to camp or to their grandparents, while others will benefit from more one-on-one time with parents because they may find the isolation from divorce as alienating. It is probably a good idea to ask the kids how they want to spend their summer before any final decisions are made.

Summer visitation is important for you and your former spouse to discuss. Visitation scheduling can prove very complicated.

Click here to continue reading the original article from Financial Planning Association.