I just finished watching the documentary, Divorce Corp, and I have to admit that I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, as someone who has devoted his career to helping people understand that divorce should not occur in court, or even in the shadow of the courthouse, this movie may be a powerful tool in raising awareness of this very serious issue. On the other hand, as someone who feels dedicated to the truth and who feels a deep commitment to helping people fully understand their options in a fair and honorable manner, I bristled at some of the sensationalism and the broad generalizations made from some extreme examples.
To the extent that the movie attempts to show that the problem with our family law system is that it is inundated with corrupt judges, greedy lawyers and dishonest custody evaluators, I need to state very clearly that I do not believe that to be true. Having worked in the family law system in Minnesota for more than 30 years, including two decades in court, I have found that the majority of judges, divorce lawyers and custody evaluators are honest people who care about children.
Indeed, one of the reasons I strongly believe that the adversarial system does not work in resolving family issues, is that operating in the shadow of an adversarial system often damages families even when you have good people involved. There is much need for reform of our system and there is a strong need to raise awareness about the alternatives to court. I had hoped that the movie would help people understand the existing alternatives to court rather than focusing almost exclusively on proposing legislative changes.
To the credit of the movie makers, they did feature excellent commentary from two very credible peacemakers that I have come to know quite well. Woody Mosten and David Hoffman, two law professors who are worldwide leaders in mediation and Collaborative Practice, gave the movie producers valuable insights on how we can help families find a better way. While very few of those insights made it into the movie, the producers did release a trailer that discussed the benefits of mediation and Collaborative Practice as alternatives to court. An article by David Hoffman also does a good job summarizing many of the shortcomings of the film.
As for the rest of the movie, I am recommending that people see the movie and draw their own conclusions. Even if you disagree with some of the exaggerations and proposed solutions, as I clearly did, it will at least get us all thinking and talking about this important issue. If you happen to be someone who is facing divorce, you should not emerge from this moving believing you will have found any answers or even a real grip on the truth of our family law system. Rather, my hope is that the movie will cause you to respect the important question about how to proceed with divorce so that you will seek out reliable information about all of your options.
To learn more about Collaborative Law and other options that I believe are not clearly understood, go to www.collaborativelaw.org and www.divorcechoice.com.
Collaborative Attorney Carl Arnold had the opportunity to speak with experienced Neutral Child Specialist Deborah Clemmensen. Carl Arnold asked Deborah Clemmensen about her role as a Neutral Child Specialist and the conversation was recorded. The audio and the the transcript of the interview are available below.
Interview with Deborah Clemmensen about the role of a Neutral Child Specialist.
Begin transcript:
My name is Carl Arnold, with Arnold Law and Mediation. I’m a Minnesota family law attorney and mediator and I’m here with Deborah Clemmensen. She’s a licensed psychologist and neutral child specialist.
Carl: Hi Deborah.
Deborah: Hi Carl.
Carl: So, we’re here to talk with Deborah today about being a neutral child specialist and her services in that regard. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background in working with kids.
Deborah: I’m happy to. I’ve been a licensed psychologist since the late ’70’s and I’ve worked in schools and community mental health centers…and for the last 11 years, I’ve provided neutral child specialist services to help families have a child-inclusive, respectful process to developing parenting plans when they’re going through a divorce or breakup. It’s a very satisfying type of work.
Carl: Well, let’s get right to it and say what is a neutral child specialist? How do you define that and what do you do?
Deborah: Good question and I’ll tell you how I explain it to new clients and sometimes to the kids that I work with. Neutral means that I never appear in court, that I have the capacity to work with people in problem solving and interest based negotiation without having to be in court or testifying or doing any of the things that are involved with the court process. Child specialist means that I have a chance to work with everyone in the family and find out the point of view of all the folks who, not elders and pets, of course, but all the points of view of children and parents to understand what would be the most developmentally appropriate resolution for parents moving forward after their divorce or breakup.
Carl: What is the benefit of this service compared to other ways that a family may go through a divorce or separation process?
Deborah: Well, I am just a part of the divorce. I’m the parenting plan part of a divorce, so I can help people to create a road map for how they’re going to move forward as co-parents without having to be in any sort of adversarial process. I think the neutrality is a big help. We can get right down to business and problem solve and think about the developmental needs of children in the family. I think having it be child-inclusive means that kids get some support during a very difficult time. Divorce or breakup is a crisis for a family and to be able to provide kids with an opportunity to share their point of view, someone who’s listening, and to know that that’s going to be part of problem solving that their parents will do. Their parents will hear what I’ve learned from the kids. I think it helps kids to feel a little bit safer moving forward so that strategic support is very important. And I think that having a neutral look at what are the ages and stages of the kids and what do they have to say about how this could work best for them moving forward is invaluable. I have learned a ton from the kids that I’m working with.
Carl: What would be a typical step-by-step part of the process? How does it start? When does it start? What’s the first step and so on?
Deborah: Good question. I believe that having a child specialist on board from the very beginning can be helpful because we anchor the work in the developmental needs of the kids and what’s best for the family system. I like to work with parents from the very beginning. Many parents come to me with the question of how do I talk to my children, how to we talk to our children about what’s going to be happening to our family. I love to help parents create developmentally appropriate “we” statements that they can share with the kids to start that journey.
My process begins with a joint meeting with parents and it’s focused on their kids, getting developmental histories, understanding what the parents’ concerns are moving forward and from that point, it sort of branches off based on the ages and stages of the kids. If the kids are in preschool, we might have a joint family playroom meeting just so I get to know the kids, experience them firsthand and provide that kind of support. We may, at that meeting, talk about what’s happening in the family and give them some grounding. I tell parents to describe me as the helper advocate for kids. If kids are school aged and older, then I do have a structured process: two meetings, one with the siblings together and one with each child independently and we do structured activities to help keep them at the center and out of the middle, to understand how they perceive family roles and functions. What are their hopes? What are their fears? How can we best be responsive? From that point, I do a feedback with parents. At that juncture, parents can decide if they would like to continue to work with me as a neutral child specialist to develop a parenting plan, which allows them to continue to think of themselves as parents making decisions, rather than people in a custody battle. We don’t use those labels. We talk in a different language that’s more family friendly.
Carl: So when people come to you, are they in the out-of-court processes like mediation or collaborative divorce or are they in court? How would you describe to people in what way do you relate to those processes?
Deborah: That’s another really good question. I would say the majority of the work I do is with collaborative teams. Collaborative being a type of alternative dispute resolution process that’s all outside of the court but works with teams of professionals – two attorneys, a neutral coach, a neutral financial person and a neutral child specialist – to all bring our skills to a very systematic and efficient way to help parents and families through this process. Some of my cases, though, come from other routes. I’ve worked with mediators in a team to do a child inclusive process for the parenting plan and I’ve worked with non-collaborative attorneys who believe, along with their clients, that this part of the divorce or the breakup really belongs outside of court, that if it can be done in a neutral setting, that that will set the stage for more positive co-parenting moving forward.
Carl: Where can people find out more information about your services for a neutral child specialist?
Deborah: I have a website. It’s www.deborahclemmensen.com and I go through that process in some detail so parents are prepared for what to expect coming in. I also have a web page on the Collaborative Law Institute of Minnesota website. That’s www.collaborativelaw.org. On that website, there are lists of professionals. I’m not the only person doing neutral child specialist work, so if folks were looking for someone in a particular geographic location, that would be an excellent resource to find a neutral child specialist.
Carl: Thanks a lot, Deborah. I appreciate having this conversation.
Deborah: It’s totally been my pleasure, Carl, thank you.
Carl: This has been Deborah Clemmensen, Licensed Psychologist and Neutral Child Specialist, and my name is Carl Arnold of Arnold Law and Mediation.
Part 1: What is Collaborative Divorce?
Collaborative Divorce has spread rapidly throughout the world during the past two decades and has helped thousands of families achieve better outcomes. This series of blogs will focus on how people facing divorce can achieve better outcomes through a Collaborative Divorce.
This first blog starts by providing this simple definition of Collaborative Divorce:
A divorce in which the husband and the wife each retain a lawyer for settlement purposes only.
That’s it. While Collaborative Divorce has many other elements, this one feature defines the process. As simple as this seems on the surface, it is easy to get confused about what Collaborative Divorce means for two reasons:
First, because the word “collaborative” is an adjective, (essentially meaning “working together”), that has been around for centuries, the word collaborative, (without a capital c), could be used to describe many divorces where people work together. However, in legal terminology, the phrase Collaborative Divorce (capital C), has come to define a specific divorce process in which the attorneys are retained for settlement purposes only. In a Collaborative Divorce, unlike a traditional negotiation, the lawyers must withdraw if the divorce cannot be resolved out of court.
Second, while using lawyers for settlement purposes only is the one defining feature, Collaborative Divorce often has many other elements that add greatly to the success of Collaborative cases. For example, Collaborative Divorce is often a team process in which the clients work with financial neutrals and mental health professionals in addition to attorneys. In addition, Collaborative Divorces generally use a very different method of negotiation called “interest-based negotiations.” These features allow people to get better outcomes in their divorce but are not part of the definition of Collaborative Divorce. Some Collaborative Divorces do not include all of these features.
The basic defining characteristic of Collaborative Divorce, (the fact that the lawyers must withdraw if the matter goes to court), was introduced by Stu Webb, a Minnesota attorney in 1990. Stu’s simple but profound idea was that committing to settlement only would open the door to a new way of doing things that would help families get better outcomes. Indeed that is exactly what has happened. Great innovations like working with full interdisciplinary teams and using interest based bargaining are two of the common feature of Collaborative Divorce that have evolved as part of the Collaborative Divorce process as a result of this great commitment.
Understanding that Collaborative lawyers are hired for settlement purpose only is the first step in truly understanding Collaborative Divorce. The next step is to understand why that commitment is so essential to the success of Collaborative Divorce. Understanding the strength and value of the Collaborative Commitment is covered in the next blog in this series. For immediate information on these and other questions about Collaborative Divorce, go to www.collaborativelaw.org or www.divorcechoice.com.
Read Part 2 of this series 
Unmarried and have children? You may be interested to know that “Collaborative Divorce” is not just for divorce. Learn how the collaborative process can help you.
First, it may be relieving to know that you are not alone. There are some interesting recent statistics related to marriage and children. Nearly half of children in America are born outside of marriage. And, for women under 30, most children are born outside of marriage.
Whether you are married or not, if you separate from the other parent, you’ll need to figure out custody, parenting time and financial support issues related to your children. These are legal issues that should be finalized in a court order, either by agreement reached in the collaborative process or mediation, or by a court decision after a trial.
There is a great online resource related to unmarried parents (useful to both unmarried mothers and unmarried fathers), available here for free from Legal Services State Support.
The collaborative process is designed to increase communication and trust while helping you resolve these issues.
You might be interested to know that this website, collaborativedivorceoptions.com, is part of the Collaborative Law Institute of Minnesota and the articles are written by it’s members. Keep in mind that divorce is only one type of legal issue where the collaborative process is used. Why do I point this out? Because it’s important to know that Collaborative Law is not just for divorce. If you aren’t married but you have children, it’s important to know that you can still participate in a collaborative process rather than taking your case to court.
The same collaborative principles apply whether you are married or not. In the collaborative process, you each hire attorneys trained in the collaborative process and you all sign an agreement not to go to court. Then you have a series of joint meetings where you all meet together, many times with other neutral professionals such as a coach, child specialist or financial specialist.
In the end, you just file your agreement with the court rather than having a trial or other court hearings. That’s it. You never have to set foot in a courtroom and the process is structured and respectful.
There is a very funny video making the rounds that shows a woman talking to her husband about this mysterious pain in the middle of her forehead. Early in the video we are shown that the pain is being caused by a nail in her forehead. When the husband gently tries to point this out, the woman becomes upset with him for “refusing to listen” and for always “trying to solve the problem.”
The video is really very funny. It is sure to make you laugh; and might even drive home a point. There are several insights to be drawn from this video. I like to focus on this very simple one: Sometimes the causes of our seemingly complex problems are so plain that we need only to look in the mirror. Things that have become complex in our minds are quite obvious to those around us and, if we step back, could become obvious to us as well.
I work with divorcing couples every day who struggle to find their way through difficult issues. While divorce can, of course, present complex issues the bigger challenge is that the emotions surrounding the divorce can be so intense that even simple solutions can seem elusive.
During these painful experiences, our minds can so easily fixate on what other people could do to make things better. Most of my clients are quite skilled at identifying the ways that their spouse could improve their behavior. While their observations may be accurate (at least in part), changing a spouse’s behavior is often beyond our control. Yet, our power to change other things; our own behavior, our attitude, or our ability to accept what is happening in our lives, can often be quite plain to see. Sometimes it is as even as obvious as a nail in our forehead.
Divorce is never truly good. But a bad divorce can create many years of devastation. If you have a friend or family member approaching divorce it can be difficult to watch the economic and emotional turmoil unfold, particularly if there are children involved. As a friend, or a family member, you want to help; but can you?
In my 30 years as a divorce lawyer, I have seen how friends and family members can provide much needed support and comfort that has helped my divorce clients get through this process in a much healthier way. At the same time, I have often watched well meaning friends and family members give my clients advice that actually made the divorce more adversarial.
If you know someone who is going through divorce and want to help, here are five things to consider.
- Encourage them to seek counseling, if appropriate. Whether they are trying to save the marriage or simply manage the emotional turmoil and grief during this difficult time, a good counselor can be even more important than a divorce attorney. They will soon be making some of the most important decisions in their lives during a time in which their sense of reason and judgment may be impaired by emotions. Getting help with the emotional and psychological aspect of divorce is crucial.
- Give them support and encouragement; but not legal advice. If you have been through a divorce, or have experienced the divorce of close friends, you may be tempted to advise others based on your observed experience. This advice, though well intended, can often be quite harmful.
- Encourage them to truly research their options. Most people rush into divorce without truly understanding their choices. As result they often choose a method that is not the best alternative for their family.
- Help them understand that civility is not weakness. Divorce can create fear and anger that tempt people to seek “a pound of flesh.” Few families can emerge from an adversarial divorce unscathed. Help them understand that resolving their divorce in a civil and respectful manner can actually get them a better outcome.
- Avoid demonizing the spouse. Divorce often creates a delusional reality that causes people to see their spouse in a very negative light. Accepting your friend’s emotionally impacted negative view off their spouse can even seem like the “supportive thing to do.” Usually it simply adds to the misperceptions that make future co-parenting more difficult.
My wonderful in-laws were married for more than 71 years. During their later years, visitors to their apartment were surprised to see a copy of The Collaborative Way to Divorce on their bookshelf. The confusion was remedied after it they explained that they felt compelled to display the divorce book their son-in-law had co-authored.
The situation with my in-laws always reminded me of the old joke about the couple who decided to divorce in their late 90’s, claiming that they had waited so long because they wanted “to wait until all the children have died”.
In my 30 years of divorce practice, I have never met a couple who waited quite that long, but I have often heard clients tell me they were waiting “until the kids were grown.” I sometimes fear that this approach may have caused them to postpone marital counseling, or other marriage saving measures, until the bloom has fully gone off the rose. Still, I understand the desire to hold off on divorce to spare the children at least some of the pain.
In practice, “waiting until the children have grown” generally means that, when the youngest child has reached the age of 16 or 17, one of the parents decides they are close enough to the finish line to start down the path toward divorce. These families are generally grateful that they have generally spared themselves the difficulties of having to work out a parenting schedule for young children. However, most of them also come realize that their children, grown or not, are still affected about the divorce.
Grown children want their parents to get along, maybe as much as young children do. It is always sad to hear about a young man or woman who has to spend part of their wedding day worrying about whether mom and dad can be in the same room. Thankfully, parents who want to spare their children from that anxiety choose methods like Collaborative Divorce, that allow them to remain friends, or at least retain mutual respect, that keeps their children out of the middle, long after they have grown. 
It occurs to me that just as in the rest of our lives, some of the best things in divorce are free.
Here are more than a few free items that I came up with on a recent afternoon.
Initial Consultation
Most importantly, many atttorneys and other divorce professionals offer free (or low cost) initial consultations to help you understand your options. I enjoy offering free consultations because I can make the most impact on a person’s life by helping them at the very beginning before they waste time and money.
General Divorce Information
It’s free to keep reading this blog! There are many helpful articles to help guide your decisions. You can learn what is involved in divorce and how to choose professionals to help you with the divorce process.
Read my Family Law blog called Always Family Center for free information about many Family Law topics.
Learn more about Collaborative Divorce here.
Want to look through the statute on divorce to get an overview of the law? It’s available for free here.
Go to your local library. They all have a section on divorce and other legal topics. Why not take advantage of the free books at your local library? You already paid for it with your taxes, right!
Parenting in Divorce
You can view an 8 hour online class for divorcing or separating parents called Parents Forever for free or very little cost provided by the University of Minnesota.
Children’s Expenses
Here is a link to the Minnesota Department of Human Services publication titled Understanding Child Support: A Handbook for Parents.
If you are curious about how the Minnesota Guidelines Child Support Calculator works, that’s available for free here.
If you want to look through the statute on child support to get a more in-depth view of the law, it’s available for free here.
Budgets
Do you want to know what your budget is? Just look at your checkbook or last credit or debit card statement and make a list of the most common expenses.
Thinking about moving out and living somewhere else and want to know how much it would cost? For rentals, just look online or make some phone calls from ads in the paper, all for free.
Parenting Plans
Want to create a great parenting plan? Consult with a Neutral Child Specialist. You can find one here. Look for the area titled “Find a Professional by Profession” and then chose “Child Specialist”.
Here is probably the best available court system parenting schedule guide, which happens to be from Arizona (But helpful regardless of where your kids live!). Here’s the Parenting Agreement Worksheet from the Minnesota Court system. Again from Minnesota, here is A Parental Guide to Making Child-Foccused Parenting Time Decisions.
Sending an email to your child’s other parent to tell them that you appreciate something about their parenting is free.
Picking up the phone and talking with your ex about your child’s upcoming events is free (or nearly free).
Want to search for a Collaborative Divorce attorney or financial professional or coach or child specialist? It’s right here on the Minnesota Collaborative Law Institute website. 
There is such a thing as a Do-It-Yourself Divorce. Not that I recommend it, but it’s out there. As an attorney who focuses on Family Law, Mediation and Collaborative Practice, I discourage this route to end a marriage, mainly because of details that can be missed. My definition of a Do-It-Yourself divorce is one in which you and your spouse are handling the entire legal process without any attorney help. This includes gathering information, making decisions, and completing the legal paperwork and processing that paperwork with the court. This is not something you should be doing without help!
Perhaps surprisingly, there are many people who do indeed choose this path: to divorce without the help of an attorney. Especially for those with no children and little to no assets or debts, and likely a shorter marriage, it’s not uncommon. There are free forms available on the Minnesota Supreme Court website that can be printed and used. However, in the following circumstances, clearly an attorney would be helpful: if you have children; significant assets or debts; if you own a house and/or land; if you have been married for many years; if one spouse earns a lot more money than the other.
So, after you determine it is a good idea to procure an attorney to ensure the specifics of your divorce, what next? Are you looking for a courtroom battle? No, of course not. Then why not consider a Collaborative Divorce?
What is a Collaborative Practice divorce, anyway? The most basic definition requires that both spouses have attorneys and everyone signs an agreement not to go to court. The idea is to settle the matter without ever setting foot in a courthouse. Even in a Collaborative Practice divorce the paperwork would be filed at the courthouse, but the attorneys and the clients would never need to have a hearing or even go to the courthouse. The paperwork would just be filed by mail.
Collaborative Practice divorce is an out-of-court settlement process where the attorneys are hired to settle the case and not to go to court and where other neutral professionals often help on the case to provide neutral meeting facilitation, child-focused input or special financial expertise.
Collaborative Practice means more than just the technical completion of the divorce process. It means a commitment to settling the case out of court. It means using neutral experts help educate clients about the unique emotional, child-related and financial circumstances of their particular case and to explore potential settlement options.
For Collaborative Practice professionals, being a member of the Collaborative Law Institute of Minnesota means regularly participating in additional training above and beyond their underlying professional continuing educational requirements. We do this in order to focus specifically on the client experience and out-of-court negotiation and settlement.
As with most things, of course, you get what you pay for. While a do-it-yourself divorce is possible, if instead you are looking for a cost-effective, quality process, take a look at Collaborative Practice divorce. You will be rewarded with a high-quality method that includes professionals that take extra care and training to learn ways to resolve cases outside of court and neutral professionals that will help educate you about your specific circumstances and help you explore your options, all while agreeing not to set foot in a courtroom. 
Most of us are familiar with the concept of holistic medicine. The importance and interdependence of body, mind and spirit in our overall health is becoming accepted in the world of healing. Less well known, however, is the Collaborative divorce process, which utilizes a holistic approach to help struggling families heal. Collaborative practice uses a team of experts who work with the parents and their children to achieve deeper resolution.
Contrary to popular belief, divorce is not just a legal event. As countless couples in the throes of separation can attest, accusations about the past and fears about the future can make constructive conversation impossible. Frustration sets in and one or both parties “lawyer up.” So begins the all-too-often lengthy, unpleasant and expensive process of litigation, during which parents are often discouraged from communicating with one another.
Fortunately, another option exists. In Collaborative divorce, both parties have Collaboratively-trained attorneys providing guidance throughout the process. In addition, they jointly use a team of neutral professionals to address their communication, financial, parenting and emotional issues. A series of meetings takes place in which these interdependent issues are discussed and resolved without court involvement. In this way, divorcing parties maintain more control over both the process and the outcome.
Integrative medicine uses a team of specialists who communicate with one another to achieve optimum health for the patient. The Collaborative divorce process parallels this model by bringing together a team of divorce experts. This more humane method of dispute resolution can facilitate healing and result in a healthier post-divorce family.