How to be a Family-Friendly Divorce Lawyer for Your Clients

After having too many potential new clients come to me mid-divorce, unhappy with their current family lawyer, complaining that their lawyer didn’t understand them or their situation or care about them or their situation, I began thinking about what it actually means to be a family-friendly divorce lawyer.?

What exactly is that definition? What defining characteristics does a divorce lawyer need to possess to not only be effective at their job but also become that constant amid chaos for divorce clients and their families, particularly children??

The short answer is, obviously, to adopt a family-centric approach. But like most answers having to do with family law practice, the long answer is much more complex and multi-faceted. With this in mind, I have a few thoughts about how to be a family-friendly divorce lawyer for family law clients, for their benefit and for yours.

Recognize the emotional complexities of divorce.

Divorce takes an emotional toll on the entire family, most of all children. In many situations, grandparents and other extended family members can become part of the fray. For this reason, it is really important to see people and the struggles they face. Everyone wants to know they are being seen and heard, especially by the person who is supposed to and who is being paid to see and hear them.?

Yes, as divorce lawyers, we work for and on behalf of our clients, which means we better damn well know what matters the most to the person who hired us so we can guide them appropriately. And we need to do this while considering the ripple effect decision-making can have on their children and potentially other family members, if relevant. A big part of our success in understanding divorce’s emotional layers will be how practiced we are in listening and being empathetic.

Foster communication.

In addition to being skilled listeners, as family law attorneys, we also need to be skilled communicators and develop the same in our clients, encouraging them to be open and honest with us. If they don’t know how to be good communicators, we need to educate them on how to become ones early on in the divorce process so everyone — them, us, and their ex — is on the same page.?

As part of being a good communicator, we need to keep our clients regularly informed of new developments, and when there aren’t any, still be present in their lives by checking in to see how they are doing. Our clients are emotional beings, just as we are, and part of our job is to help them manage their fear of the unknown — of the divorce process and their new life after divorce.??

Encourage mediation and collaboration.

As part of fostering effective communication, we need to underscore how critical it is for our clients and their cases to work with their ex, not against them. This means introducing them to alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation, or explaining to them the benefits of collaborative divorce.

We need to explain to our clients the benefits of mediation versus litigation. And how when you commit to collaborating with your ex, it is much easier to make your children a priority in the divorce process.

Prioritize the best interests of children.

Children have as much at stake in a divorce as their parents do, as the world they know is changing, too. For parents who recognize this, your job will be that much easier.?

For those who don’t just yet, don’t only drive this point home but also provide strategies for establishing and maintaining a positive co-parenting relationship, even long-distance co-parenting. Additionally, offer clients referrals to mental health professionals who can support the family as a unit with family counseling, each spouse with one-on-one counseling, the spouses together as they seek to extricate themselves from their marriage, and children, who could benefit from having a professional to help guide them through this difficult time.?

Finally, use mediators who take a child-centric approach to negotiations. As a family-friendly divorce lawyer, the last thing you want is to have a mediator on your team who is not aligned with your goal of prioritizing children’s best interests.

Provide educational resources.

Though incredibly helpful, offering resources to clients can go far beyond providing a list of recommendations for therapists or counselors, as discussed above. Share your favorite book titles and articles for parents and their children. One of my favorite books is Karen Bonnell’s “The Co-Parenting Handbook: Raising Well-Adjusted and Resilient Kids from Little Ones to Young Adults through Divorce or Separation.” Karen and I also co-authored Family-Centered Parenting Planning: Keeping Kids Central, Not Caught in the Middle.”

Work alongside financial planners and advisors or provide a list of referrals, including those professionals who frequently work on divorce cases and share your family-centric approach. Having a team of like-minded professionals at the ready can help you ease your clients’ financial transition, which is often intertwined with their emotional one. The idea is to get your client to the finish line of their divorce and lay a solid foundation for their post-divorce future.?

Finally, provide continual updates to enhance your clients’ learning. Publish a blog and post regularly, hold webinars, write an educationally-rich newsletter that is targeted to your clients’ areas of interest, offer free ebooks, and keep a running list of your favorite written resources.??

Be professional while being compassionate.

While you are there to support your clients in various ways and can develop a friendly rapport and, in fact, should, you are not your clients’ friend. Meaning it is our job as family law attorneys to strategize for our clients, helping them make rational, rather than purely emotional, decisions but not to sugarcoat the realities of their situation.?

The decisions family law clients must make are not always easy ones, which is why they need us there to paint a realistic picture for them. A friend is not in a position necessarily to do that. We, as skilled family lawyers, are.?

In addition, there needs to be a balance between the empathy you have for your clients’ struggles and your professional boundaries. One way at our firm we allow our clients to have access to us even outside normal business hours is to have our phones answered by a live person who can vet calls and contact someone on our team 24/7 with urgent messages.???

Stay up to date with changes in laws and best practices.

Just as we want our clients to learn as much as they can to help them with their divorce and those matters related to it, we should continue our learning. Trainings are a family lawyer’s best friend. So, too, is joining professional associations which can facilitate the free flow of information.?

Similarly valuable is attending workshops and seminars so we can get better at our trade. Finally, as professionals in a field with a lot of twists and turns, keeping abreast of changes in the law is imperative.?

Offer flexible meeting options.

Divorce clients have lives, lives outside their divorce. They have jobs, kids, friends, doctor appointments, and to-do lists, just as we do. As family-friendly divorce lawyers, we must be cognizant of that.?

To help, consider offering clients virtual consultations and evening or weekend appointments (we are and have always been a remote firm, so this is our MO). They will appreciate it, and so will you when your job becomes that much easier because a client who is able to focus during a meeting without distraction will inevitably be a better client.??

Keep it simple.

Divorce is complicated enough for clients unfamiliar with the divorce process without you making it more complicated. To ward against this, avoid legal jargon to foster better understanding and a sense of teamwork between you and your clients.?

Also, be receptive to answering your clients’ questions as they come up, adopting a “no question is silly” philosophy. Providing visuals such as timelines, flowcharts, and infographics can help in this regard.?

Remember, the operative word in our title of family law attorney is family. Which makes our mission simple: honor our clients’ role in theirs.

If you're interested in learning more about Elise Buie Family Law Group and the possibility of joining our team, please check out our current job openings.

Elise Buie, Esq. is a Seattle-based family and divorce lawyer and founder of the Elise Buie Family Law Group. A champion for maintaining civility throughout the divorce process, Elise advocates for her clients and the best interests of their children, helping them move forward with dignity and from a position of strength.