UF Collaborative Law Training enhances practitioners' skill and technique

July 13, 2010

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Collaborative law practitioners learned how to raise their level of competency while enriching their overall experience in collaborative practice this past weekend at the 2nd annual Collaborative Law Training: Taking it to the Next Level at the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

The two-day training, sponsored by the UF College of Law Center on Children and Families and Institute for Dispute Resolution, highlighted the lawyer’s role in educating and screening clients, and in participating on interdisciplinary teams. With 34 practitioners in attendance — 95 percent of whom were lawyers — the course focused primarily on lawyers as the clients’ entry point into collaborative practice.

“It was a great training,” said attorney and family law specialist Robert Merlin. “It gave experienced collaborative law attorneys the opportunity to take it to the next step.”

Collaborative law offers clients in divorce cases an alternative to the traditional courtroom approach and seeks to work within a cooperative, positive framework to reach a mutually beneficial settlement. The collaborative law approach can also be applied to other areas of conflict resolution.

“The traditional way of dealing with family law matters in the court system can be very harmful to families in both the short and long term,” said Robin Davis, UF legal skills professor and director of the Institute for Dispute Resolution. “Levin College of Law’s Center on Children and Families and Institute for Dispute Resolution support collaborative law as an innovative and more therapeutic means for families and children to address legal issues and achieve deep and lasting resolution to conflict.”

This year’s training, led by Pauline Tesler, focused on taking attendees to a more advanced level of understanding in collaborative law. The course included assessment of participants’ collaborative practices then specific techniques and practical ideas were offered to optimize the collaborative approach and ultimately benefit the clients.

“It was a privilege having Pauline Tesler, one of the pioneers in the collaborative law movement, as our trainer,” Davis said. “She artfully shared her knowledge, experience and enthusiasm with the group so that the participants left feeling competent and inspired to pursue and expand their collaborative law practices.”

The UF College of Law Center on Children and Families and Institute for Dispute Resolution are committed to educating and training a new generation of practitioners across disciplines in methods of innovative and collaborative conflict resolution in furtherance of advocating for children and families, and for a more peaceable society. For more information on the CCF, visit http://www.law.ufl.edu/centers/childlaw/ to learn more about IDR, visit http://www.law.ufl.edu/idr/.