Written by My Collaborative Team member, Nancy K. Brodzki, Esq.
In last week’s MCT collaborative law newsletter, our MCT President Ed Sachs wrote about a textbook matter where a couple reached a collaborative settlement agreement after four meetings that concluded with the signing of the agreement. Essentially, the case settled in three full team meetings with the signing occurring at the fourth meeting, and the case lasted about 90 days from start to finish.
This week I’d like to share with you a not-so-textbook collaborative case. The case began with an initial consultation with the client in late March 2022. The first full team meeting took place at the end of June 2022, and the clients signed a collaborative settlement agreement at the end of January 2023, about 7 months later. The clients both had strong reasons to reach an agreement rather than leave the decisions up to a Judge for many reasons, not the least of which was that the clients had an adult child on the autism spectrum for whom the clients agreed that there were issues related to her support, including concerns about the estate plan of both parents to provide for that adult child in the long term. Along the way, we engaged the services of an estate planning/special needs trust attorney to advise them on some issues related to the trust they were funding for their daughter.
The clients did not sit together during the joint meetings. While both clients had somewhat difficult personalities, it is fair to say that my client, the Wife, was the most challenging person in the room at every stage. And while I pride myself on outstanding client management, her high conflict personality had me reaching out to my own mentors and my high conflict mediation study group for guidance and feedback. I would get a knot in my stomach before zoom meetings with my own client. Knowing that her strong and aggressive reactions to any information that did not align with her view of the world stemmed from her fear of financial insecurity for herself and her special needs adult child did not prevent me from being frustrated on the inside.
As the drafting of the collaborative settlement agreement went back and forth, this client continued to challenge us as a team, and we were all quite concerned that we might not succeed in getting her to yes. After the fourth meeting, we agreed that the neutral facilitator would mediate the remaining issues between them. She was successful in bridging the gap between their relative financial interests, and we were finally able to craft an agreement that they both would sign.
And the professional team is setting a date to celebrate with a dinner together now that the divorce is finalized. We worked hard to get this not-so-textbook case over the finish line.
