As many of our members, participants, and followers have come to know our Friday afternoon Happy Hours have become a place where friends and colleagues from across North America can come to chat about their professional and personals successes and failures. This last week we had a brand new My Collaborative Team member bring up the issue of closed versus open practice groups and the discussion took off from there.
This MCT member is a newly trained Collaborative Professional trying to establish her Collaborative practice. After approaching the local practice group, she was informed that the group was a closed group and there would be specific requirements that had to be met for a new member to join, including a personal invitation to join the group. This story struck a chord and had been experienced by others on the call who shared similar experiences in a different region of the United States. This member was encouraged and invited to get trained and involved in the Collaborative Process and once their training was complete the group denied him entry as just being trained did not qualify them to join the group.
The discussion by our Happy Hour participants raises a real question over the pros and cons of closed groups. While some argue that it is not inclusive and shuts off the promotion of the Process, others discussed the origins of closed groups and how they build team strength and trust. I see merits to both and believe that as Collaborative grows, we will see more closed groups form.
What is your opinion on closed vs open practice groups? What has worked for your community and local practice groups? Help us bridge this gap that some of the newer Collaborative professionals in our community feel. Pleae join us for more discussion on this topic.
When I was trained in 2004 there was a closed group in our county. A number of us who had just been trained started our own practice group. It has flourished.
Over just a few years we started having cases that crossed practice group lines and it has been that way now for many years. Both groups still exist and meet. Some people are members of both groups.
I’ve stayed in the group I helped found, but I do cases with people who are in the other group or in one case with an attorney who is in neither group, though both would welcome that attorney.
Even within practice groups you see certain people who are in teams with the same people over and over again. I tend to have cases with the same people, but I would not want to be restricted to just one group.
I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT OF THE CONCEPT OF CLOSED VS OPEN GROUPS AS REFERRING TO WHAT PROFESSIONS WERE INCLUDED RATHER THAN ALLOWING IN NEW MEMBERS. THE GROUP I BELONG TO, COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE CT, IN DARIEN CT WAS ORIGINALLY BEGUN 15 OR 20 YEARS AGO WHEN COLLABORTIVE DIVORCE WAS QUITE A NEW CONCEPT. AT THAT TIME IT WAS RESTRICTED TO ATTORNEY ONLY, AS THAT’S HOW COLLABORATIVE WAS BEING PRACTICED HERE. WE WERE REFERRED TO AS A CLOSED GROUP. BUT WE WERE ALWAYS OPEN TO NEW MEMBERS. WE DID, AND STILL DO, HAVE EDUCATION, TRAINING AND ATTENDENCE REQUIREMENTS FOR NEW MEMBERS, BUT TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE NEVER EXCLUDED ANYONE WHO WANTED TO JOIN ON ANY BASIS OTHER THAN NEEDING TO BE AN ATTORNEY. THE GROUP HAS SINCE OPENED TO INCLUDE MENTAL HEALTH AND FINANCIAL PROFESSIONALS. WE’VE KEPT THE EDUCATION, TRAINING AND ATTENDENCE REQIREMENTS.
Our community has two groups. One, as an off shoot of a close-by community, has an “open door policy”. Just beginning and hoping to have a true team to build cohesiveness and experience, we wanted familiarity and experience and standards re: family law knowledge (mediation), IACP membership as we learned the required skill set.
We have had the opportunity to have small meetings and develop a team and find a format for instruction and growth. But, we have had to deal with the “them vs. us,” Many of us have joined both groups….are we step-siblings?
The responses from other groups will be most informative
I’ve been a member of a small practice group in Toronto (Canada) since about 2004. It has always been limited to a maximum of 12 members in order to develop trust. The membership has changed over the years as people retired and as we became a team trained group and wanted to ensure a mix of professionals. We ask for an attendance commitment from members and have occasionally lost a member when that wasn’t working for them. We sometimes “invite” new members when a space opens up and also get requests to join. We’ve struggled with being a “closed” group, but it feels important to have an environment where we can form strong relationships that support frank sharing and discussion. Our small group membership has little relationship to who we do our Collaborative cases with,
When there was a shortage of open groups, one of our long term members set up a new group. The board of our Toronto group Collaborative Divorce Toronto tries to keep an eye on available small practice groups – they set up a new virtual one when we had a large number of new members train during Covid restrictions last year. We have to balance making sure there are practice groups available for those wishing to join, particularly new members, with respecting individual groups choice to cap their membership.
Some folks have responded to the comment as though it refers to whether a professional should be allowed into one specific group as opposed to another one, and whether member of both groups could work with one another, but I took the post to speak instead to whether a group of CL professionals could or should exclude someone who hadn’t yet met their requirements of being fully trained in CL, and not do collaborative cases with them. As to the latter concept, our group, and I presume most, if not all, other groups, of collab. professionals exist to promote the growth and practice of CL, not to limit it; in that vein, people should not be practicing CL unless/until they fully understand it (and accept the disqualification clause). Also in that vein, I expect that ALL groups should be “closed” to people who aren’t trained. But handling a CL matter with someone who’s fully trained, but just not in “my” group, shouldn’t be a problem, as Bruce wrote.