By Ty Supancic, Esquire
Leading By Example
One of our goals is to instill in our clients those skills they will need to navigate future controversy and conflict without allowing it to escalate to the level of litigation. We must teach our clients that oftentimes the best solution is not one of the choices presented. Often, the best solution is something neither side can see nor has considered. When you’re digging trenches and getting ready to exchange fire, you don’t always have time to step back and survey the landscape. In fact, any delay may result in your becoming a casualty of the conflict. “Strike first and furiously”.
The traditional fight or flight attitude and belief system, so fundamental to zealous advocacy, are anathema to effective CDR. Parties truly interested and committed to finding a low-cost, low-impact solution to their conflict can find their process instantly and irrevocably derailed by the argumentative fighting instinct honed by their attorney after years of argument and litigation.
It is so important that we nurture, foster, and maintain the collaborative mindset that we must even change our language. In our Collaborative cases, there are no “opposing party” or “opposing counsel.” Not even in our notes. We labor to use the terms Collaborative Counsel (abbreviated “Cola” in our notes) and we try to use the parties’ first names at all times. We want our notes and our letters and our files to reflect this radical new way of thinking. Collaboration does not yet make up the majority of our case load so our other files use traditional terms, but as soon as we open a Collaborative file, the language we’ve used should help to place us in the right mindset – the only mindset that supports the scope of representation for which we were retained in a Collaborative case.
Likewise, we labor to use neutral terms and first names in our mediation cases. We labor to insure that our correspondence and notes are neutral on their face. All correspondence is addressed to both parties in mediation. We alternate parties in the greetings from letter to letter and we even alternate the return addresses at the top of the page. Typically, if wife’s address appears on the left and husband’s on the right, or wife’s on top and husband’s underneath, we reverse the greeting so the party “billed” first is greeted second. In our next letter, both are reversed.
Check back soon to catch the final part in this wonderful series…
Missed the first three?
Part 1 – Why We Collaborate and Collaborative Problem Solving
Part 2 – The Collaborative Paradigm
Part 3 – Changing Our Paradigm
Part 4 – Leading By Example
Part 5 – God is in the Details
