Tag Archives: Brian Don Levy

Experts Contribute to Best Practices at Collaborative Practice California Conference

| April 12, 2017

Orange County Collaborative Practice professionals will share their expertise with colleagues in April at the annual Collaborative Practice California Conference XII in Redondo Beach.

Members of Collaborative Divorce Solutions of Orange County (CDSOC) are in demand as professional education panelists and seminar leaders throughout Fall 2017 due to their expertise and experience working with a diverse array of Orange County clients in the Collaborative approach to divorce.

“Many collaborative professionals are committed to continuing professional education in order to provide the best service to our clients,” said Dr. Carol Hughes, CDSOC member and workshop leader. “The annual conference of Collaborative Practice California is one venue for us to do this.

“We CDSOC members are honored to be contributing to the further growth of our Collaborative colleagues throughout the state. Ultimately, the reward is offering better options to clients who want to avoid the trauma, time and expense of a litigated divorce or other disputes,” added Dr. Hughes.

Collaborative Practice California presentations include:

Collaborative Family Lawyer and Mediator Bart Carey, Divorce Coach and Child Specialist Dr. Hughes, Ph.D., LMFT, and Financial Specialist Cathleen Collinsworth, CDFA™, MAFF™ will facilitate an advanced seminar titled “Grand Rounds for Collaborative Practitioners.”

The workshop format introduces … Read More “Experts Contribute to Best Practices at Collaborative Practice California Conference”

Members Lend Expertise at Collaborative Divorce Education Institute 3-Day Training

| February 11, 2017
CDEI 3-Day Training

Experienced legal, financial, and mental health Collaborative Practitioners from Collaborative Divorce Solutions of Orange County shared their expertise at the 2017 Three-Day Collaborative Divorce Interdisciplinary Team Training in January.  Through lectures, discussions, and group participation, the training team helped both new and experienced Collaborative Professionals to develop more skills and a new understanding of how to support and lead their clients to a successful resolution without resorting to litigation.

If you missed this year’s event, be sure mark your calendar for next year’s training in January 2018.

The Most Effective Way to Reduce the Cost of Your Divorce or Civil Dispute

| January 3, 2017
Adding a communication coach to your divorce team can help you navigate the process more easily and more quickly, saving time, money, and stress. Photo: Paul Aloe/Creative Commons

by Brian Don Levy, Esq., Collaborative Attorney and Mediator

What single item can add the most cost to your divorce or civil dispute?  Acting or reacting based on emotional thinking, or making unilateral decisions that are based in emotional thinking.  It is critical to understand how our emotions can drive our thinking and our behavior, and it is important to manage those emotions in a healthy way that allows for understanding viable solutions and facilitates well thought out problem solving.

Every legal and financial decision is potentially wrapped in emotion, and those emotions can prevent us from fully understanding our options and choosing the options that make the most sense going forward.  For almost every divorcing couple or civil disputant, trust is usually broken and communication is not working very well, if at all.  Bringing broken trust and poor communication into the decision-making process is not a good recipe for success.

Therefore, communication coaches are an important investment to be made in achieving a long term satisfying outcome for those in conflict.  I use the term “investment” because failure to understand and manage emotions is a huge cost inflator for those engaged in civil and family law disputes.  The … Read More “The Most Effective Way to Reduce the Cost of Your Divorce or Civil Dispute”

The Most Important Decision You Will Make in Your Divorce

| April 30, 2016
You have choices in the way you pursue a divorce in California. Collaborative Divorce in Orange County. 949-266-0660.

by Brian Don Levy, Esq., Collaborative Attorney & Mediator

The case history: John first came to see me looking for an attorney to represent him in his divorce case in family court. This is the most important choice he will have to make in the entire divorce process: choosing the process for his divorce case.

As a firm believer in the Collaborative Divorce Process, we discussed why John should consider the Collaborative Divorce process, which is part of every initial divorce consultation – when I meet with clients – I discuss divorce process options.

John then disclosed he had already been in mediation with some of my legal colleagues. John’s wife, Mary, withdrew from the process. He was distrustful of the process and not inclined to give it another try.

In spite of John and Mary’s failure, I still believed the Collaborative Process would serve them well. Nearly a year later, the divorce case was successfully concluded through the Collaborative Process.

How did we make this work?

I suggested that this would be a different experience because we would build a more complete team of collaborative professionals. I also suggested that I would ask the team to implement a protocol … Read More “The Most Important Decision You Will Make in Your Divorce”

How You Can Benefit from the Collaborative Practice Philosophy

| April 9, 2016
Divorce can create anxiety in many ways. These tips can help you find ways to cope. Photo: Marinadel Castell, Creative Commons

by Brian Don Levy, Esq., Collaborative Practice Attorney & Mediator

Social science research including the United States Census routinely reports that roughly fifty percent or more of all marriages end in divorce. Co-habitating relationships fail at similar rates. We expect same sex marriages to follow the same pattern statistically once enough time passes to gather the data over the next decade as well. Psychology Today reports that in 1990, fewer than one in 10 persons who got divorced was over the age of 50, while today one in four people getting divorced is 50 or older.

Since a certain amount of divorce is statistically inevitable, it is imperative we find better ways to facilitate the legal, financial, and emotional processing of a human experience through our civil systems. The emotional devastation that often occurs with the breakup of a relationship shouldn’t be a given. This is where Collaborative Practice lives.

Despite the jokes and eye-rolling over the term “conscious uncoupling,” actress Gwenyth Paltrow put her finger on a healthy modern attitude embodied within Collaborative Practice. Collaborative Practice is the process that provides a more respectful alternative to the destructive divorces we see too often when parties use the court system … Read More “How You Can Benefit from the Collaborative Practice Philosophy”