Interdisciplinary Teamwork in Family Law Practice

• Date: 01 July 2018
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Author: Lara Traum,Forrest S. Mosten
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12360

INTERDISCIPLINARY TEAMWORK IN FAMILY LAW PRACTICE

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Forrest S. Mosten and Lara Traum

For attorneys who engage in matrimonial practice, work is often performed by a sole practitioner. While members of other

professions have already demonstrated that interdisciplinary practice and teamwork are integral to efficiency, client satisfac-

tion, and career success, matrimonial attorneys are just beginning to work in deliberately constructed interdisciplinary teams.

In this article, we examine the definition of teamwork and highlight the characteristics of an effectiveteam, drawing examples

from the business, medical, and mental health fields. We then determine how successful teams are built and explore the appli-

cation of such approaches within matrimonial practice, offering recommendations for research and effective use of teams to

help families that are facing conflict and reorganization.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

•Lawyers need teammates, teams, and team-related skills to more fully help their clients and their families. The matri-

monial field has great potential for growth in this arena.

•An emphasis on teamwork can revolutionize how legal professionals work and offer services from within their own

firms and legal organizations.

•Teamwork is at the forefront of discussions in the business, medical, and mental health fields and should be at the fore-

front in the legal field as well.

•From standard litigation to co-mediation and collaborative practice models, matrimonial practice lands at the inter-

section of many professional disciplines and often requires multiparty and multiprofessional involvement.

•Building a collaborative practice team requires a consistent commitment to creating unified values, practice patterns,

and developing structural mechanisms that hold each professional individual accountable to a collective goal.

Keywords: Collaborative Law Training; Collaborative Lawyering; Interdisciplinary Practice; Team Building; Team

Training; and Teamwork.

I. INTRODUCTION

For attorneys who engage in matrimonial practice, work is often performed by a sole practitioner.

In representing clients, matrimonial attorneys generally work alone or, at most, interact with other

attorneys within their own firm. Unlike other professionals who have reaped rewards as a result of a

commitment to team training, matrimonial attorneys are just beginning to work in deliberately

constructed interdisciplinary teams.

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In other professional spheres, interdisciplinary practice and teamwork are integral to efficiency, client

satisfaction, and career success. Members of the business world, from MBA students to high-level busi-

ness executives, spend substantial time and money learning about team-building strategies. They focus on

honing skills related to team communication, collaborative strategic planning, navigation of complex

dynamics and styles, and high-stress joint decision making. Health care teams have managed to improve

services and clinical care by utilizing interdisciplinary assets to address complex health problems.

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They

have streamlined medical approaches to emergency room triage and developed mechanisms for team-

based diagnostic transparency and accuracy. During the latter part of the twentieth century, mental health

professionals have realized that a closely knit team of specialists can address the nuanced needs of mental

health patients more successfully than solo generalists.

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Business executives, doctors, and psychiatrists no

longer act as solitary professionals. Members of these fields have embraced teamwork, and professionals,

patients, and consumers have reaped boundless rewards as a result. As matrimonial practitioners embrace

teamwork in a similar fashion, families will be better served and professional satisfaction will increase.

Correspondence: mosten@mostenmediation.com; laratraum@goodlawfirm.com

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 56 No. 3, July 2018 437–460

© 2018 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

In this article, we strive to define the meaning of “teamwork”and highlight the characteristics of

an effective team, drawing examples from the business, medical, and mental health fields. We shall

examine how successful teams are built and explore the application of such approaches within matri-

monial practices, offering recommendations for research and effective use of teams to help families

that are facing conflict and reorganization.

II. GOING IT ALONE: THE ABSENCE OF TEAMWORK IN MATRIMONIAL

PRACTICE

Lawyers have been deemed the “agents of dispute transformation”as well as the principal agents

who “maintain control over the course of litigation.”

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As such, lawyers generally develop autonomous

modes of practice. They both evaluate their clients’needs and hold their hands throughout the litigation

process. They share information with clients but are also often the ultimate strategic decision makers.

They are generally accustomed to having ultimate control, shaping disputes and client narratives to fit

the needs of the case rather than shaping process options to fit the needs of the clients.

Despite these traditional characterizations, teamwork is in fact an inherent part of legal practice.

The whole notion of being a counselor at law suggests that lawyers are tasked with listening, explor-

ing options, identifying least invasive strategies, and helping clients select the most appropriate

courses of action not just based on law but also based on broader considerations, including relation-

ships, process costs, time, and emotional health.

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Matrimonial attorneys have a unique responsibility

to act as a family’s legal wellness provider, evaluating the long-term health of a family, and treating

that family’s needs in a holistic fashion.

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An agent of dispute transformation cannot truly practice in

a vacuum, and the legal wellness provider cannot act as a contrarian advocate, attacking symptoms

without identifying long-term management protocols. Lawyers need teammates, teams, and the skills

to more fully help their clients and their families.

III. WHAT IS A TEAM: FOUNDATIONS FOR THE MATRIMONIAL PRACTICE

CONVERSATION

To inform our conversation regarding teamwork in matrimonial practice, we must first explore

teamwork generally. The sections that follow trace the presence of teamwork throughout time, with

specific emphasis on how attentively the business and health care fields have incorporated teamwork

into their professional landscapes. These practices offer a powerful model for team development

within matrimonial practice.

Teamwork is inherent to human nature. Throughout history, humans have self-selected into orga-

nized working groups. Ancient societies distinguished between hunters and gatherers, builders and

teachers, and healers and storytellers. Historians and anthropologists have long studied the nature of

the cooperative groupings used by members of the Paleolithic era to meet primal human needs, not-

ing the existence of collective and strategic hunting endeavors, collaborative family caregiving and

protection roles, joint invention and shared use of tools, and communal decision making within

ancient tribes.

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However, the distinct working groups were often compartmentalized. Ten hunters

would hunt, ten gatherers would gather, and then they would bring their loot to their villages for

evaluation and distribution. This framework allowed for big-picture collaboration between larger

working groups, but nuclear collaboration was discouraged.

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For centuries, compartmentalized teamwork reigned supreme. Civilized society bought into the

age-old notion that experts working in a vacuum would be most efficient and productive. Hunters

and gatherers turned into assembly-line workers, relegated to sifting through the same slab of steel

on a daily basis and bonding over their singular skill.

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The qualitative benefits of expert collabora-

tion through interdisciplinary teamwork were generally overlooked.

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