The Family Law Bar, the Interdisciplinary Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Parents, and the “Spark to Kindle the White Flame of Progress”

• Date: 01 January 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12264
• Author: Andrew Schepard,Marsha Kline Pruett,Rebecca Love Kourlis
• Published date: 01 January 2017

THE FAMILY LAW BAR, THE INTERDISCIPLINARY RESOURCE

CENTER FOR SEPARATING AND DIVORCING PARENTS, AND THE

“SPARK TO KINDLE THE WHITE FLAME OF PROGRESS”

Andrew Schepard, Marsha Kline Pruett, and Rebecca Love Kourlis

The Interdisciplinary Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families at the University of Denver described in the Hon-

oring Families Initiative’s Family Law Bar Report provides a suite of holistic services tailored to the individual needs of fami-

lies with children. Services provided include assessment and service planning, legal education, dispute resolution (mediation),

agreement and order drafting, therapeutic services, and financial planning. As established by a rigorous empirical evaluation,

parents and children appreciate and benefit from these coordinated, holistic services. The Center experience gives evidence of

the value of interdisciplinary collaboration. It is our hope that the Family Law Bar will be inspired to promote the development

of Centers throughout the country and promote changes in legal regulation and education to facilitate interdisciplinary collabo-

rations for the benefit of separating and divorcing families.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

The Resource Center experience establishes that holistic problem-solving-focused services provided by interdisciplin-

ary teams that include lawyers benefit separating and divorcing parents and children.

The traditional model of delivering legal services to parents in separation and divorce requires each to be represented

by his/her own lawyer. That model is not economically viable for many families. Center parents, in contrast, receive

legal information from a single source—Center mediators and legal educators. The positive impact of Center services

suggests that the traditional model is not optimal in many cases and regulatory changes should be made to give parents

an option to use just one lawyer, with informed consent.

The Family Law Bar can use the Center experience as inspiration to collaborate with other professions to develop inno-

vative multidisciplinary service delivery models for parents and children in separating and divorcing families and to

re-examine regulatory barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration.

Keywords: Family Lawyers; Holistic Services; Interdisciplinary Collaboration; Interdisciplinary Services; Mediation; and

Regulatory Reform.

INTRODUCTION: A CALL FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION

The centerpiece of this Special Issue of Family Court Review is a report prepared by the Institute

for the Advancement of the American Legal System’s (IAALS)

1

Honoring Families initiative (HFI)—

with which we are all affiliated

2

— titled The Family Law Bar: Stewards of the System, Leaders of

Change.

3

The report arises from a two-day Summit in November 2015 of national leaders of the family

bar, brought together to “identify obstacles to serving children and families in separation and divorce mat-

ters, and explore opportunities for meaningful change.”

4

The HFI Report summarizes the Summit discussion of an interdisciplinary Center for Out-of-

Court Divorce (COCD), which began as the Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families

on the University of Denver (DU) campus and offers families a suite of holistic “services, tailored to

that family’s specific needs, circumstances and budget.”

5

Summit participants considered and dis-

cussed this visionary model, “expressing broad appreciation for the benefits [it provided to] separat-

ing and divorcing families.”

6

We have been heavily involved in the creation and evaluation of the COCD and are delighted that

bar leaders recognized its potential significance. One purpose of this article is to provide readers with

Correspondence: Andrew.I.Schepard@hofstra.edu; mpruett@smith.edu; iaals@du.edu

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 55 No. 1, January 2017 84–96

V

C2017 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts