Hello collaborative professionals!
First, a public service announcement – if you practice family law, be sure that you note and comply with the changes in the rules governing discovery, including required disclosures during the first 30 days without waiting for a request, and a new window for discovery requests.
Oh wait – there’s no discovery in the collaborative law process! I am intrigued that the litigation community is realizing that certain basic information just should be exchanged, period. And you can certainly get the same information through discovery or through the collaborative process. But our clients benefit from being released from arbitrary calendar deadlines and fights over wording, instead having the ability to mutually set the pace that works for them, in a safe, respectful, and secure interactive process. Yet another gift that the collaborative process gives our clients is the removal of unnecessary stressors, so that they can focus on what’s truly important.
In this issue, we too come bearing gifts!
- FREE CLE – our first ever CL Section Webinar at noon CDT, Wednesday, February 24 titled: 50 Ways to Use Your Collaborative Skills In and Out of the Process, by Melinda Eitzen. Use the registration link below.
- A conversation with CL Section board member Cindi Barela Graham – Drink the Kool-Aid. Cindi tells you about her challenges in getting a collaborative practice going, and her best tips on helping it to thrive.
- Information on the 14th Annual Collaborative Law Course, presented virtually on March 4-5. Have you registered yet? If not, use the registration link below and join us!
The Passing of our Beloved Ruth L. Rickard
Finally, we are very sad to tell you that our section vice chair, and a long-time member of the civil collaborative community in Texas, Ruth Louise Rickard, passed away late last year following a lengthy illness.
All of us in the Collaborative Law Section, whether you knew her personally or not, have benefitted from her vision and leadership in the collaborative world.
Please continue reading below for a memorial tribute to Ruth, and a reprint of a special article that Ruth published in 2008, Authentic Lawyering: Engaging your Head and Your Heart.
We hope that these resources help equip and inspire you to make 2021 your best collaborative year yet!
Sincerely,
Laura R. Schlenker, Chair
Collaborative Law Section State Bar of Texas
Collaborative Law Section CLE Webinar
50 Ways to Use Your Collaborative Skills, In and Outside of the Process
Wednesday, February 24
Noon – 1 p.m. CST
1 hour MCLE credit
FREE for section members
Speaker: Melinda H. Eitzen
Presenting our first ever webinar, free for section members! If you have ever attended a CLE by Melinda Eitzen, you know this will be a don’t miss event. Melinda is a master credentialed collaborative divorce attorney and trainer, and is also a gifted presenter. We are proud to offer you this member benefit. Melinda will discuss formal collaborative practice under the Collaborative Family Law Act and by contract in a civil setting, the skills we acquire through collaborative training and practice, and how they can be applied in other areas of our practice including litigation and mediation.
Drink the Kool-Aid
A Conversation with CL Section board member Cindi Barela Graham
Didn’t everyone grow up drinking Kool-Aid? And, the real kind, the kind that came in the smaller skinny packet and to which you added your own sugar? Maybe if you were rich you got the kind with the sugar already in it. Being a military brat, our packets were always the skinny, flat ones. But we drank it all the same.
That’s what happened when I heard about and went to the first training for Collaborative Divorce. I drank the Kool-Aid. And, for those of you in the big city, you are likely bored already by this, but let me tell you, it ain’t easy practicing Collaborative Divorce in the Panhandle of Texas where I practice.
14th Annual Course
Collaborative Law: Building Better Collaboration Webcast
Co-sponsored by
Collaborative Law Section of the State Bar of Texas
and
Collaborative Divorce Texas
Thursday, March 4 – Friday, March 5
Thursday: 8:55 a.m. – 5 p.m. CST
Friday: 7:30 a.m. – 2:45 p.m. CST
Registration
Early Bird Registration (ends March 5): $445
Regular Registration (after March 5): $495
Collaborative Law Section and Collaborative Divorce Texas Group members: save $25! Texas Bar College and Texas Paralegal Division members: save $25! Attorneys licensed five years or fewer: 50% off registration price!
This course includes a live chat feature that will allow you to interact with participating speakers and other registrants!
Can’t attend on March 4-5? Register now and view the recording at your convenience. All webcasts are archived after the broadcast and available to review as many times as you like! This webcast will be available for playback on March 30 and the program is MCLE accredited through February 28, 2022.
In Memoriam: Ruth Louise Rickard
1952 – 2020
By: Anne Shuttee and Laura Schlenker
Our Collaborative Law Section vice chair, our colleague, our dear friend, Ruth Louise Rickard, was born on April 20, 1952, and grew up in the farming community of Rolfe, Iowa. After graduating as valedictorian of her class, she studied internationally, and earned a B.S. degree from Iowa State University in 1974 in psychology and linguistics.
In the years following, Ruth worked in a variety of fields, with the common element being exposure to the role of legal systems in the protection of the public. In the mid-1980s she decided to make a career change.
Authentic Lawyering: Engaging Your Head and Your Heart
By Ruth Louise Rickard
Note: This article is a re-print of the original that appeared in the June 2008 edition of the Michigan Bar Journal
I have been striving to be a “holistic lawyer” for years. I couldn’t quite articulate that until I discovered the International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers (IAHL), stumbling on its annual conference in 2004 almost by accident. The room was filled with smart, accomplished, and fun-loving lawyers, who shared the following vision:
The IAHL envisions a world where lawyers are valued as healers, helpers, counselors, problem-solvers, and peacemakers. Conflicts are seen as opportunities for growth. Lawyers model balanced lives and are respected for their contributions to the greater good.