Our divorce coaching practice was contacted by a client involved in the collaborative law divorce process who found that he needed a thinking partner to examine the offers that had been put on the table during the collaborative process. It was beginning to look to everyone, including the attorneys, that there were no other options open and they were dangerously close to stopping the process without a successful outcome. Together both parties had spent $50,000 which would now be sunk costs because they would have to start over with new attorneys as per the collaborative law engagement agreement.
In a last ditch effort to find some pathway to agreement, one of the parties engaged Randy as a personal divorce coach. In discussing whether there had ever been an offer that was close to being acceptable, it turned out there had been. Upon further inquiry, the client said that the negotiation derailed when the other party had demanded an additional several thousand dollars for expense offsets.
When the coach made the observation that the client might be defending a costly principle, the client realized that he should go back and resurrect the previous offer from the other person because what now appeared as a modest demand wasn’t worth throwing in in the towel on the process. The collaborative law process ended up being successful with the additional outside engagement of the personal divorce coach. A personal divorce coach working as a sounding board and thinking partner with the party locked in a “position” can help them to look at the whole situation from a different perspective.
A CDC Certified Divorce Coach® is trained to work one-on-one with an individual as a personal divorce coach. They may be called on by individuals who are going through any of the processes of divorce. Divorce coaching supports the individual preparing for attorney meetings, communicating with the spouse and attorney more effectively, avoiding some of the pitfalls of decision making, and exploring options consistent with their particular wants needs and concerns.
