An Educational Opportunity!

Today I am headed to the First Annual Conference of Collaborative Professionals of Washington (CPW), in Gig Harbor. CPW’s purpose is to advance best practices for Collaborative Professionals, which they define as “independent attorneys and allied mental health, financial, and counseling professionals". There is no mention of mediators.

However, I am very excited about attending this conference because it is a learning opportunity! It is through education that mediators and Collaborative Professionals will learn to serve their clients better. A hot topic at this conference is “the Interplay Between Mediation and the Collaborative Process". That discussion should be lively, constructive and broaden our awareness!

Why wouldn’t mediators and Collaborative Professionals work together? After all, mediators and Collaborative Professionals are all working to advance cooperative, constructive approaches to divorce…and other legal issues….. …..it seems natural that mediation would be part of the Collaborative process, especially considering that Collaborative process is founded upon mediation principles.

Actually mediation is sometimes used as part of the Collaborative Practice…… usually towards the later stages. Many clients could benefit from mediation being part of the Collaborative process in the early stages. We are specifically going to talk about this issue, which excites me because by working together and learning from each other no telling what light bulbs will go off so we can be better prepared to serve clients!

The other thing that excites me is that Stu Webb, the founder of Collaborative Law will be attending and speaking at the conference. See you next week!


~Debra