Latest / Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell / Smart Separation & Choosing The Right Family Lawyer For Your Divorce - with Marguerite Picard

Transcript

Smart Separation & Choosing The Right Family Lawyer For Your Divorce - with Marguerite Picard · Reflect Reclaim & Liberate - with Sallyanne Hartnell

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate the podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Finding the space for all of you in life and love.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Sally Ann Hartnell, and this podcast is for anyone wanting to reclaim and liberate themselves in their relationships and their life.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are on your relationship journey, these conversations meet you right there.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: In soulful, deeply supportive D ⁇ Ms with me and interviews with other gorgeous humans.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Moving you from where you are to where you most want to be.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: A life and love completely aligned with your deepest desires to have it all on your own terms.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you're seeking a relationship and a life that lights up all of you, you're in the right place.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Today on the podcast, I am welcoming Marguerite Picard.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Marguerite is an accredited specialist family lawyer, collaborative practitioner, mediator, arbitrator, and collaborative trainer.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: But more than that, Marguerite sees her job as a lawyer differently from the way most of the profession legal profession sees its job.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: She's been doing this work for more than three decades, and as a legacy of that, her aim is to be a facilitator and a peacemaker.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Marguerite is a co-founder of Melca, and she will introduce and explain what Melca is and how they operate.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it is an organisation founded on compassion, collaboration, and compromise.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome Marguerite.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining me on the podcast today.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Sally Ann, for the invitation.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Can you kick off by telling us a little bit about yourself, perhaps why you started MELCA, and I guess what MELCA actually stands for?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, maybe I'll start with the last question first.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: MELCA is an acronym for Melbourne Collaborative Alliance, and I guess that's really at the heart of what we do.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: We're working collaboratively with interdisciplinary teams.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So about me, um, I guess I've always been a somewhat unconventional lawyer.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't come from a legal family.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I came from rural Victoria, and so when I began to study and eventually practice law, I think I wasn't bound by a lot of conventional ideas.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was naive to say the least.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I followed a fairly traditional path into practice, a generalist, and then I specialized in family law a number of years ago.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess the things about me and my personality were the things that made me want to reshape the practice that I was involved in.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing that felt difficult for me was being the font of all wisdom to people, and I knew that I wasn't.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: I am by nature conflict averse.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So my avoidant personality meant that I didn't really love the jousting of the adversarial and litigation system, although I must confess, um I also have a very strongly competitive aspect to my personality.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And in many ways, the litigation practice really fulfilled that.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I found over time that whatever I was saying to my clients that I would try to achieve for them was very difficult to fulfil because I kept coming up against the obstacles of the system.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a point where I started to think when a client walked through the door, wait till I find out who the practitioner on the other side is, and then I'll be able to tell myself how easy or difficult this is likely to be.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Then when I got to the stage of actually saying to my clients, tell me who's on the other side of this, and I will tell you how difficult or easy it's going to be, I thought, this is crazy that I'm working in a system where I can't choose the herd that I'm moving with.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: I can't do anything about working with people who shared my ideas or values.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what was driving the other practitioners.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: None of us in those days had any thought about our own personality and conflict style and where we sat in the conflict.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to start working with people who had some different ideas from regular lawyers who were focused only on their performance.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I say performance not in the sense of theatrical performance, but what their job was within a system.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So back in the 1990s, I'd done mediation training, I mediation, I did more mediation training in the two early 2000s.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're working in a conventional legal practice, it's not really easy to work as a mediator, although the skills that you bring from mediation certainly make a difference.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And in a way, that was what drove a wedge between my old and my new self because I was caught between the kind of work that I really wanted to do and the work that I was stuck in.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: So then when I heard about collaborative practice in the early 2000s, I thought, aha, this is that thing I've been looking for.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know it existed, I didn't know it had a name, but it was what I wanted to be doing.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I really embraced that enthusiastically.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I was very happy by the time 2009 came when I walked away from litigation and usual adversarial negotiations.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was very happy to be doing that, although it was new and experimental when we established Melca.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So how does Melca, sorry, how does Melca operate now and who who does it work best for?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: To understand how Melca operates and who it works best for, I think you really need to understand how it was founded, and that was by a lawyer, a psychologist, and a financial planner.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: We had all worked with families and couples or individuals who were separating for many years, and we all experienced from the professional lens that we were looking through a sense that there had to be a better way to do things.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we coalesced together and said, let's design something that allows that to happen.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not that we invented interdisciplinary collaborative practice, but we were certainly the first people to start practicing it in Australia in this business of MELCA.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So MELCA works because it has as its foundation the belief in compassion and collaboration.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: We believe that for most people, transitioning from one household to two households is pretty difficult.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's full of negative things, but it can also result in those things becoming much worse unless you're in a system that supports you.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we're very future focused, goal focused.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking, to be quite honest, very little at the law and much more about the emotional experience that people are going through when they're separating.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of that's about fears and worries, I guess, as you know, Sally Ann.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: Some of that can be fixed with some legal information, not a lot, in my opinion.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And some of it can certainly be fixed by giving people some financial literacy, understanding their own financial psychology, having some actual financial planning know-how in the mix so that people know how to actually achieve an okay life after the separation.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the people that we work best with, I think, are those who want a different experience of separation from what they know about when they start with lawyers who are at risk, not so much these days of taking them down the path to the court, but having a kind of argumentative negotiation.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's people who want something constructive, who want to end up being okay, who don't want to increase conflict, that could be for themselves or for their kids, who see that spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that does happen, people do spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: People who say, I've got the ability to compromise some of what I'm experiencing, experiencing and thinking I need for the greater good.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So those hundreds of thousands of dollars, or tens of thousands as it might be, can be spent on things that are going to support us as a separating couple and as a family.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not going to throw money away arguing about things that at the end of our life are not going to matter, and arguing about things that are going to have more of a tidal wave effect on our whole family.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So not just our immediate family, but our extended family, our friendship relationships, and the broader community.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's people who understand, I think, that conflict has its place, but unguided conflict where people can't understand each other's perspective at all and are just going to butt heads forever.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: That kind of conflict is unhealthy and unhelpful.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess it's some people with some insight.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And often that insight comes from having friends and family who've experienced really negative divorces and what you might have heard in media and other places.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are some key things that you would suggest people who are looking to engage with a family lawyer or who are who are heading towards a separation?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the things that key things to look for or questions to ask when connecting with a family law practitioner?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you know you found the right one for you?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I guess.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, to be honest, I wouldn't make a family lawyer my first port of call.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would think about other supports, therapy with a psychologist, divorce coaching, life coaching, money coaching.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Some of those things are probably going to address where you are more helpfully than going to see a lawyer.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: So once you've done some of that work and tried to tease out the things that are really worrying you and gotten some kind of security around those fears, so that you can plan where you would like to end up.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the point at which the family lawyer can be most helpful.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because if a client comes along to me and I'm not capable of listening or I'm not trained to listen, and they're not capable or trained to articulate what they need, then probably there's going to be a templated approach which says, tell me about your assets, tell me about your children, and I'll tell you what I think is the range of likely outcomes.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: But at that point, I'm not speaking to people about how they're going to go about negotiations or mediation, collaboration, whatever it is they're going to do.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about those process choices.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not really, as a regular family lawyer, trying to get an understanding of the dynamic, what's going on.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to get any understanding of the spouse partner, other than what might come across incidentally in the conversation.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, those are really key.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if I can go to my lawyer and say, this is how I expect my partner to react, or this is how my partner is reacting, and these are the things that I'd like to address, and these are my goals, and this is how I'm feeling, then the lawyer has a very different understanding of you as a client.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that allows them to talk about the kind of process choices that might be available to set up more of a conversation.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's not to say everyone's capable of doing that, because of course we all know that family violence, urgency, safety for individuals and children have to be taken extremely seriously.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And for people who have those concerns, there is a court system, and that's why we have it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: It has it definitely has a place there.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess on that, go going on from that, what would you what would you find are key issues or sticking points that do get in the way of an of a more amicable separation or divorce?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really hard question, I think, Sally Ann, because we can see the presenting behaviours, the resistance to settlement, the fears, but we don't really know where that comes from.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the reasons why I love working with psychologists and social scientists in cases who can help us with some kind of a working theory about what's really going on for that person.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I suppose some of the things that do stand in the way of a settlement are people having shopped around to get the advice that they want to hear.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And people can learn how to get the advice they want to hear by being educated about what to say and what not to say.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's dangerous that people come in with a fixed view.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that advice comes from lawyers who know some family law.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it just comes from their relatives, families and friends who are standing up for them and saying, you should get, you deserve.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: But that's completely absent of any consideration about what that really means in a negotiation.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I think coming in with fixed views and ideas can be really quite destructive.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Having insistence on a percentage position, for example, I want half.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And even 49.99 will not do me because it's my right to have half.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that lack of perspective and ability to stand back and say, what am I really doing here?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um is never going to be very helpful.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I liken that.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I liken that to um bargaining in a market in some other country where you suddenly realize that you're you're bark you're bargaining with this vendor over what is three cents in our money.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I often liken it with my clients to that.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's three cents, really.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've witnessed that in a in a market.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, of course, in real life.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a really it's a tangible way that, or it's a it's an easy way to explain it so people actually understand it.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: You're fighting over, you know, are you going to pay one US dollar or are you going to pay one dollar and three cents?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And in a market setting, that might be some of the thrill of the chase, but it I think with couples it isn't.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's sometimes people feel like they've got to report to a person outside the process.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Don't come back and speak to me unless you have this asset or this percentage.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's for people who are fixed on an idea about rights and entitlements and aren't open to creative ideas about how that might look.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: And does it really matter if there's a particular dollar value or a particular percentage value?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, quite often it might.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: If we're talking about a pool of cash, then of course everyone wants the most that they can get.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: But what's really going on about that?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want the most because you're um wanting vengeance, justification?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think you have an entitlement to that money or to those assets that's greater than the other person?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if so, what's that about?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have the capacity to sit down and actually put that on the table, even if it's difficult, and sometimes it is really difficult to have those conversations?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are you sufficiently able to look for the support you need, which you would in a collaborative team have, um, to put those things out there for discussion and know that you'll be looked after in that discussion so that you don't have to be afraid of the pushback from your partner.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the other kind of person or issue that can come up for people is people who kind of settle too easily, give it all away because they're avoidant about conflict.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're feeling really badly or really guilty about what's going on.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: They might be holding on to a particular aspect of what's available for settlement, you know, a particular asset.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, I guess it'd be the family home, but at the other end of the spectrum, it could be the superannuation.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes people aren't open to what is actually the best long-term financial decision because they're very stuck on something that's close and immediate, which is hugely understandable.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I think there's some of the things that make it tricky, but really lacking the capacity to be creative, to be able to listen, and most importantly, I think lacking the capacity to stand in somebody else's shoes, your ex's shoes.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that's just too far to ask people to do.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's one of the other things that I really like about working with interdisciplinary teams, whether it's in mediation or collaboration, is that you've got somebody there with that social science background who might be saying, this is too soon, these people are in far too different places on the spectrum of getting towards acceptance of separation, which they may never get to.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but at least we can do something about slowing one person down, supporting another person.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's actually the emotional and the dynamic issues between couples that really stand in the way of settlement, less than money.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: For me, money is often the presenting issue, other than, as I said, the pool of cash.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Tatsotto, we all want our share of it, and the more the better.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: But somebody who can say the amount that I'm I'm looking at here will do what I need, and that's where my focus is, without giving away the farm to the other person, expecting and giving respect and dignity, but able to compromise, is much able more able to get through the separation, probably consistent with their own values and feeling more calm and okay, but it definitely will heal, I think, faster from the whole divorce and separation if they're in that place rather than if they're having a fight that you can actually never win.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Never win.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Agree, never, never win.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess that leads me to the next thing I wanted to ask you, which is we have all heard of the horror stories of long drawn out, very expensive divorce played out in the court system, adversarial, all of that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um can you can you just explain for the listeners the various pathways that are available?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because I find with my clients, they're at that very early phase, they don't even know that collaborative practice exists, they don't know what mediation is.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: So can you just outline the various sort of options or pathways that separating couples can take?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: There are a number of them.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: First thing is that I always encourage people, if they're able to, to have some kind of a general conversation about what's going to be important to them because that really informs the pathway.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I would say to people, and somebody asked me this question the other day about who I would first consult if I were divorcing, and my answer is, well, it wouldn't be a lawyer.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think that if you could sit with a divorce coach or a social scientist so that you get some kind of understanding separately altogether about what got you here and where you want to go in the future, that's really helpful.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it does depend very much on the first person you see.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when people don't know anyone and they don't have any referrals, they don't know where to start.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and Google is not necessarily your friend in this.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I think asking around for people who've had good experiences of separation and divorce and felt that their lawyers supported them in the way they wanted to go about things is more helpful than going to a lawyer who your friends tell you has a reputation for winning or who had a really difficult battle, but in the end felt that they won, or their lawyer told them they won, which is not necessarily the same thing.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um but trying to find a person who with whom you can have a conversation, and that's that is not easy.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually why I set up my other business smart separation, which is for triage and referral.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: But going to a lawyer who is open to the idea that the conversation that you have with them might be the start and the finish, or for that time, anyway.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really going to be up to the client to tell the lawyer what it is they're looking for, which might be give me a framework for how this.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Might play out.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: What's happened as of the 1st of September last year is that anyone who wishes to enter the court system has to be able to sign off on a certificate that they've made a genuine effort to resolve their differences.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: That genuine effort is not defined, but for me it makes sense that you are in some kind of a process which you can demonstrate explains the effort that you've made.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, generally speaking, I think the thing that sits outside the legal process and first comes to mind for most people is mediation.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: That will be where there is a single or potentially two facilitators who help you and your spouse to have a conversation with each other.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Often people want to have that conversation with the guidance, if not in the presence of their family lawyer.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a choice.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: But what people often don't understand is that mediation is a very broad school of thinking.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: What most family lawyers will tell you when they're thinking about mediation is let's hire a barrister for a day, let's go down to the mediation rooms and let's spend$15,000 or$20,000 or$30,000 on this day and kind of run our case.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not to disparage that as an option because it's certainly better than going to court, gets the legal issues out on the table.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't think it's true mediation.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's legal settlement, conciliation, call it what you like.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I much more favour mediation where people are not bystanders, which is what happens when you're having a barrister mediation.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you get to make a statement at the beginning, but basically that's a day where you'll be sidelined, it'll be shuttle, you won't actually be in the same room with your partner.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Often the mediator will call just the lawyers in in the absence of the clients, and it doesn't feel like a very satisfactory process.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if somebody talks mediation, you need to understand: is this a mediation in which I'm going to be involved, in which my spouse and I are going to have a discussion, or is it something else?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: And the something else can suit you if you're avoidant or conflicts high or this fear.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing, and it's what I mostly do, is collaborative practice.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now that can be around the world, quite often, two lawyers and their clients who sit down around a table and work things out.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's where it started 30 odd years ago.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And over time it's evolved for good reasons to include psychologists and social scientists of some stripe and financial planners and a child specialist, very often working in parallel with the family and their children.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: And often people will say to me, gosh, that sounds expensive.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of players in there.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not, it's about the value.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And what we all know is that if you have unguided negotiations between lawyers, there are no rules, or you have a mediation where people's roles aren't defined.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So as a client, what's my relationship with the mediator?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's my relationship with the other lawyer, my own lawyer, my spouse, what's going on here?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas in collaborative practice, that's really clearly set out.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: The way we operate at MELCA is there is a lawyer for each person, collaboratively trained, of course, who are advocating to help you bring your best self, to put your best ideas on the table, but not to fight about the unwinnable.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And having the two neutrals, the financial planner who's bringing the money wisdom in, and the psychologist or counsellor who's bringing in the emotional wisdom, is really effective.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: It actually short circuits a lot of what can otherwise go on out there in the world of ping-pong negotiations between lawyers, which is it's an endless long drink of water, and you keep thinking we're nearly there, we're nearly there.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we do talk a lot about the cost of litigation, and what we don't talk about, and there's no research on it, is what is the cost of just negotiating endlessly with your lawyers?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And your lawyers are well motivated, they're wanting to help you to settle, but they're doing a different job in that setting because it's always in the back of their mind that this is going to end up in court.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: So everything that's said, everything that's written, and the way they go about gathering information and taking instructions rather than listening to their client in that setting means that you're walking a narrower path than the opportunity that you have outside working exclusively with lawyers.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and there's yes, there's a financial cost there, but there's also a time, energy, and emotional cost as well, which everybody knows about, but it's again, it's not spoken about.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's no research to document, you know, to document or um what's the word I'm looking for?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, to to measure it.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's no measure of it, but it it definitely exists and it's huge for families.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really interested to hear you saying that, Sally, and from the work that you do, because I agree with you, it's it's very underdiscussed, isn't it?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and sometimes we might say, you know, it'll be faster, cheaper, shorter to do one thing than the other.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: But that is about money efficiency.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that nobody understands what it's like to get out of bed for what can be literally years, 18 months, two years, three years, depending on what part of Australia you're talking about.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And having to face this thing that's still hanging over you.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it really delays children if there are children as well.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the ongoing damage that it does to a co-parenting relationship.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's enormous.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the financial uncertainty you can't plan.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can't plan for your future.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And depending on what stage of life you are, that's pretty critical.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: Probably every stage of life.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can't dream, you can't imagine, you can't build a future for yourself, can you?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very, very important space to be in.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, for anybody listening, collaborative, collaborative practice guides you through that in a much, I think it's a much healthier way for hearts and minds, as well as um hip pockets, bank balances.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I know with Smart Separation, you talk on your website about, and I'll put links to both websites in the show notes, Melk and Smart Separation.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know we haven't spoken much about it, but um I know on that website you outlights outline some of the right and wrong moves that couples can make.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: We've sort of touched on them, but I wondered if you'd like to share those with the listeners.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think more importantly, are the wrong moves, and I don't mean to sound negative when I say that, but there are things that you can do which are very hard to backtrack on.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Anything that damages trust, anything that looks vengeful or nasty to the other person is really, really hard to retract and genuinely apologize for.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: So some of the things that I have seen people do that really start off badly is the first thing that their spouse knows about the separation is their children tell them, usually their adult children.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: That they get a letter from a lawyer that in front of the children, one or the other parent announces that the marriage is ending, that colleagues and extended family know about it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've known people who got condolence phone calls about their separation and they didn't know what the calls were about because they didn't know they were separating.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Or people who separate in a way that's all about blame and responsibility and vengeance, of course, not blame and responsibility towards the person who's articulating the decision, but leaving in a way that is saying things and creating a position with your soon-to-be former partner that dumps all of the responsibility on them where you see yourself as the good person and them as the bad person, or taking money or hiding money or any other secret that looks like it's going, well, we know it will damage trust.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're the things to really, really avoid, but also think about if I'm going to separate, who am I going to consult first?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what's the intelligent thing to do there?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I've had people say to me, Look, I went to a you know city lawyer and they've given me this draft letter that's going to be sent to my soon-to-be ex.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And have said to me, I'm intelligent enough to know if my ex gets this letter, this is going to blow everything up.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I could not agree more because often those letters are seven, nine, eleven pages long.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, templated, they look so impersonal.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they get the name of the children wrong.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: All sorts of things can go wrong in that.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think there is a nice, good, acceptable letter that a lawyer can write, because every client I've ever spoken to said the minute they got the envelope or the email and saw that it was from a lawyer, it was kind of all over in terms of their ability to manage that emotional shock.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: So having the skills, the coaching, whatever it takes to have a sensible, decent, kind conversation in the beginning, or to write the other person a letter and say, I need to sit and discuss this with you, finding a way to make sure that that moment of separation isn't any more harmful or unkind than it has to be.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's um that's one of the main reasons I expanded working not just with clients who are already separating, divorcing, but before they before they've made that decision.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that what once they've if they choose to end a relationship and move through a separation divorce, they're making those smart, intelligent, kind, compassionate decisions rather than blowing it all up.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: The way it starts very much informs the journey and the process.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know you know that.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's no doubt about that.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can start in a way that says, you know, we both acknowledge this as sad or difficult, and one of us might be angry, and one of us might be more sad or guilty, but we need to end up somewhere together that's not totally apart.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to think about what might drive us to do that.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Is it our kids?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Is it our own relationship as two people who might bump into each other somewhere in the world?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or for our extended family or our separate relationships with extended family members.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: But often as well, you have to think about many small and medium enterprises in this country are run by couples.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: What are we going to do about the business?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you're never going to come up with a solution that suits everybody entirely, but you're not going to come up with actions that are really hard to recover from.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I think quite often people will be told, look, take some money, shore up some money, protect something.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like mistrust, it looks like draining the bank account.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: So if you if you feel like you need to do that, and I don't think there's anything wrong with accessing some money so that you can relocate to your new premises, but say to the other person, this is what I've just done.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're not going to say I'm going to do it because you might be stopped.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: But if you really need to make the decision to leave and you need some money, move it, be transparent about it, explain why you did it.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's never going to be welcome news, but nor is the separation in those circumstances.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if you do something that feels like it could create conflict, think about how you can soften that by some information going across to the other person or just a conversation.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or if if you're feeling unsafe and you need to leave quickly, you know, to have a safety plan and then to enact it and to depart.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: At least if you're taking children with you, find a way to have somebody there to support the spouse you're leaving.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that your spouse knows that you and the children are safe, that communication with your children can happen in a safe way, and book yourselves some meetings with advisors for after that, if that's a safe thing to do.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I think to be left and to feel like there's been no conversation and your children are gone is one of the most shocking and dreadful things that can happen to people.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: And everything escalates at that point.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've got to leave for safety reasons, um you have to be, you and your children have to be safe.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: But there is also another person on the other side of that equation, no matter what their behaviour has been, their behaviour is not going to improve with that kind of shock and awe separation happening.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you can do something to balance that out by the messaging.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and as you said, keeping the communication lines with children open.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are ways to soften it while still maintaining your safety.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was going to ask some more questions about, you know, tips and things that you would suggest to clients considering separation, but I think we've pretty much covered all of those.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to move to the tricky question, the really difficult one, which is a question I ask all my podcast guests.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that is, if you could choose one song or piece of music to play for anyone who's moving through separation and divorce, what would it be?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm going to squib on the question a little bit, Sally Ann, but what I would say for me it would be classical music and it would be something calming.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: It would probably be Brahms.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe on my better days, it might be something a little more lively.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: But something that's better than background, but is calming.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because almost any song that I can think of is going to trip me up.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to trip over sadness, grief, anger, relationships, something that I don't want to think about at that time.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going melody, not words.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: And just in final, in closing, can you just tell everybody where they can find you?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Find Melca, find smart separation.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: How do they find and connect with you?
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: The simplest thing is Google.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: So Melka.com.au, smartseparation.com.au.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: Melca works down the East Coast.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we have offices in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: We work online.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter whereabouts you are in Australia in these days of Zoom and Teams.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're really happy to work with you.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Same thing happens for smart separation.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I think in this case, Google definitely is your friend.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you so much for sharing your time, your wisdom, your compassion, your knowledge with us.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's been really great to have you as a guest on the podcast.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Sally Ann.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Marguerite.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sally Ann Hartnell, Relationship Coach, and you've been listening to Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow me on Instagram at Reflect Coaching, and if you can think of anyone who would love this episode, please, please share it with them.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also be so grateful if you'd follow the podcast and review this episode so we can get it in the ears of a whole lot more humans just like you who are ready to reclaim and liberate themselves in life and love.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll join me next time for another episode of Reflect, Reclaim and Liberate.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Until then.