12th Annual Collaborative Law “Spring Conference”

The 12th Annual Collaborative Law “Spring Conference” is just a few weeks away! This year’s course “Collaborative Law: Avoiding Breaking Bad When Breaking Up” is co-sponsored by Collaborative Divorce Texas and the Collaborative Law Section of the State Bar of Texas. The focus of this year’s course is tackling difficulties in Collaborative Practice: difficult cases, difficult parties, difficult issues, and difficulties in growing your Collaborative business.

Amy Lambert is this year’s Course Director and Lisa Marquis is the Assistant Course Director. Amy is a partner at Friday Milner Lambert Turner, PLLC in Austin and has been an active Collaborative practitioner and speaker for over a decade. Lisa is an equity shareholder at Quilling, Selander, Lownds, Winslett, & Moser, P.C. in their Plano office and has completed over 100 Collaborative cases.

Amy and Lisa are very pleased to present this year’s lineup of speakers and topics. We kick things off on Thursday with an in-depth presentation by Dr. Hanna Moussa and Dr. Vic Vines, both of Denton, who will be presenting on “High Conflict Personalities in Family Law.“ A panel discussion on “Navigating High-Conflict Personalities in a Collaborative Case” with Doctors Moussa and Vine led by Dr. Deborah S. Lyons, along with a question and answer session, will follow their detailed presentation.

For lunch Thursday, current members of Collaborative Divorce Texas (CDT) are invited to a luncheon meeting (lunch provided). If you would like to attend the lunch and haven’t already RSVP’d, please do so immediately here: https://members.collaborativedivorcetexas.com/cdt-membership-luncheon/ . If you are not already a member of CDT (or if your membership has lapsed), you can join here: https://members.collaborativedivorcetexas.com/become-a-member/members-join-or-extend/. Non-members will have lunch on their own on Thursday; there are multiple lunch options within walking distance.

After Thursday’s lunch, Christina Molitor (attorney), Ellie A. Saucedo (MHP), Richard Soat (FP), and Kristal Thomson (attorney), all from San Antonio will present a case autopsy on one of their difficult cases which included several challenging issues: first time case for one of the attorneys, high conflict divorce with children, business valuation, and a last chance mediation. Later in the afternoon, Kathryn Murphy (attorney) of GoransonBain Ausley’s Plano office will present on ”How to Draw Clients to the Collaborative Model and Keep Them Satisfied,“ including tips to practitioners for making sure the process remains productive and positive for the clients.

Craig Haston (attorney) of Houston will moderate a panel on ”Breaking the Log Jam in Your Case.“ Panelists Kelly Ausley-Flores (attorney) of Austin and Susan Wright (attorney) will share their many years of experience and wisdom in this presentation.

We will wrap up Thursday’s presentations with tips from Dawn Budner (attorney) and Jack Emmott (attorney) on “Using Social Media to Ethically Grow Your Collaborative Practice.“

Thursday evening offers two fun social and networking opportunities with your Collaborative practitioner pals. First, at the conclusion of the day’s presentations, please join us at the Welcoming Social at the conference site. Later that evening, you are invited to a Dinner with Your Collaborative Colleagues at Prive’ at the conference hotel (at your own expense), but hurry as this dinner is limited to the first 60 conference attendees who RSVP and the spaces are filling fast. You can RSVP by emailing Cindy Skrepcinski at cskrepcinski@qslwm.com. These annual dinners are always great fun!

Friday kicks off with an early morning blogging session with Cristi and Graydon Trusler. This workshop, which is a follow up to last year’s class, is for new bloggers, master bloggers, and never-before bloggers, alike. Join them to share ideas, tips, and tricks for streamlining your blogging and jump starting your social media.

Friday morning keeps things cooking with last year’s Course Director and CDT Board Member, Rhonda Cleaves (attorney) and one of our most entertaining Collaborative speakers, Kevin Fuller (attorney). They will be speaking on “How to Keep a Good Thing Going: Strategies to Advance the Collaborative Movement,“ which will focus on practice groups and successful practices and strategies to grow or start your practice group.

Ken Wise (MHP) will share his expertise in his presentation “Communication Breakdown: How Client, Attorney, and Team Dynamics Can Disrupt and Impede the Collaborative Practice“ which will be a discussion on interpersonal dynamics and communication between clients, attorneys, and professional teams. He will examine common communication problems that arise in Collaborative cases and teach how to remedy them, along with sharing a new model for effective team debriefing.

Jennifer Tull (attorney), Larry Hance (attorney), and Dr. Lisa Walker (MHP) are going to shake things up by adding a new tool to your Collaborative tool belt: coaching. They will present on “How Coaching Skills and Coaches Can Enhance the Collaborative Experience.“ In this session you will learn: how a coach differs from your Collaborative team’s MHP and how coaches and teams can work well together; benefits of coaching for Collaborative clients and team members; and coaching skills all Collaborative team members can incorporate into their toolboxes to achieve better results in their cases.

Late Friday morning, Suzanne Blake (FP) will present on “The Gray Divorce“ and the unique and sometimes challenging needs of this ever-growing population.

Friday’s lunch will be provided to all registrants and the great topics will continue over the lunch hour with Tim Crouch’s presentation on “Taking the Next Steps for More Collaborative Cases.”

Our conference key note speaker, Forest (Woody) Mosten (attorney) of California will bring us a new perspective on “Guiding Your Client Through Difficult Situations.“ We’re excited to have Woody join us as he is a frequent and popular speaker at Collaborative and Peacemaking events across the country.

Our penultimate presentation by Kris Algert (attorney) and Syd Sharples (MHP) will focus on ”Succeeding Collaboratively with the Impossible Case.“ Kris and Syd will explore the questions: do uber-challenging cases have a place in the Collaborative process? Can they possibly be better served by it? They will provide tips and resources on navigating such cases and things to think about before choosing whether or not to proceed collaboratively.

Randy Wilhite and Mike Benaglio will close out the conference with a bang . . . talking about TAX in their presentation “Breaking Bad . . .Tax Consequences.” They will share what aspects of the new tax laws impact divorce settlements for both children and property. They will explore these and many other tax considerations important in developing settlement alternatives that both exploit tax opportunities and prevent tax disasters. The presentation will focus on identifying tax issues, handling them through an agreement, and, moreover, knowing when to involve experienced tax counsel.

The course is approved by the Texas Bar for 12.25 hours of MCLE Credit with 3.5 hours of ethics and also for LPC, LSW, and LMFT credit (and we have also registered with the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy as a CPE sponsor).

Register online at https://www.texasbarcle.com/CLE/AABuy1.asp?sProductType=EV&lID=16905