Albert Tarvin, M.S., Milton, Fl.

Al has Master’s degrees from University of Southern California and Troy State.  He spent 30 years in the Air Force, specializing in electronic communications.  He also taught aero-space studies at San Jose State for the ROTC program under the Social Studies Department, covering justice and legal studies. 

Albert has been a mediator since 1996.  He started as a County Court mediator in Small Claims Court.  He was recruited by the Post Office for their mediation program, and later became a Circuit family law mediator for the First Judicial Circuit.  By the way, he says, “going postal” is really a misnomer, because the Post Office has a lower level of violence in the workplace than the average business.

Al has been an AFCC member for four years; joining to keep up with trends and developments in the whole area of family law, but especially mediation techniques and practice.  He attended the recent AFCC Annual Conference at Washington D.C. and enjoyed it immensely.  He finds the most rewarding part of his practice as a mediator is helping people resolve their own problems, as happened in a recent two and a half hour post office mediation that was successful only after a number of separate caucuses and hard work by both the mediator and the parties.  He also finds the freedom involved in making your own schedule is an appealing part of being a mediator.    He and his wife teach mediation locally and enjoy the eclectic mix of professionals who participate in the training. 

What he likes the most about AFCC membership is the publications, which he reads cover-to-cover as soon as he gets them.  He would like for FLAFCC to consider holding it’s own training conference just for mediators as an additional opportunity for training between the DRC conference and the annual ACC conference.For hobbies, Albert likes gardening, and writes books!  He is an author who has written 8 novels, most of them about a young girl who was kicked out of her home and ultimately matures into a successful woman in a man’s world.  In the last sequel, she runs for election against “Hilary”!  You can see just who “Hilary” is and read a preview of his books at:  <http://www.chelseanovels.com/>

It is clear in listening to Albert talk that he and his wife share a full and wonderful life striving to help others.  They volunteer at Santa Rosa Hospital, they teach a defensive driving course for AARP, they teach CPR for the Red Cross, and they both mentor at risk students in the local school system.

What a wonderful role model for all FLAFCC members.  Thanks, Al!

 

 

Amorie Lamaha, MSW, Yalaha, Fl.

Amorie majored in Social Work and Marriage and Family Therapy.  The practice she enjoys the most is personal therapy.   She is a certified mediator, but is thinking about leaving that field, because she has become somewhat frustrated by the adversarial litigation bent that she feels interferes with her ability to really help the couples she mediates.  The sense of “winning” is so strong that it pervades the process, she feels.

She said because of these feelings she wondered if I really should interview her for a profile.  I said let’s go ahead with the interview.  That’s when the subject of “EMDR” emerged.  I asked what was most interesting in her practice and she started telling me about “Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing” (EMDR), and “equine assistance therapy”.  EMDR is a therapeutic method of addressing a condition that occurs when the brain transfers a traumatic experience to a separate part of the brain where the memory is not consciously accessible as a way of protecting the person’s psyche.  Unfortunately, when the person encounters an unrelated event that reminds this subconscious portion of the brain about the trauma, it may trigger a physiological response that is painful and confusing.  The therapy is designed to help the brain on a neurological level to help heal the painful memory (it really doesn't involve the eye movement).  It doesn't eliminate the memory, but allows the patient to deal with it.  Let me hasten to add that this description  is my layman’s interpretation of Amorie’s explanation to me.

Equine assistance therapy is based on the fact that horses are very perceptive at recognizing a person’s mood or behavior as either “congruent” with the horse (compatible with safe and friendly), or a threat.  This arises from the horse having developed over the eons a highly skilled ability to assess the need for flight as a defense mechanism for safety.  The horse has no aggressive body weapons such as ripping teeth, horns, claws, or similar offensive weapons.  This results in the horse’s nature causing it to respond cooperatively if he senses by your emotions and energy that you are “congruent”, or to be resistant and uncooperative if you are not “congruent”.  Thus, working with or around the horse can be used to teach the person to recognize their emotions and the effect their behavior has on others.  Again, this is my interpretation of what I heard.  Amorie has a four-year old horse of her own which she is training , and furthers her appreciation for this unique form of therapy.

Amorie has been an AFCC member for about three years, and was encouraged to join by FLAFCC members Cher Myers and Debi Day.  She was interested in Parenting Coordination and mediation, which also stimulated her interest in joining FLAFCC.   She feels FLAFCC members are proactive and serious about improving the welfare of children and families.  She enjoys most in her practice dealing with high conflict couples in a way that helps them resolve their problems and that gets the children out the middle.     

 

Jeff Miller, J.D., Boca Raton, Fl.

Jeff practices law in an underserved arena:  low cost, flat rate, unbundled services.  For our readers who may not be familiar with the term, “unbundled services” involves handling one specific part or issue of a client’s legal problems or court case, and allows an attorney to make an appearance in a case or commit to handle just that one part, if that is what the client desires.  Sometimes, the attorney may merely “coach” the client as to how to handle the matter in court on his own.  He has designed his practice to appeal to and serve the moderate income and working poor families that would otherwise be pro se.  He uses a problem solving, educational approach that helps produce resolutions that are long lasting and create happy clients.  Even the other spouse is usually happy and thanks him for his part in allowing the whole family to move on with their lives.  He has practiced law since 1980, evolving from clerking for a Federal Judge, to a Federal criminal practice, to a State Court civil practice.  Two things caused him to consider serving the low cost family law needs in the middle and lower economic strata:  First, people at the courthouse would ask him:  “Are you a lawyer; can you help me?”  They could not figure out the packet of pro se forms, and were desperate for some type of help.    Second, he drove past the office of “We the People” every day going to work, and wondered who they were.  So he stopped in one day and found out the office was a paralegal firm who suggested to people:  “You don’t need a lawyer”.  He felt people needed legal help and advice, but the legal profession was not responding.

As they say, “the rest is history”!  He has a busy, successful practice helping people without much money solve legal problems in the family law arena, and he necessarily does this in large numbers by using the Internet and every technological method he can think of.  His main office is in Boca Raton, with offices also in Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.  His low cost divorce practice is actually statewide.   I visited his website at www.divorceyes.com <http://www.divorceyes.com> and found you could engage his staff in a live chat to discuss a legal problem and arrange for consultation and advice.  Through the use of the inter-net and credit cards, some problems can be solved on-line.  He finds that a common sense, problem-solving approach means few post judgment disputes, which is good for the family, good for the court system and good for his professional satisfaction and sleeping habits!

Jeff himself has been happily married for 30 years and has four children, 25, 23, 18, and 12, one of whom works in his law practice.  He enjoys boating and fishing, particularly on his classic 31’ Bertram, which he and his family often take to the Keys and the Bahamas.

He joined FLAFCC at last year’s conference because he liked the exchange of ideas, and the emphasis on problem solving and the publications.

 

Cindy Harari, J.D., Plantation, Fl.

Cindy is an attorney who has had a civil, commercial, non-litigation practice since 1984.  She became a single parent in the mid-90’s as a result of a divorce which would not have been characterized as a problem-solving exercise for her.  Unhappy with the process, she worked hard at building a decent parenting relationship with her ex-husband.  She was successful enough that her children would come home and tell her that they felt so lucky when they heard about their friend’s parents not talking to each other, while they felt their mom and dad were friends.  She became increasingly involved in helping other divorced parents she knew who needed help in building better communication skills with their ex-spouse on parenting issues.  She called this “picking up the pieces.”  She started taking all her attorney CLE credits in family law and eventually heard about Parenting Coordination and AFCC.  Along the way she had become a certified family law mediator, so she took a couple of PC training courses.  She still did not engage in practice as a family law attorney.  About this time she met Dr. Priscilla Marotta in Ft. Lauderdale and they began to strategize a practice together in Parenting Coordination.  They started “Children First” in the 17th Circuit to do this sort of work.  Because she is not a practicing family lawyer and was not a mental health professional she has encountered difficulty in breaking into this type of work. 

The professional work she enjoys the most is teaching parents that they have the power to change their behavior in a way that can beneficially change their children’s lives also.

Cindy enjoys the openness and information-sharing among AFCC members.  She went to the Annual Conference at Innisbrook last year, and reveled in the feeling of being surrounded by like-minded people.  She is concerned, however, that there seem to be differences in the AFCC PC guidelines and the FLAFCC guidelines in certain respects, and that there are differing provisions in the Administrative Orders governing PC in the Judicial Circuits around the State.

She loves to fish with her family in her free time, and treasures her (beginner’s luck) first fish caught - a 42 lb. dolphin in Bimini.  She fishes in the Keys a lot now.

Another wonderfully committed and energetic member with great ideas and big plans!
 

 

CHAPTER COUNCIL REPORT

On a quarterly basis, the leaders of each State Chapter of AFCC meets via telephone conference with the Chapter Committee Chairs of AFCC and other AFCC leaders. This is called the Chapter Council, and serves to keep all Chapters informed of what each other is doing, and to keep a two-way communication going between the parent organization and the Chapters.   Leslye Hunter, former President of AFCC, has been retained on a contract basis to act as a staff person to assist Chapters in planning and operation of their business.  She, together with Executive Director Peter Salem, work hard to see that the Chapters get the support they need from the Board and the parent organization.  These are vibrant meetings which include a lot of sharing of important information and ideas.  Our FLAFCC President-elect, Nancy Blanton, is the current FLAFCC representative on the Chapter Council and gave this report on their last meeting: 

I wanted to give you a quick update of the Chapter Council meeting that was held on Thursday, August 16, 2007.
AFCC conferences: The DC conference was a huge success. There were 904 registrants. The Vancouver conference in May of 2008 has a workshop proposal deadline of October 5, 2007. AFCC is trying to expand outside the normal experts and comfort zone so they are encouraging new speakers and topics.

For those of you who don't know, the 2009 conference will return to New Orleans. When the conference was moved last year to Tampa, the agreement for New Orleans was to return in 2009. The 2010 conference looks like it will be in Denver, Colorado.

Regional conferences are also being planned. The next conference will be in Columbus, Ohio. Currently registration is low. Peter has asked that State conferences try not to compete with these regional conferences by planning at least 45 days before and after the regional dates. * This may be a problem for FLAFCC as we usually look at November and some of these regional conferences are close to that time. We need to speak to Peter before we sign a contract on November, 2008.

Parenting Coordination: Several states have been working on this topic. Louisiana has passed a statute and it was signed by the governor. AFCC is trying to post it on the Yahoo website for AFCC. It will be posted under "files". New Jersey is working on a "Court Rule" for PC. It sounds like our Administrative Rule. The have 4 or 5 pilot projects working on providing PC. Missouri is trying to start a task force on PC. AFCC referred to them to Linda Fieldstone for advice.

Collaborative Law: New Jersey is working on Collaborative Law issues. There are two local groups trying to get NJAFCC to support their efforts. Our own Shelly Finman was in New Jersey promoting Cooperative Divorce. Texas pointed out that they are planning a conference on Child Custody testimony from Mental Health professionals and were told by the local Collaborative Law group that the group would not support or advertise their conference because it supports litigation. They were stunned by this response and wanted everyone to remember that it may be easy to alienate a group by your choice of topic. Food for thought.

Lobbying: This topic came up and we were encouraged to remember that as 501C3 organizations, we can convene shareholders on an issue and we can individually support an issue, but as an organization, we can not sponsor legislation. According to the IRS, we can not have a significant percentage of our time in lobbying for an issue. AFCC's position has always been that we do not take a position because we are an organization of diverse views. We are open to assisting to organize a discussion. Our Florida FOCI group was brought up by AFCC as an example of what would be appropriate.

New Chapters: Colorado is a new chapter and they are still organizing themselves. Ontario province, Georgia, and Louisiana are also new chapters organizing. (We should look into getting a mailing list for Georgia.)

The next Chapter Council teleconference will be November 15, 2007. February will be the call for the spring.

 

Using a Financial Neutral for the Benefit of the System

 

What the neutral financial can do for the Family Court system:

1.  Their professional training tends to automatically eliminate emotion and advocacy.  They are natural problem-solvers.  When approaching the hard and messy financial choices of a divorcing family, the financial expert is more likely than the parties or their attorneys to create an objective, reality-based plan to help them through some very difficult times.  The other participants are more likely to be caught up in emotion or advocacy and will often take positions that cannot be carried out when looking at the entire separated family system.     

2.  Financial experts usually have good skills and training for performing the following tasks:
A.  Mediation:  The financial expert brings a calm, knowledgeable approach to mediation.  This approach often works as well on parenting issues as it does for the financial issues.  The financial expert generally has a different, more practical approach than other professionals.  A co-mediation with a lawyer or mental health professional may allow both types of professional to learn from each other, and may yield an even better result. 

B.  Problem-solving:  The logical, fact-based nature of their training produces an expert who is focused on gaining a solution, not seeking emotional satisfaction alone.  “Just the facts, Ma’am!” 

C.  Acting as Investigative CPA’s:  Acting as a neutral expert appointed by the Court, the financial expert is freed of pursuing useless, but expensive, tracks.  You can give them a budget and tell them to gain as much information as they can within the budget and to ask for more only if it is truly warranted by the potential worth of the final product.  They can use the parties personal pre-existing financial advisors and take advantage of their knowledge to save considerable time and expense.    

D.  Tax-effecting awards of equitable distribution and alimony.  Often the tax ramifications may cause an otherwise beneficial award to diminish greatly.  A neutral expert can ferret out ways to fashion an equitable distribution, or an alimony or child support award, that is different than the parties would desire, but that meets their needs better because of the tax ramifications.  This is frequently overlooked by parties who have an emotional investment in a particular scheme of distribution.

E.  Consultants to attorneys or the court on practical solutions to difficult financial issues:  When employed on an ad hoc basis, the financial expert can provide valuable neutral opinions on specific technical or sophisticated financial information in a very cost efficient manner that may make the difference in successful negotiation.  A judge could also appoint the expert to advise the Court (and all the parties) on a financial issue that may be a real “sticking point” in making a decision  

F.  Members of collaborative or cooperative law teams:  For all the reasons given above, the neutral financial expert can be an invaluable member of the team.

G.  General or special masters:  In cases involving complicated financial issues a neutral expert can be appointed by consent of the parties to act as a master.  The neutral expert can take evidence and make a recommendation to the Court.  This saves the judge considerable time, and gives the parties a more knowledgeable fact-finder for the particular type of case.  The neutral expert may also have more patience and be more attentive and focused than a judge would be on this type case.  The judge, of course, still decides pure legal issues, and makes or approves the final decision.  This could be accomplished for a certain part, or for the entire case, if it is purely financial.   

H.  Planning and extending financial plans into the future and beyond retirement of both parties:  Often financial plans and awards look very good and fair when made, and even for a long time afterwards.  Unfortunately, severe changes in time and economic conditions may completely vitiate what was originally a good plan.  Likewise, a plan may be doomed from the beginning because the parties don’t fully understand the long-range effect of the awards.  A neutral expert can assist in making a sounder long-range plan, and help avoid unintended consequences which sometimes occur because of a failure to extend the effect far enough into the future.

3.  Look for a financial expert who is: 
Flexible
Has people skills
Is a decision-maker

Remember, not every financial expert will have the personal make-up to work well in the caldron of divorcing family issues.  It takes a special type of person.

 Consider using a financial expert for gender identification; for example, a female CPA may be able to strike a rapport with a wife who needs guidance as to structuring her financial life.  On the other hand, a strong male CPA may be able to convince an authoritative husband that he needs to give in on certain financial issues. Consider personality type; be careful not to recruit those who are so detail and fact oriented that they may not be able to make prompt, practical, and global decisions.

4.  Hopefully, you may wind up with less post-judgment problems in the financial arena because of the work the neutral financial expert can accomplish in helping to forge a solid, practical plan.  Whether you are a judge, attorney, or party, use these valuable experts for what they do best.  Don’t merely follow the traditional mode of hiring them as a “hired gun”.  Be creative!  Free the financial expert to do their best work by using them as a neutral in as many different ways as is possible; that will help the whole system!

AFCC and NCJFCJ Regional
Training Conference
Applications for High Conflict
Families, Domestic Violence and
Alienation
September 27-29, 2007
Hyatt Regency Columbus
Columbus, Ohio