Legal Coaching for family law self-reps is something inspired by, but not the same as, executive coaching, which has been around for a long time. (NOTE 2) It draws upon much of the experience and lessons of executive training but has a different objective.

• Executive coaching helps a person be better at their job. A long-term objective.
  • Legal Coaching helps a self-rep perform better in court. A short-term objective.

The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching “as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” It goes on to say:

“Professional coaching focuses on setting goals, creating outcomes and managing personal change.”

The IDF sees coaching as an ongoing professional relationship that helps people produce extraordinary results in their lives, careers, businesses, or organizations. It helps clients improve their performance in general and at their job.

Legal Coaching is also goal oriented. But it’s a short-term exercise aimed at improving performance to achieve a specific outcome. It’s not designed to improve your ability to do your job better. It’s designed to improve your ability to represent yourself in court in this one case better.

Coaching starts with where clients are now in their family court matter, and helps them do what they can to get the best possible outcome with the material before the judge.

In the recent report of the Family Legal Services Review, December 31, 2016, conducted for the Ontario Attorney General, _{(NOTE 3)} Madam Justice Bonkalo made a series of recommendations. Her first 3 dealt with encouraging lawyers to offer unbundled services, encouraging an expanded use of unbundled services, and supporting the development of legal coaching.

She wrote:

“Legal coaching is a new area of practice the profession should also support. Legal coaching may overlap with some unbundled tasks, but is uniquely characterized by the lawyer equipping the client to move his or her own matter forward (by reviewing documents, preparing them for an appearance, etc.) rather than personally doing the work for the client. Legal coaching can be provided on a fee-for-service or flat-rate model, and may involve the provision of substantive legal advice, procedural coaching, hearings coaching and/or negotiation and settlement coaching. Depending on the client’s needs, capabilities and financial circumstances, coaching and unbundled services can be provided hand-in-hand.”

Legal Coaching will involve different things depending upon each matter. It may include some or all of:

• Legal advice
• Process and procedural advice
• Reviewing and commenting on documents filed in court
• Assistance in revising or drafting documents for court
• Suggestions about how to organize written or spoken presentations
• Strategic guidance about dealing with the strengths and weaknesses of your case and the case you have to meet
• Support in handling yourself in court
• Assistance for negotiations and settlement discussions

Increased self-awareness

One of the difficulties affecting many, perhaps most, people going through a family court proceeding on their own is in realizing that it’s not all about them. There are many players in a family law case. There’s the self-rep, the other party, possibly the children and a social service agency, perhaps a lawyer for the other party, friends and family giving “advice”, and, of course, the judge.

It’s critical for each self-rep to understand how they fit into the overall scenario, how what they say and do, and how they present the issues and facts, affects the way their case is seen.

Without being aware of how everyone else in the matter sees their role, the self-rep could make critical mistakes in the presentation of their case.

Just because a client feels this or that is fair or reasonable, and just because they think the judge should know this or that, doesn’t make it so – or mean they’re right. Helping people in court understand where they fit into the facts available, and to understand how what the others are saying is impacting the matter, will help them become more clear about their situation and more effective in advancing it.

Better goal-setting

Often the gulf between what a self-rep wants out of the process and what is realistically available is large. The self-rep sees matters from their own perspective and may be unaware of how the judge will see the same facts.

Good coaching can help a self-rep better understand the situation they’re in and the reasonable outcomes they can expect. This helps a person in court set meaningful and realizable goals.

Better goal-setting allows for a more effective presentation because facts and arguments that are irrelevant or pointless won’t get in the way of those that help a judge make the decision. Like barnacles on a ship’s hull, making the wrong arguments and trying to establish irrelevant facts, interferes with the smooth sailing towards the self-rep’s objective.

The more realistic and practical we are at setting our goals, especially in family court, the more likely we are to achieve them.

Enhanced communications skills

Good family law lawyers are good communicators. We need to communicate with our clients, the other party, other lawyers, witnesses, experts, and judges. Sometimes different skills are required for communicating with different people. We make a living by communicating persuasively.

Knowing how to communicate in different situations isn’t a skill set required for all jobs and for all people. Even the smartest and most successful people may not be good communicators. That’s why major companies and agencies have a “spokesperson” to communicate to the public. That’s why they hire an advertising agency – to communicate with the public.

It’s fair to say that most self-reps in family court haven’t developed, or even had to use, this sort of skill. They know their case and the facts, but they may have trouble organizing them or telling the story in a logical or persuasive way. Or they may be embarrassed to speak in public or get so tongue-tied that they forget to say what’s most important.

But coaching from an experienced lawyer, who understands the situation the self-rep is facing, can help the person acting for themselves communicate in a meaningful and effective way.

Coaching doesn’t turn a person into a great orator, but it helps remove the roadblocks to being persuasive and enhances whatever ability the person has so they can better tell their story.

Increased confidence

All of the above leads towards greater self-confidence. Each self-rep naturally becomes more confident once they better understand their goals and have their material and arguments better organized. Most self-reps feel better about their case when they see what pieces of their story best advance their interest and how to counter what doesn’t, and when they understand when each party speaks and how to deal with the judge.

Rosabeth Moss Kantor, a professor of business at the Harvard Business School, summarized this by saying: “Confidence isn’t optimism or pessimism, and it’s not a character attribute. It’s the expectation of a positive outcome.” A good coach can help the client define and move toward their “positive outcome”.

Lower stress levels

Lastly, but far from least, a good coach helps reduce the stress level of the self-rep. The self-rep’s stress and fear about the outcome is reduced once they have a realistic sense of self awareness, realizable goals, improved communication skills, and confidence in being able to present their case as effectively as they’re able.

It’s not therapy

Therapy focusses on the past. It deals with removing or resolving difficulties affecting the person that interfere with, or harm, their emotional functioning in the present. It helps them deal with the present in a more effective and healthy way.

Legal Coaching, however, is focussed on the future and the achievement of a specific outcome. It may involve creating positive feelings and healthy emotions, but its primary focus is on developing actionable strategies for achieving specific goals.

It’s not consulting

Consultants are people with specific expertise paid to come up with solutions. Typically, it involves hiring a person with specialized knowledge to diagnose a problem and suggest answers. It’s finished once that’s done, and usually the consultant leaves the implementation to the person paying for the consultation.

Legal Coaching clearly involves a lawyer using his or her knowledge to help diagnose a problem and offer legal advice for a solution. But, and more important, it involves a participation in enhancing the individual’s performance to implement the solution.

It’s not training

Training usually involves a program set by an instructor or trainer with defined objectives. It generally sees the process as a linear activity with guidance provided by the trainer working from a predesigned curriculum. It’s designed to build and maintain certain skills so that performance can be maintained. It focusses on behaviours that are being executed poorly or incorrectly.

Legal Coaching, however, is much more single minded. It’s only intended to enhance skills for a particular purpose, designed to accomplish a specific objective, without needing the client to maintain those skills beyond the matter at hand. It’s not about teaching a non-lawyer to be a lawyer – it’s about teaching a non-lawyer to handle themselves in court as best as possible for this one case.

People differ on this, but it’s the view of The Family Law Coach that for Legal Coaching to be of value it needs to be given by an experienced family law lawyer. Not just a lawyer who knows the law, but one who has enough courtroom experience to know the way the system works and what judges are looking for from litigants in court.

Keep in mind that for a legal coach to be of value for a self-rep in family court, the coach needs to be able to give both legal advice where needed and practical advice about how the self-rep can handle themselves and present their case. This means a great business or executive coach isn’t what a self-rep needs if they don’t have the experience of a practicing family law lawyer. And a practicing family law lawyer may be great at what they do but not have the experience helping others do it.

At The Family Law Coach we believe a lawyer needs the experience of a full traditional practice to become a good coach. This includes court attendances at motions, conferences, and trials, as well as experience in drafting documents and agreements, and negotiating settlements, so they can understand the real world that a family law litigant faces.

The Family Law Coach is affiliated with a law firm but we don’t provide traditional legal services like a law firm. This is done through our Coach lawyers and team members, who agree with The Family Law Coach approach. Every Coach lawyer and team member offers both legal assistance and coaching.

So that a self-rep will be able to keep control of the cost, it’s offered in units of one hour. There’s no open-ended representation with an unknown cost at the end. No lawyer dictating how much time will be spent. And it’s available by phone or email wherever you are – no office visits or office hours.

The Family Law Coach recognizes, as does your Coach lawyer, that most self-reps have limited resources and need to get the best value for the cost. Our Coach lawyers respect family court self-reps and leaves it to them to decide how much they can afford and if what they’re spending is worth it.

We have many Coaching Solution Packages. Each is offered exclusively through zoom, telephone and email. You choose how to deal with the lawyer, and when. No need to take time off work, get child care, or make travel arrangements to come to the lawyer’s office. You get your coaching at the place and time of your convenience, and you keep control of the cost.