In my 11 years of practicing law, I have noticed that attitudes and approaches to litigation and divorce vary from county to county. I have seen couples who wish to have an amicable and peaceful divorce be thwarted in those efforts because many of the attorneys in their area are holding strong and fast to traditional methods of positional and combative litigation.Although I am a full-time divorce mediator in San Francisco, many of my clients are not from San Francisco but choose to come here because they are unable to find good collaborative or mediating attorneys where they live (even though we're filing their cases in Contra Costa, Solano, San Mateo, Alameda, Marin, etc.).
That's not to say there aren't mediating and collaborative attorneys in counties other than San Francisco; there are, but I am still pleased to learn about more attorneys who are using more peaceful approaches to divorces. Divorce mediation Attorney Michele McInaney is in Walnut Creek (Northern California) and seems to have the right attitude according to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle. We definitely need more collaborative attorneys - those who have been trained in problem solving without the threat of litigation - so I'll keep an eye out for more.
