Pauline is confused: morphing from litigator to collaborator, she mixes her gladiator and warrior archetypes with collaborative, throwing in CA State Bar Ethics Violations. Pauline thinks the CA State Bar writes ethics codes for husbands and wives! (will the last sane lawyer turn out the lights?)
Put down the Jung, sort out your gladiator from your warrior archetypes from your solutions and pay attention. (see Pauline's unusual thought pattterns described here in her own words: Jung and Pauline.)
Pauline says in the email below that State Bar forbids divorcing couples with communicating with one another. No, Pauline: it is ATTORNEYS who may not communicate with a represented party. (time for CLE on ethics? or maybe retirement?)
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from that amazing site which explores in depth the chaos and the reality of a collaborative divorce, My Collaborative Law Divorce we see Pauline is not only confused, but controlling and far, far from collaborative which encourages communication between husband and wife.
(Email of January 4, 2007) Tesler writes Seltzer, "As
before, [husband] continues to send direct and annoying messages to
[wife] via email. [Husband] seems not to understand State Bar rules regarding communicating directly with a party represented by counsel,
though I know you have advised him not to do that. Just so you are
aware, I've advised [wife] not to respond to any direct communications
from [husband] other than to tell him that he should send
divorce-related communications only through you. I've urged her to
ignore any direct requests for information, agreement, etc. except as
transmitted through counsel.”
Comment:
Is this a court case or a collaboration??? Note that this is even after
we had agreed on all the terms a month earlier. So apparently Tesler's
contention is that the spouses may not communicate AT ALL during a
collaboration unless they (the lawyers) are present (at $800/hr), and
she provides a basis as if we're in the middle of a litigation. And my
wife continued to contact me via email/phone whenever she wanted
something. I believe the directive to not communicate occurred early on
in the case since wife would not respond to any email about the case,
however trivial as early as September 2006. I also believe this was the
strategy used to take complete control of the case, increase expenses,
and encourage suspicion and conflict, thereby prolonging the case.
There is nothing in the Collaborative Law contracts we signed or
literature given to us that has the protocol Tesler introduced - where
we could not talk at all. In fact, we made the most progress each time
we did NOT follow that protocol and talked (such as the agreement to
settle in December), but such progress was quickly shut down by what I
believe was a reminder by Tesler to wife not to communicate further
with me.
