Over 500 Collaborative lawyers, mental health professionals and financial advisors from all across the United States, Canada, and 21 nations gathered in Washington, D.C. for the 16th Annual Forum of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) during the week of October 14-18, 2015 at the Renaissance Downtown Hotel. The Forum is the largest annual gathering of Collaborative Professionals and boasts two days of full day training programs, followed by two days of training workshops, keynote speakers, and other highlights. The IACP has over 5,000 members around the world, with practice groups in 21 countries and six continents (excluding only Antarctica). Members this year came from as far as Australia, Hong Kong, Israel, Egypt, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, New Zealand and the Czech Republic, to name a few.
Michael Zeytoonian, lawyer, mediator and director of Dispute Resolution Counsel, LLC in Wellesley Hills and Westborough, Massachusetts, teamed up with Boston/North Shore-based Executive Coach Linda Cohan to present a workshop on Sunday, October 18. Their workshop presented on Collaborative Law Pilot Projects with government agencies and non-profit organizations. They gave particular attention to the two-year Pilot Project between the Massachusetts Collaborative Council (MCLC) and the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), which was recently completed in September 2014.
The workshop focused on how to identify potential project partner organizations, how to establish and set up the project and how to execute it. The goal of these pilot projects is to offer Collaborative Law to the partnering agencies or organizations for use to resolve disputes that are filed with the agencies or that arise between members of the organizations. Keynote or Plenary Speakers this year included Donna Hicks, author of the best-selling book Dignity: Its Essential Role in Resolving Conflict; Dacher Keltner, Director of the Social Interaction Lab at the Univ. of California at Berkeley and the author of Born to be Good; The Science of a Meaningful Life; and Barbara McAffee, author of Full Voice; The Art & Practice of Vocal Presence.
IACP members from across the United States, Canada, Israel, the Basque Country of Spain and the Netherlands attended the Pilot Project workshop and were charged with the task of going back to their countries, states and practice group and initiating new pilot projects within the next 12 months. Linda Cohan discussed the role of the neutral coach/facilitator in these kinds of projects and the cases that are involved and the value of doing Pilot Projects. Michael Zeytoonian identified what kinds of agencies or organizations would make good potential partners in these projects, and discussed some of the “lessons learned” from using Collaborative Law in workplace discrimination cases with the MCAD-MCLC Project for two years. Cohan and Zeytoonian, along with Daniel Candee, a Collaborative professional from Lincoln, MA, shared anecdotal’s on some of the cases and situations that arose through the MCAD project and the challenges presented in the cases, ranging from the use of interpreters and neutral experts to the role of a party’s in-house counsel in Collaborative Law cases.
Three other Collaborative lawyers, Marshal Yoder of Fredericksburg, Virginia, Marc Sheridan of Mt. Kisco, New York, and Maura Sullivan of Canton, Massachusetts, joined in presenting demonstrations illustrating what the process of meeting with potential project partners would look like. They also participated in the debriefing sessions and question and answer that followed the various parts of the workshop. Sheridan, Yoder, and Sullivan are long-time leaders in their respective states in the training of lawyers and the promotion of the use of Collaborative Law in business, employment, organizational and family disputes.
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