Air-Shuttle Family Diplomacy
Parental Decision Through Mediation
Richard Wolman and Israela Brill-Cass
A couple divorced eleven years ago. Their only child, a son is now 14 years old. The parents had a cooperative parenting arrangement and their son had been living primarily with his father in Ireland (for two years) and in Massachusetts. For the past three years, he attended school in an affluent Boston suburb. From the time he was five years old, the son traveled by plane to spend every other weekend with his mother when she was living in Philadelphia, or by car when his mother was living in Ireland. Both parents are now re-married, each with young children born of those marriages.
In the early summer prior to their son’s first year of high school, mother and father came to Boston Law Collaborative, LLC to resolve an issue regarding residence and school placement. Both parents offered excellent and loving homes for their son. Both parents wanted their son to live with them in their homes (the father’s in Massachusetts and the mother’s in Philadelphia); but they also wanted to do what was best for their son. The parents reached a point where they could no longer independently determine the best placement for their son; and also guarded against the mistake of placing responsibility for the choice on him. After discussion and review of options, the parents decided to ask BLC to recommend a method to make the most informed choice.
An initial telephone conference was scheduled with the parents, David Hoffman and Israela Brill-Cass. This telephone conference was intended to serve as a pre-mediation step. After approximately one hour on the phone with father and mother, the discussion reached a point where the parents were comfortable proceeding with mediation as a process to determine the best placement.
The parents also wanted to explore the possibility of working with someone trained in family dynamics to accomplish their goal. After an additional hour of conferring with Israela, the parents achieved a mediated agreement with regard to the process for determining the best placement for their son. Guided by Israela, the call itself became their mediation session and produced a memorandum of understanding (MOU). Integral to the MOU was the selection of a trained family therapist to evaluate the family, and whose recommendation would be determinative of placement and also serve as a stipulated agreement between the parents.
A number of subsequent telephone calls and emails between the parents and Israela lead to the refinement of details in the MOU such as the length of placement, how the therapist’s determination would be presented to the son and by whom, and the legal effect of the determination with regard to pending court proceedings.
After interviewing Dr. Richard Wolman, the parents decided that they wanted to work with him and also assign to him the authority of determination regarding placement of their son. A series of meetings ensued which, by their varied configurations, allowed Richard to view the complexities of these three families: 1) the father and his (new) wife and children; 2) the mother and her (new) husband and children; and 3) the father, mother and 14 year old son, because even though the parents had divorced, this unit remained very much a “family” unto themselves. Richard met with the parents individually and with their son, as well as with other members of the family including the 14 year old’s grandparents to inform his determination regarding placement.
At the parents’ request, Richard rendered a written determination regarding their son’s placement for a 2 year period which the parents entered as their placement agreement into the court. In addition to determining placement of the son, Richard’s findings require bi-annual “check-in” meetings, and a format to reevaluate placement if circumstances should change for either parent or their son through the end of high school.
This multi-disciplinary process was specifically tailored to meet the clients’ goals of 1) determining the best placement for their son; 2) expediency in order to allow the son to adjust to his new situation before the start of the school year; 3) collaboration between and among the parents and their son; and 4) beginning to rebuild the communications between the parents so that they could continue to parent their son in a positive and loving way.
Six month follow-up with the parents and the son revealed a positive adjustment in a new school and new living situation. In addition, the parents report that as a result of their work with BLC and their joint meetings with Richard, the communication between them in terms of co-parenting issues has improved as well.