Since the advent of no fault divorce, the emotional, legal and financial complexities of the process have forced the divorce specialist to become a divorce generalist. This often means that who you know ultimately determines how well you are able to help clients successfully navigate the process.

This change has not come without peril. For example, it is not unusual for the process to be driven by emotion. Emotionally-driven divorces often lead to prolonged, costly or unworkable outcomes. It is also not unusual for clients to depend upon their lawyers, mediators or family counselors for financial advice. Due to a lack of formal training in personal finance, this is an area fraught with danger, both from the professional’s and the client’s perspective.

Realizing the need for a multifaceted approach, today’s divorce professionals often train across divorce-related disciplines. It is now fairly common to see attorney/mediators, mediator/therapists, attorney/financial planners, accountant/attorneys, financial planner/mediators, etc. It is also commonplace for divorce professionals to hire “experts” from divorce-related disciplines to assist them with individual cases. A more recent approach has been the development of “divorce teams,” who work collaboratively on individual divorce cases.

Unless you decide to go it totally alone, you will probably need to identify divorce professionals whose expertise complements yours. You will need to cultivate relationships with these professionals as well, since you will probably all need each other’s help some time in the future. Investing in professional relationship-building can further help you manage stress (yours and your client’s), increase productivity, achieve better results and maintain satisfied clients. Satisfied clients lead to additional work and expanded referrals, important keys to building your practice.

The Professional side of Divorce Interactive was designed to help divorce professionals develop their practices. One way to do so is to use the site to develop and cultivate working relationships with other divorce professionals. Listed in the Professional & Resource Directory is contact information for allied divorce professionals, organized by geographical area. Member directory listings have links to their individual web pages. There you can learn more about their backgrounds and experience. These web pages also have links to Members’ e-mail addresses. This makes contacting Members simple. Names and telephone numbers of other divorce professionals are listed in the Directory as well.