Rose Cocchiaro and Chanel Martin are both partners from Resolve Divorce, which recently won the Boutique Firm of the Year category at the Australian Law Awards. Speaking on a recent episode of The Boutique Lawyer Show, the pair discussed the importance of responsible lawyering and changing the culture around litigation.

Resolve Divorce has taken a different approach to practising law, according to Ms Martin, who said their main goal was to be “innovative” in the family law space and influence “the profession and the industry to do the same”.

“In the family law space, lawyers are stuck in this traditional model of supporting clients. And something that we’ve done at Resolve is really help our clients understand from the forefront of their process what is important to them and what their values are and what their goals are, what they want their outcome to look like. And then our process is really about keeping them accountable to those values and those goals throughout,” she explained.

“And I think some words fall short in really thinking about that bigger picture. That’s something that’s embedded in all that we do, and it attracts clients who want a better experience in their separation and a better outcome. And we can see it really working for our clients, and it’s bringing a lot of happiness to our team as well because they’re working with really good people who are values-driven and outcome-focused.”

In terms of these methods actually working for clients, Ms Cocchiaro said there were a number of things the firm did to begin implementing changes to their practice.

“The biggest thing as a business owner is being led by client-centric behaviour and always allowing the customer-client experience to be the decision-maker in your journey. And when I reflect on the business growth and the success of the business. I’m really drawn to the fact that it was people. And it is the impacts that we’re having on different people in different ways that really have caused our business to become what it is, and certainly, that’s become a big focus of ours since both Chanel and I have studied divorce coaching and how to understand [and] how to resolve human conflict in a deeper way,” she said.

“And what that’s done is allowed us to really challenge our clients, move our clients through their process in a way that really aligns with their values and helps them think about the outcome of the dispute. So, then settlements just happen because people are more accountable [for] their behaviour.”

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This more holistic approach to lawyering can also be applied across all areas of litigation – not just family law.

“It’s about supporting people to deal with conflict. And often, once you get deep understanding of what it is that’s causing the conflict and the dispute and really get underneath it. So that’s about being curious. Like a big value of ours is about curiosity,” Ms Cocchiaro added.

“And when we talk to our team about how they can be better lawyers, we talk to them about truly and deeply understanding what matters to our client and also having them understand what might be driving their spouse’s behaviour or the dispute. And then that gets to the absolute.”

This is also something more clients have been seeking out post-pandemic, as expectations have shifted over the last few years, Ms Martin confirmed.

“The interesting thing is that was something that we were doing pre-COVID. We really recognised that clients needed more before they started even demanding it. And then we saw in COVID, people were drawn to approaches like Resolve and those firms that were practising more traditionally were left behind. And so, we saw an exponential amount of growth for our firm during COVID because we were able to offer so much more to our clients’ experience,” she said.

“In family law specifically, families are changing and shifting, and the dynamics of families are changing. And if lawyers don’t keep up with what the new family unit looks like, then they will be left behind because people want so much more from their lawyer; they want more from their process, and they want their family dynamic and family unit to look different after separation. So, I think it’s something that we have kept up with naturally, and it comes naturally to us because it’s important to us, but we can see those firms getting left behind who aren’t keeping up with the demands of the community.”

Further, this kind of lawyering is important not only in a business sense but also in terms of being rewarding far into the future.

“I think being a good lawyer is about making sure that your client achieves an experience and an outcome that allows them to almost positively transform, come from a place where they are in absolute need and have real clarity and control about what their future looks like afterwards. And more than that, they can look back on their experience and see that they’ve handled themselves with pride and not be ashamed of allowing their emotion to really take over,” Ms Cocchiaro concluded.

“If we, as practitioners, keep in mind that it’s our job and responsibility to support our clients to have the best possible experience so that they don’t regret the way they behaved into the future, then doing this type of responsible lawyering achieves that. It’s also just a personal reflection to be able to think about the families we’ve impacted since having this approach and the relationships we still have with them and the relationships they continue to have with their own families. Moving into the future is just so much more rewarding than the types of families we worked with before.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Rose Cocchiaro and Chanel Martin, click below: