Attorney Billy Greene hosts Collaborative Law: Expanding Horizons on February 17, 2017
On February 17, 2017, Attorney Billy Greene, chair of the St. Pete Bar’s Collaborative Law Section, hosted Collaborative Law: Expanding Horizons, a seminar regarding an alternative approach to litigated cases. Tina Tenret, co-chair of the Tampa Bay Academy of Collaborative Professionals, attended the seminar and had the following remarks:
Report on Presentation at St. Petersburg Bar Association Collaborative Law Section Meeting
The visibility and success of Collaborative law are turning heads outside family law. About 50 attorneys and financial experts met at the St. Pete Yacht Club to discuss opportunities for Collaborative law in medical malpractice, probate, and even splits between business partners.
Collaborative Law: Expanding Horizons was hosted by Billy Greene as chair of the St. Pete Bar Association’s new Collaborative Law section. Lee Greene, Nancy Harris, Dr. Kim Costello, Mike Lewis, Cole Jeffries and Peter Meros did an outstanding job presenting the advantages of Collaborative law.
“You keep showing us how this process works, and we’re slowly picking up on it, and we appreciate it,” said probate attorney Tim Miller, who first heard talking about Collaborative law three years ago. “Families with long-term relationships and a massive event like death are full of emotion, just like family law. If we could adopt the array of Collaborative steps you have — when we do, not if we do, because I know we will — it will really improve the estate and probate process, making it shorter, more controlled, and you get to choose the outcome.” Civil litigation attorney Wally Pope expressed similar enthusiasm.
“It’s highly likely that we will see Collaborative law emerge as mediation has, where now you can’t do anything without mediation,” Lee Greene predicted. “Why wouldn’t those of us who are solution-oriented start the process committed to settlement, and aren’t we doing better for the clients if we do?”
After launching a video in which a medical malpractice victim wished she could simply talk to her doctor collaboratively about what went wrong and gain emotional closure, Nancy Harris urged the audience: “You are all interested in change. Not often can you be part of permanent change, and in this, you can.”
Submitted by Tina Tenret, CFP, CDFA, Co-Chair, TBACP
