The Landscape is Changing for Divorcing Families in Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham, AL, November 03, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Family attorney and mediator, Christie Lyman Dowling of Lyman Dowling Law LLC located in Mountain Brook’s English Village in Birmingham, Alabama has just completed interdisciplinary collaborative training necessary to meet the standards of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals for attorneys. She can now offer the option of collaborative divorce to Birmingham’s families. The collaborative divorce process is described at length on her website at www.lymandowlinglaw.com/Divorce_Options.html and at www.collaborativepractice.org. In addition, she has completed necessary training and registered with the Alabama Center for Dispute Resolution as a Domestic Relations Mediator. Divorce mediation remains a popular alternative nationally and along with collaborative divorce was recently highlighted by the Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704216804575423321156719004.html. Parties can voluntarily negotiate and decide upon issues based on their personal values and interests instead of leaving their most intimate family details in the hands of the government in the form of a divorce judge. They can gain an economic as well as quality of life advantage over those families who have experienced a protracted, litigated divorce.

“With the institutionalization of no-fault divorce and more families with children opting for active involvement by both parents, whether co-parenting, shared custody or joint custody, we lawyers need to develop creative ways to help them through this transition without further trauma to the family,” says Ms. Lyman Dowling. “This is a dynamic time to be a family lawyer in Birmingham. There are a lot of changes afoot and the state bar is embracing alternative forms of conflict resolution.” This process is also helpful to non-married and gay couples where the law is less clear upon a break-up and the courts do not provide a ready solution.

All of this is occurring as the court system is in an economic crunch and the bench is in flux. Jefferson County has just three designated judicial seats for Divorce cases. Two of those three judges, the Hon. R. A. Sonny Ferguson and J. Gary Pate are retiring at the end of the year and their replacements will be selected in the November 2 vote. Regardless of the election outcome, Jefferson County will have an all female divorce bench.

Christie Lyman Dowling is an attorney and mediator with more than a decade of experience, most recently as a partner in one of the largest law firms in Alabama. She earned a degree in Human Development and Family Studies from Cornell University and earned her law degree, cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center. Ms. Lyman Dowling is a volunteer mediator in the Birmingham Courts Mediation Project. She is also specially trained and registered as a domestic relations mediator with the Alabama Center for Dispute Resolution, which was established by the Alabama Supreme Court and trained as a collaborative divorce lawyer pursuant to the standards set by the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals. She is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. She is also a member of the Alabama State Bar, Family Law and Alternative Dispute Resolution Sections, the Birmingham Bar Association and the Birmingham Women's Exchange. Ms. Lyman Dowling is admitted to practice in state and federal courts in Alabama, Georgia and Virginia.

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For More information or to schedule an interview, please contact Christie Lyman Dowling at cdowling@familymattersal.com, (205) 803-3339 www.lymandowling.com