When Your Divorce Coach Is Also a Family Lawyer
By Gloria James-Civetta
Divorce requires people to make important decisions during a period of significant emotional strain, where emotional decision-making can easily take over.
Questions about children, finances, housing, and the future are rarely simple. Communication may be strained, and the legal process can feel unfamiliar or intimidating.
It is not unusual for my clients to say they understand their options on paper, yet still feel unsure about what to do next.
This is where divorce coaching can be helpful. But when the coach is also a practising family lawyer, the support takes on a different dimension.
Divorce Coaching and Legal Advice: Two Different Roles
Divorce coaching and legal representation are not the same thing.
Legal advice focuses on rights, obligations, procedures, and outcomes under the law. Coaching focuses on how a person thinks, decides, prepares for difficult conversations, and stays steady through a long process.
In many countries, these roles are kept strictly separate. A coach may be skilled at supporting emotions and decision-making but may not fully understand how those decisions play out in court.
A lawyer may be strong on the law but may not have the space or structure to work through how a client is coping internally.
In Singapore, you will not find another professional who combines both roles in a single practice. I offer this dual role, so clients can receive legal guidance and divorce coaching in a coordinated and consistent way.
Seeing the Legal Process from the Inside
As both a lawyer and a divorce coach, I understand in practical detail:
- how judges assess credibility and consistency
- how negotiations typically unfold
- where cases tend to become difficult or prolonged
- which early decisions often create complications later
- how behaviour at the beginning can affect the final outcome
This does not mean coaching turns into legal advice. The roles remain distinct.
But it does mean the guidance clients receive is grounded in how divorce actually works in practice, not just in theory.
Clients are not only supported in managing their emotions or clarifying their priorities. They are also gently guided to think about how their choices may be interpreted, challenged, or relied upon later in formal proceedings.
That perspective is difficult to gain from coaching alone.
Helping Clients Think Clearly, Not React Quickly
One of the most common problems during divorce is not lack of information, but the difficulty of using that information well.
People may:
- fixate on a single outcome
- feel pressured to decide before they are ready
- avoid decisions altogether
- agree to terms they later regret
- communicate in ways that escalate conflict unnecessarily
Divorce coaching focuses on slowing this process down.
When coaching is informed by legal experience, clients are supported to:
- separate short-term emotion from long-term consequence
- approach negotiations more deliberately
- prepare for discussions rather than react to them
- stay consistent in their position and conduct
- remain focused on practical resolution
Often, this steadiness becomes an asset in itself.
In my experience as a family lawyer, the court does not only look at documents. It also pays close attention to behaviour, judgment, and reliability over time.
A Practical Bridge Between Emotion and Strategy
Divorce is both personal and procedural.
People move back and forth between deeply private concerns and formal legal steps: affidavits, negotiations, interim applications, settlement terms. Switching between these worlds can be exhausting.
A lawyer-coach sits at that intersection.
Clients can speak openly about their fears or doubts, and then work through how those concerns translate into practical choices:
- what to prioritise
- how to communicate
- when to compromise
- when to hold firm
- how to prepare for the next stage
This does not replace legal representation or emotional support from others. It complements them.
“Many of my clients already understand the legal issues fairly quickly. What they struggle with is how to live inside the process, how to make decisions when they feel unsettled, how to speak when they are hurt, and how to remain steady when everything feels uncertain.
My role as a coach is not to tell people what to choose, but to help them think clearly enough to choose well. My role as a lawyer means I also understand where those choices tend to lead. The combination allows me to support clients in a way that is both practical and grounded in reality.”
