Small But Mighty Episode 21: Tanya Parker Wallace on uncomplicating divorce and helping families in transition

Tanya Parker Wallace has wanted to be a lawyer since she was a child. With 15 years of family law experience, she loves helping people and her work as a family mediator enables her to do just that. Her journey into mediation came with the realization that litigation is not in her personality and that her strength was in making the process of divorce a little easier for families. As a family law “peacemaker,” Tanya helps families going through divorce stay out of the courtroom and reach family agreements in a peaceful and in the least-stressful way possible. If you would like to get in touch with Tanya and learn more about her legal services, visit her website or call her at 613-225-6411.

Full Episode Transcript

Karen: Hello and welcome to the Small But Mighty Biz Stories podcast. Joining me today is Tanya Parker Wallace, a family law peacemaker who specializes in helping families that are in transition, navigate the process through non-litigation methods. Tanya welcome to the podcast. Please tell us about you and your business.

Tanya: Hi Karen, thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. About me and my business. Well, I am a lawyer and a mediator, I have been practicing law, pretty much exclusively family law for about 17 years, and in 2016, January 2016, I opened my own practice, Parker Wallace Family Law. I'm a solo practitioner, which means I just work with me and myself and I, I don't have an assistant or anything yet, but I have been working on my own now for just over five years.

Karen: Nice. So what got you into the family law space? What was interesting about that for you?

Tanya: I'm one of those kids that knew what they wanted to do with their life from an early age, and I don't really know why or where it came from, I just remember saying to my parents when I was nine, "I want to be a lawyer someday", and I'm sure they were like, "Oh yeah, sure" But I stuck with it, and in high school, I took one of those sort of... Like a law class that they offer in high school, just to get a sense of what it would be like, and I enjoyed that, and then I ended up taking a co-op position at a law firm in my last year of high school, and I worked as a legal assistant just to, again, sort of throw myself into the atmosphere. And my boss at the time was a family law lawyer, but he also did civil and criminal and a whole bunch of different things. And I ended up working for him for about four years after high school, so all throughout undergrad, and got a big exposure to family law clients and that whole world, and really, really enjoyed it. So then I applied to law school and here we are.

Karen: Nice, nice. It's so interesting because I had a very similar childhood dream of being a lawyer.

Tanya: Really?

Karen: And I did almost identical path. Yes. I was taking classes, I actually had one class where one day a week, me and a couple of friends, we drove to the county courthouse in my hometown, and we were there all day, and we got to go and sit in on trials and we had various class work to do, and it was all law related, and I did an internship at a law firm, and I worked there for a couple of years, even went with the lawyer when he went to start his own practice, and I was convinced that I was going to be a lawyer, and then I went to school for music.

Tanya: Oh really?

Karen: And became a marketer.

Tanya: That's awesome.

Karen: So slightly different outcomes. Yeah. So what were some of the things that attracted you to the practice of law?

Tanya: I wanted to, just at its core I think, work one-on-one with people, and I wanted to help people. And when I was a student and an idealist, I thought, "Oh, what better way to help people than to become a lawyer?" And I still partly feel that way, although I'm a bit jaded now after being in it for so long. But having said that, I do get the opportunity to work one-on-one with my clients, which I really enjoy. There are other types of law that, like real estate or business law that are very transactional and very much money-oriented. But family law, I enjoy because you're working with people, able to help them with a specific problem, and I would like to think I help them have some finality to periods of their life that are very stressful. So that's what I really, really enjoy about it.

Karen: Yeah. So you and I have had run-ins here and there in different groups, and you introduced yourself one time as a family law peacemaker, and I just love that because the act of separating and then divorcing is such a... It's a tumultuous time emotionally, and then there's all the legal entanglements that you have to deal with, and the idea of having someone you can go to who is a peacemaker, who can make that process easier is so comforting. And you actually use these non-litigation methods and that's the focus of your practice. So what led you down that path? Is it very common in family law to have that or is it pretty uncommon and unusual?

Tanya: I think that there are people who are very well suited to be litigators for their entire careers. And they're great at it, and it's just in their bones. I never really felt that way. I came to law or I guess, to litigating as a means to an end. I had always wanted to end up being a family mediator but thought that, and I still feel that, you need to have some experience under your belt in front of a courtroom and dealing with judges and engaging in cases to know how the law is going to be interpreted for different fact scenarios. So, I figured that I had to litigate for a good 10, 15 years before I would have any sort of weight behind me as a mediator. Because how could I say, "Well, your next best option, if you don't resolve this case is to go to court", if I would be able to then say, "Well, but when you go to court, here's what you're going to expect to have happen"? So I'd always thought of it as sort of a way to transition out of a traditional legal career, and then I was working with another lawyer and I was telling her... She could tell that I didn't really like litigation.

In my bones, I didn't really enjoy it very much. It's too adversarial, it goes very much against my personality, I've always been more settlement-oriented, so even when I was litigating, I was always able to settle files way in advance and still have good outcomes for my clients, so I just didn't see that it was helpful for a lot of my cases. And when I was speaking with this lawyer, she said, "Well, why don't you just do your training?" And at that point, I had only really seven years under my belt, but she was like, "There's no need to wait. Just go for it". And so I did, it took me till a few years, but I had a goal to get my training done, and so I did that and then I became accredited as a mediator in 2018, and I haven't looked back.

Karen: That is fabulous. I think that it's wonderful to have those people in our careers, whether you're a business owner or on a career path. It's wonderful to have those people who challenge our thinking and push us to do the things that we're really interested in and gifted with, because it sounds like it's not just a personality thing. It's really a gift that you have to do this outside of the courtroom.

Tanya: Thank you. Yeah. I agree, because it's not really... There's definitely a skill to it, and there's a lot of lawyers out there who don't think of that as the first option. There's a lot of lawyers who think that the first option is, "Well, let's just go to court and have a judge make a decision". But the family court system, well, in Ontario is very overloaded, it's very bogged down with many cases that I personally feel don't need to be there. That's my personal opinion. But when you're waiting a year and a half, two years for your case to go to trial, that sometimes far too long for people to wait to have some resolution and some finality in their family law matters. So that's why these out-of-court processes, no matter what they are, whether they're mediation.

Karen: What are some of the ramifications of waiting that long to get the resolution?

Tanya: There are many. If you're talking about issues with children? You can bring a custody application, let's say. But if your children are, say, 15 years old, by the time your matter actually gets to a trial, they could have already aged out of any custody matters. If you're talking about financial issues, sometimes interest rates can swing things in huge directions, like we've seen with the current real estate market. Just people waiting four months to deal with their issues with respect to their house, have huge implications on the amount of monies that have to be transferred from one spouse to the other. And that's just off the top of my head, but there's many many reasons why sometimes these situations can't wait. The not the least of which is, if there's any sort of domestic violence or those kinds of situations, those ones can't wait for months and months to be dealt with.

Karen: Yeah. And I imagine there are similar concerns when you have disputes around ill family members and whether or not there's a power of attorney in place and things like that.

Tanya: Yeah. Those are more estate law issues, which I don't deal with personally, but when those issues arise, there are people, other lawyers in my network that I call upon for their expertise in those areas. The thing about family law, which is very interesting, is that you kind of need a lot of knowledge in a whole bunch of different areas. Estates, tax, a little bit of real estate. There's a whole wide range. So every file is different and every file is unique and interesting for that reason.

Karen: Yeah. I can imagine. You're touching on so many different things and it spins all of life. What are your favourite cases to work on?

Tanya: I think my favourite cases to work on are ones with kids. Ones where there are kids involved. I don't get as jazzed up about the financial aspects of it, because to me, that's money and it's going to work itself out, and there are actually very prescribed rules of what you're supposed to do with your money and your property. But when it comes to children's issues, those are the ones that I feel are the most meaningful for clients. And so those are the ones that they get the most satisfaction out of working with me, and I find that those are the ones that lend themselves most to mediation and collaborative and those other processes. Because the money stuff at the core of it, it's just math. But when you're talking about what your parenting plan is going to be like and trying to help two people who aren't getting along, be able to communicate well enough to co-parent, that's what I think are the most meaningful files for me.

Karen: That would be really gratifying, because you hear the stories about kids who come from families of divorce, and some of them are kind of awful stories and just the tension and conflict that they experience. But to have parents who can stay together on the parenting side, even if they're not together in any other way, is huge.

Tanya: Yeah. I had a client. Not a client, but a... sorry, a friend who had said that she had been through... Before I knew her, she had been through a really nasty divorce and she spent $350,000 in legal fees, and her husband had spent multiples of that amount. And her one regret is that they could've used all that money to spend on their children. And it's just shocking. So staying out of court is one way to avoid really, really shockingly high numbers like that. It can definitely be a cheaper option. So just for the sake of the fees alone is one reason why I really enjoy what I do.

Karen: That is incredible. And I'm sure that it gets so much more expensive for some people, but that would bankrupt most people. They couldn't afford it. What are some of the other advantages of going with non-litigation methods?

Tanya: There are many. Obviously, we've talked about the financial advantage, but it can be so much quicker. I can have people in for mediation and start to finish in about two and a half, three months. We'll be completely done. And they'll have a separation agreement that deals with parenting and property and support. So child and spousal support. And then they can take that agreement away to their individual lawyers to get advice, and the whole thing could be wrapped up in a matter of months. And as we were talking about before, and that's really, really meaningful for some people because they don't want to have this hanging over their heads for so long, and being very uncertain as to what their future is going to look like. So it's a much quicker way to transition into living in two separate homes for a lot of people. Also emotionally, it can be a lot less stressful and a lot less taxing to be outside of the court system. The court system is set up to be very adversarial. You have two people who used to care for each other, saying the most awful things about each other in written affidavits and things, all in an effort to prove that their side is right and the other person is wrong.

And that's how it's set up. It's set up that way. And then a judge who doesn't know the parties, doesn't know the children, if there are any, have to end up making a decision based on what they're reading on pieces of paper and what people are saying in the witness stand. But in my opinion, it's not the way that people should be dealing with each other, especially if they're going to need to co-parent after that. So it can be very, very taxing on the parties to go through that. Whereas in a different type of setting like a mediation, they don't feel... I don't intimidate people. They're not afraid of what I have to say. I'm not making the decisions. The decisions are in their hands, which I think is also the best part, is that it gives people autonomy over their own situation. So they're signing an agreement and they know that they've worked together to decide on what goes into it and what's going to work best for their family going forward, as opposed to having a stranger just tell them what they need to do.

Karen: That's great. What does the mediation process look like? What's your role and how do you help facilitate that alignment in the way they resolve their issues and concerns?

Tanya: There's many different... I guess I'll go back and talk about mediation. And there's many different theories of mediation, the one that I use is more interest-based. So if one person is taking a position saying, “I want to have the kids with me full-time, and you're going to see them on the weekends,” there's usually an interest, there's always an interest underlying that. And sometimes there's a fear or a concern that underlies that position as well. So what mediation allows for, is for me to ask questions in a curious way to say, "Okay, that's your position. What's underlying that for you? Why do you feel that way? Or is there a concern here that needs to be addressed?". So maybe it's a mom who thinks that dad travels too much for work and isn't going to be there to help the kids with their homework, or sometimes there's language issues. So one parent wants to educate their kids in French, but the other parent is Anglophone, and they don't think that they're going to be able to help them in school. So it's a matter of getting to the core of what parents or parties positions are and then figuring out whether we can de-link some, I guess, mistaken beliefs.

And then when that's done, there's magic. Because if someone's operating on an assumption that's incorrect, in mediation, there's the ability to talk it through, and then they find out, "Oh, okay, maybe that's not... What I thought was going to happen isn't going to happen, and maybe I can think of this in a different light". And so that's what we call insight. And once parties have insight about each other's positions, they're able to sometimes find common ground. And when it happens... I've seen it happen, and it's amazing. It's absolutely magical.

Karen: It must feel so gratifying to bring people together on the same page and be able to get to the bottom of what their concerns are and the real fears that are behind what they say.

Tanya: Yeah. Exactly

Karen: Apart from mediation, what are some other methods and how do they work?

Tanya: The different methods are kind of on a spectrum. So on one end, you have litigation, so everyone knows what that looks like. And then, on the far opposite end, you have basically what we call co-operative negotiation. Which is, both parties have lawyers, each lawyer is advocating for their clients interest, but you come to an agreement via an exchange of correspondence, meetings, that sort of thing. In the middle of that, there's what we call collaborative family law. So that's an interesting process whereby, each party still has their own lawyer and the lawyers are advocating for their clients interest. But the interesting piece about that is that, every meeting that's held on the file is done as a team. So there's a whole team approach to resolving the dispute. So the lawyers and the parties meet together every time there's a meeting, it's always four way. Sometimes it can be... You can have other professionals come to the table to help. because lawyers have a specific skill set. We know what the law is, how to interpret it, how to give advice to clients, but we're not skilled in dealing with, say, personality conflicts, we're not skilled in knowing how to calculate actuarial stuff for complicated financial scenarios, so we have to call in experts for those things. And the collaborative process allows the experts to come to the table and be a part of those meetings. So everything is getting done at a much faster rate than it would be if you were to go to court.

The caveat with collaborative is that, if for whatever reason the process breaks down and one of the parties wants to instead go to court, the parties and the lawyers have signed a contract at the beginning that says, "If that happens, you have to fire your lawyers and start fresh with litigation lawyers". So it gives the parties an incentive to get the deal done. Yeah. So that's a bit challenging but it gives people the right incentive to work with their lawyers and the other people as part of a team to get it done. So it has so many benefits. Then there is mediation, which is a third party neutral like myself, would help the client work through and discuss all of the issues that have to be dealt with on a separation, and then if that person is a lawyer as well, they can also draft a separation agreement for the parties to then take to individual lawyers and get reviewed before it's signed.

There is a hybrid process called mediation-arbitration, which is where certain specialized mediators can put a... They can flip a switch, and if there is an issue in mediation that they're not making any headway on, it can switch to an arbitration process. And the arbitration process then becomes very much like a simulated court case where the parties then switch to giving evidence to the arbitrator, and then the arbitrator actually makes a decision and writes out a written ruling. So it's similar to court, but it's not in the court context, and then you have litigation. So those are the various out-of-court methods. Yeah.

Karen: Interesting. Yeah. Is it becoming more common for people to look for non-litigation help when it comes to family law cases or is it still relatively uncommon?

Tanya: I think certainly in the last 20 years, there's been more of an awareness that these other processes exist. And I know particularly for collaborative and mediation processes, there's been a big push to get the word out about these processes because they work, and because of the advantages that we talked about before. A lot of people just think that it's natural that when you separate from your spouse, you have to have a judge make a decision. But we're trying to get the word out that that's really not the case. You don't have to go through all of that. You can work with one of these professionals and get something done a lot quicker. People self-select into it too. I'm not going to say that no matter should be litigated. There are some that unfortunately have to be because of personality conflicts or just very high conflict people who are never going to be able to agree no matter what intervention they have. But for everybody else, I think it's a really, really good option.

Karen: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Just the reduced stress factor and the ease of deciding what's going to happen together as opposed to letting some outside party do it. It is huge. It would make such a big difference.

Tanya: Yeah.

Karen: What are some of the things that... Do you see... I have a question in mind, and it's sort of not coming out very well. Do you see additional non-litigation measures sort of cropping up? Is there potential for other ways to come about that people can resolve various family law issues or is this kind of, if they got a good spectrum of options available already?

Tanya: To answer your question, I think the options that are already available probably cover the needs of people. I certainly haven't heard of anything overly new. I know that there's always improvements being made to the various options that currently exist through automation and through trying to come up with lower cost alternatives for people, because there's a big access to justice problem in the legal system, if I can say that. Just with the cost of legal services being so high. And the reason why... And a lot of them don't understand, but the reason why legal services are so high is because it's so expensive for lawyers to become qualified and to become experts in what they do. And so that cost ends up having to be passed on in that way, and it's difficult. So what people are trying to do now, is to come up with lower cost alternatives for these services. So you know about legal aid, so people can have lower cost or free legal services if they need to go to court. So what people are trying to do is come up with lower cost alternatives to mediation, to the collaborative process, which I think is going to be very, very helpful down the road.

Karen: Absolutely. And the advantage of going to a lawyer over not going to a lawyer, is that depth of knowledge that you have from that expensive education and keeping up with the education, because having worked in law firms, I've seen the books, and just keeping up with legislation that comes down and case law, all of that. It's an enormous undertaking. What would you say to people who comment on the cost of lawyers about what you have to do to stay up-to-date and current on your knowledge and expertise?

Tanya: I'm sorry. What are some of the things that I need to do? Is that what you're asking?

Karen: Sure. What are some of the things that you do? What would you say to people about the cost of hiring lawyers in general? because it's definitely one of those things that you hear a lot about. There's the jokes about lawyers which are not very nice, and yet it's a very essential service and discipline in our society as we have it today.

Tanya: Yeah. I guess the first thing that I would say is that, the cost of hiring a lawyer is often times, much, much less than if you try to do it yourself and weren't up-to-date with what you needed to know, if I'm being nice. There's the cost of the education itself, there's the cost of insurance, there is just the costs of running an office, which all business owners... Most business owners have, but then there's the requirements to keep abreast of all the changes that are happening. So we're required to take mandatory training, which is not free, every year to stay qualified and to keep license. I think that's really where the biggest costs are coming from. People say, "Well, if you charge X amount of dollars per hour, well, that's a lot of money, but if I keep 10 per hour of that money, I'm lucky". So I think that's a big misconception for not only lawyers, other professions as well. I deal with this too, but it's just a matter of... I think people like to have a negative perception of lawyers, and I work with so many amazing lawyers who are just out there to help and who just want to work with people like I do, and not purposely structure their offerings so that we're not paying for every piece of paper and billing people for every email. There's lots of lawyers out there who operate differently.

Karen: Yes, that's something that I've had first-hand experience with one of my clients who is very cognizant of how their practice is operating, and they're doing some really interesting things. And I find that, there is this sort of movement amongst lawyers, and it's usually solo practitioners because in the big firms, the processes are so ingrained, but when you have a solo or a small practice, they have the agility and significantly less overhead. So they are able to do so much more for less for people, and that makes a really big difference on your bill, but it also gives you really personal service.

Tanya: Absolutely. Yeah. 100%. I haven't worked in Ottawa as a lawyer, I haven't worked in a "large" firm, but I have worked in a few law firms, and you're right, that law firms are... They have a structure in place, they have systems, but with that comes a huge overhead. And so that in and of itself is driving up the cost of services. Whereas sole practitioners, like you said, can be much more agile and can really pair things down and work with clients one-on-one. When you call me, you get me on the phone. And when we have meetings, it's with me and I'm able to work with you to get the result that you're looking for. So it's very personal. Which again, takes us right back to why I like family law in the first place, is because I get to work with people on really personal issues that matter.

Karen: Yeah, that makes such a big difference just in how you view your work and look forward to your work, because even when you have a case that's tough, I'm sure it's a million times easier to start your day and go into those meetings and... Because you know, you're doing it in such a way that you're really trying to help them, which is very gratifying. So one of the things that I've learned over the years is that, marketing legal services can be a weird challenging thing, because a lot of the traditional marketing tactics are not necessarily suitable either from an ethical or a regulatory perspective, or just because it doesn't make a lot of sense. It would be uncouth to do. So what is your approach? How you get your clients?

Tanya: I totally agree. And it's something that I've been budding up against with the more marketing knowledge that I acquire as a business owner, the more that I keep thinking, I can't really apply that to my own business. There's a big push to nurture clients along, and I've heard about marketing funnels and things like that. But for family law, people don't follow... At least I don't think they do, they don't follow a lawyer in their hopes that one day they might need a divorce lawyer. You don't think about that until it happens to you. And then you do it on a reactionary basis, like, "Oh, this really important thing has happened in my life. I need to see a lawyer". Whereas, it's not like following your favorite chef on YouTube and then buying some recipes from them or something. So it's really challenging. The way that I get clients is by word of mouth. So my past clients will sing praises, other professionals that I work with, other lawyers, sometimes will call me if they can't take a flyer along for whatever reason. Yeah, like I said other people in the industry, other real estate agents and people that I deal with on a regular basis, they will say my name if someone in their circle is looking for a lawyer. So it's more organic and it's more word of mouth based, I find in this industry.

Karen: Yeah. And it's the most powerful way of marketing because getting a personal recommendation from somebody who's worked with you is certainly a high praise, especially in your work. Because if someone comes away and they're happy with the outcome and they pass that word along to someone else, it's a much higher recommendation than an ad or a Facebook post.

Tanya: Yeah. Those have its place as well. I'm currently advertising on Facebook , but certainly word of mouth is best. Yeah.

Karen: Yeah, having that awareness of what you do is certainly important. I can totally appreciate how tricky it is because I can see it with my work because there are so many marketers out there and being able to differentiate yourself from all the others, because we do different things. We're not all operating and giving the same deliverables to our clients. It gets a little bit tricky to communicate that and also make sure that for me, it's important to do it in a way that's not super salesy or one-size-fits-all sort of methodology. I don't believe in that. So it's a similar problem that happens really in any industry. So Tanya, tell everyone how they can reach you, connect with you and check out your website.

Tanya: Thank you. My website is www.pwfamilylaw.ca and my phone number is 613-225-6411.

Karen: Fabulous. Well, I will make sure that your contact info gets into the show notes so that people can get in touch with you and explore some of the ways that you practice because it sounds like it's a much nicer experience in tough situations than it would be to go to court

Tanya: Well, thank you I really, really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and like you said, we bump into each other in the business circle so I know that I'll be seeing you again very soon. Thanks so much, take care.

Karen: Absolutely you will. Thanks for coming on.