Divorce requires legal expertise and involves an established legal process. Yet much of the complexity can come from the emotional, interpersonal, and practical realities experienced by the people moving through it.
At Lifeology Family, we use the S.A.F.E. framework to understand four components of divorce:
S — Social
A — Attorney (Legal)
F — Financial
E — Emotional
These are not stages, but components that are present in every divorce. Their significance will vary from person to person, and they can interact and become tangled.
For the family lawyer, this can mean that the person seeking legal advice may arrive at an appointment carrying considerably more than the legal issue that needs to be addressed.
The person inside the legal process: the client
At the same time as navigating the emotional and practical realities of separation, a client may be expected to absorb unfamiliar information, communicate with professionals, weigh up options and make important decisions.
Research into acute stress suggests that stress can affect some of the cognitive processes involved in working memory and decision-making. The effects are complex and vary between people and circumstances. 1 2
This provides useful context for what a lawyer may sometimes see from a client.
In practice, this may look like difficulty prioritising, asking the right questions, or repeatedly returning to the emotional story rather than the practicalities of the divorce.
Sometimes the information itself isn’t the problem. The load the person is carrying while trying to process it may be part of the problem.
When the emotional story enters the legal conversation
Every divorce has an emotional story.
Every divorce has a practical business element.
The emotional story may include hurt, anger, fear, betrayal, and uncertainty. Those emotions matter and need to be acknowledged.
The practical business of divorce requires information to be gathered, questions to be asked, advice to be received and considered, and decisions to be made.
At Lifeology Family, we describe part of the work of Divorce Coaching as helping someone move from the emotional story of divorce towards the practical business of divorce.
The aim is not to remove the emotion. It is to help the person become sufficiently supported and regulated that they can attend to the practical task in front of them when needed.
For the family lawyer, this raises an important question:
When a client’s emotional, interpersonal or practical needs extend beyond the legal work, where can those needs appropriately be supported?
When a client’s needs extend beyond the legal work
Family lawyers regularly work with clients experiencing significant emotional distress. Supporting a client through the legal process, however, does not mean becoming their primary source of emotional support.
The client’s emotional experience will naturally enter some legal conversations. 3 But where their emotional, interpersonal or practical needs extend beyond the legal work, those needs may require a different professional space.
In addition, there is another side to this professional relationship: the emotional demands placed on the lawyer working alongside a client in distress.
The emotional demands of family-law practice
Family law involves demanding human work as well as technical legal work.
Australian research has recognised the emotional impact of legal work involving distressed clients and exposure to traumatic material, including the potential for vicarious trauma. 4
Professional boundaries, lawyer wellbeing and access to appropriate multidisciplinary support have a legitimate place in this work.
No single professional needs to meet every need that may arise for a client going through divorce.
The right professional for the right issue
This is not about removing the emotional person from the legal conversation. It is about putting the right support around them.
At Lifeology Family, we call the professionals who may support a person through divorce their Divorce Tribe. Depending on their needs, this may include a lawyer/solicitor, Divorce Coach, financial adviser, real estate agent, psychologist or other appropriate professionals.
The client remains at the centre, with each professional working within their own area of expertise.
The principle is simple:
Right professional. Right issue. Right time.
So what does appropriate support around the client actually look like?
What can Divorce Coaching look like alongside the legal work?
Consider two situations that may be familiar to family lawyers.
“I don’t understand what my lawyer told me.”
The role of the Divorce Coach is not to explain or interpret the lawyer’s advice, but rather to break the issue down with the client, identify precisely what requires clarification, and formulate the questions the client needs answered.
If the answer requires legal expertise, the question goes back to the lawyer.
“My lawyer wants information from me, and I don’t know where to start.”
The lawyer determines what information or documentation is required. The client may still feel overwhelmed by what they have been asked to do.
Divorce Coaching can help the client identify what they already have, what is missing, what remains unclear, and what they can do next.
The lawyer determines what is required. The Divorce Coach helps the client organise themselves around the request.
Where Lifeology Family fits: the Divorce Coach
I am Kerryn Martorana, B. Psych (Hons), MAPS, PCC, JP (NSW) — a Certified Divorce Coach (CDC®) and Certified Dispute Resolution Coach (CDRC®), with additional specialist Divorce Coaching training in Amicable, Holistic and High Conflict Divorce Coaching. I am also a Registered Psychologist and ICF Professional Certified Coach.
My professional background informs how I work with clients experiencing the emotional, interpersonal, and practical demands of separation and divorce.
Understanding and respecting the professional boundaries around legal work is equally important.
As a Divorce Coach, I do not provide legal advice, interpret a lawyer’s advice for their client, or determine what legal information or documentation a lawyer requires.
My role as a person’s Divorce Coach is to support them with the emotional, interpersonal, and practical demands that can sit alongside the legal work — including emotional regulation, communication, organisation, preparation, clarifying questions, and practical follow-through.
The aim is not to replace the lawyer or any other member of the client’s Divorce Tribe. It is to help the client navigate their way around their divorce, supported by the right professionals.
Working alongside, not across
A client going through divorce may need different forms of expertise at different times. No single professional needs to provide all of it.
The lawyer provides the legal expertise. The Divorce Coach helps the client find and navigate their own roadmap through divorce — working alongside the lawyer, the legal process, and other members of their Divorce Tribe.
Evidence and further reading:
- van Herk L, Schilder FPM, de Weijer AD, Bruinsma B, Geuze E. (2024). Heightened SAM- and HPA-axis activity during acute stress impairs decision-making: A systematic review on underlying neuropharmacological mechanisms. Neurobiology of Stress, 31, 100659. doi:10.1016/j.ynstr.2024.100659
- Geißler CF, Friehs MA, Frings C, Domes G. (2023). Time-dependent effects of acute stress on working memory performance: A systematic review and hypothesis. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 148, 105998. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105998
- Howieson J. (2008). Family law dispute resolution: procedural justice and the lawyer-client interaction. Doctoral thesis, The University of Western Australia. Australian-wide field study of 230 family lawyers and 94 clients examining the family lawyer-client interaction.
- Maguire G, Byrne MK. (2017). The law is not as blind as it seems: Relative rates of vicarious trauma among lawyers and mental health professionals. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 24(2), 233–243.
doi:10.1080/13218719.2016.1220037
