The latest LESA brochures are hot off the press! If you haven’t already received them in the mail, they should be hitting your desk soon. Twice a year we take an opportunity to let everyone know who our awesome volunteers are: that’s why we just published our July – December 2015 Volunteer Appreciation brochure.
This brochure is just a small way of saying thanks for all you do. LESA couldn’t function without all of the dedicated volunteers who give of their time and talent, so here’s a huge shout out and thank you to each of you!
In each volunteer appreciation brochure, we also highlight a feature volunteer who offered LESA exceptional support over the past 6 months. Since we work with hundreds of volunteers, picking just one person to highlight is a challenge, but in this brochure we’re featuring Deni Cashin.
Deni has been a loyal LESA supporter for many years. Most recently, she chaired our Domestic Contracts program and taught in the face-to-face Interviewing and Advising CPLED module.
You’ll find our interview with Deni on the front page of the brochure, where you can read about what drew her to law, why she volunteers, and more. We had such a great interview that we couldn’t fit everything into the brochure. So you’ll find even more in today’s blog.
Happy reading, and thanks again to Deni Cashin and all of our incredible volunteers!
Tell me about your practice.
I practice family law … at Daunais McKay Harms + Jones. … I have been practicing with some of the people in our office for fourteen years. My pervious firm merged with part of this firm in 2010, so I’ve been very lucky that way – to practice with people I know well and think of very highly. I am a certified collaborative lawyer. Collaborative law is a very defined process, whereby clients sign a contract saying they will negotiation based on interests with their lawyers, but if negotiations break down and either client needs to go to court then both clients must get new lawyers. That is part of my practice. I also spend quite a bit of time on family law files that aren’t collaborative – in the big “C” sense that I just described. So I go to court as needed, or I go to mediation, or I go to arbitration. Like many family lawyers, ADR is something that we try to do as much as possible – that’s Alternative Dispute Resolution. But when that isn’t possible or when it breakdown, we will go to court. … I never find it boring, that’s for sure. But I’m glad that I don’t need to dabble in any area other than family law, because that’s really my area of interest and knowledge.”
What do you like best about your job? Or is it hard to narrow that down?
Well, they say in family law that when you finally conclude a matter the best you can hope for is for the parties to be equally unhappy. But when you are able to resolve difficult issues for a client and they are satisfied with the outcome, that’s hugely rewarding. … If parties are able to come to an agreement in mediation, that is ideal because a third party such as a judge or arbitrator hasn’t forced the terms of the agreement on them – they’ve been able to mediate it themselves – and that often creates better enforcement and implementation after the fact, because it was the parties choice. Sometimes the parties are in a process of mediation-arbitration. There are maybe one or two items that they haven’t been able to get agreement on, and the arbitrator can make that decision, having tried to help the parties throughout the mediation. That can be equally effective. And sometimes there are some files that just are not amenable to mediation-arbitration. For example, if one of the parties has a mental illness or an unwillingness to be reasonable, then it may be necessary to go to court. If you prepare your case well and have obtained in court what your client has requested, then that too can be rewarding. So it just all depends on the particular file; each one is so different.”
What books do you currently have on the go?
One of my favorites is The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. It’s thick, but it’s fantastic. Right now I’m in the middle of a book by Anita Diamant – The Boston Girl. It’s a good read. I’ve belonged to a book club in Calgary for 20 years. … Over those 20 years the members have all become really good friends.”
