In this episode of Lawyers as Healers, I’m joined by Nanci Smith, an attorney licensed in Vermont and New York and author of Untangling Your Marriage: A Guide to Collaborative Divorce.

Nanci’s work focuses on promoting peaceful divorce practices and helping people move through one of the most painful transitions of their lives with more dignity, clarity, and humanity.

Our conversation explores Nanci’s path from traditional litigation into collaborative divorce, including the moment she began questioning whether being known as a “barracuda” was really the identity she wanted as a lawyer. We talk about the emotional weight of family law, the limits of the adversarial system, and why divorce is not only a legal process, but also a financial and deeply emotional one.

Nanci explains how collaborative divorce works, why it creates a different kind of container for conflict, and how lawyers, mental health professionals, and financial neutrals can work together to support families without immediately escalating to court.

We also discuss lawyer identity, trust, ego, fear, apology, and the courage it takes to step away from the warrior model of lawyering.

At its heart, this episode asks what might happen if more lawyers saw themselves not only as advocates, but as facilitators, peacemakers, and healers of human conflict.

• Nanci’s path into law and family law
• the moment she began questioning the “barracuda” identity
• collaborative divorce as an alternative to litigation
• why divorce involves legal, financial, and emotional realities
• the role of mental health professionals and financial neutrals
• lawyer ego, identity, and resistance to change
• why people in conflict often need to be heard more than they need to fight
• the power of apology, remorse, and acknowledgment
• what gives Nanci hope about collaborative practice

Nanci Smith Law:
https://nancismithlaw.com/

Book:
Untangling Your Marriage: A Guide to Collaborative Divorce

Nanci Smith
Attorney, collaborative divorce practitioner, and author of Untangling Your Marriage

Dave Albrechta
Mediator, coach, recovering litigator, and host of Lawyers as Healers.