A new business offering a range of services has opened up in Dauphin.
Located at 17 3rd Ave. NE, Parkland Collaborative Legal Options (PCLO) has been open since early September.
Desiree Dorion, a partner at PCLO, says they offer mediation, arbitration, collaborative family practice, and parenting plans.
“We also do child protection defence and what would be called limited scope work, so that would be, like, if people need assistance drafting, we won’t go to court for them, but we will assist them with drafting if they need help drafting documents for contested litigation. So that’s in a nutshell, what we do.”
Mediation is an assisted negotiation by a neutral third party to help disputing parties voluntarily reach their own mutually acceptable settlements.
Arbitration is a process that allows each party to provide their own evidence and an arbitrator renders a decision after hearing the evidence. Under the Arbitration Act of Manitoba, arbitrators are empowered to make the decisions and they are legally binding.
A parenting plan is a required document in contested litigation. Dorion says people sometimes need help facilitating a parenting plan that works for their family. A parenting plan is a written document that outlines how both parents will raise their children after separation or divorce.
Dorion says they primarily focus on those going through separation or divorce.
“What we would do is we would have a meeting with that client and just find out more information from them and whether their case would be suited more to collaborative law, whether their case would be suited for mediation, maybe they just need a parenting plan, if there are no other issues that need to be resolved, that might be a case that would be suited to meet with our parenting plan facilitator. We assess it by a case-by-case basis and in consultation with our clients, would figure out what option is best suited for them.”
Dorion did arbitration training and her partner, Melanie Beaudry did the mediation training, both through the ADR Institution of Canada. Kate Roberts is the parenting plan facilitator.
The phone number for PCLO is (204) 701-7256, they also have a website, and Dorion says they’re on Facebook and Instagram as well.
“We’re just looking forward to serving the Parkland. We’ve had some good discussions with folks in the community and people who are curious about what we’re doing. Maybe you don’t want to proceed with anything at this time, but you might be interested in learning more, and so, if that’s the case, feel free to give us a call, we’re happy to talk to anybody about the services we’re providing.”
