Anne-Marie Cade, the Peaceful Divorce Lawyer and Founder of DIVORCE RIGHT, provides Mediation, Divorce Coaching, Conflict Coaching, and Co-Parenting Coaching to couples in the midst of the separation process. Based in Melbourne, Victoria she works with clients all around Australia to change the narrative around divorce and help couples to reach a peaceful, amicable divorce/separation arrangement.

This approach to building peacemaking practices into the end of relationships earned her a finalist position for Wellness Advocate of the Year in the Australian Law Awards 2019. Cade sees divorce as the beginning of a new chapter, the opportunity for clients to do things differently so they can move on to their lives post-divorce and co-parent successfully. She is emphatic that ”families don’t belong in court. The adversarial system pits one party against another, creates a winner and a loser and breeds more conflict between the parties. Research shows that it’s the conflict that hurts children.”

Half of all marriages end in divorce. Cade thinks we can and must improve how we approach this situation. ”The existing system is broken, the legal process takes too long and costs too much. Changing the laws alone is not enough. We need to change the thinking around how we see and do divorce. We need to learn to break up without destroying the family and bankrupting ourselves.” Cade’s method helps couples manage conflict, reframe the relationship and finalise all the paperwork. She helps couples to focus on the positives in their relationship, look for those silver linings, focus on the children, if any, and see the divorce as an opportunity to move on to bigger and better things.