Lisa Jacobs, Board Member
Lisa Jacobs, Board Member
By
Wilma Friesema
Helping children to have stability, security, and love is at the heart of what motivates our board member, Lisa Jacobs, to do her invaluable work. The founder and president of Better Way Divorce, also known as Pono Divorce, Lisa is a skilled mediator and collaborative attorney who works with divorcing couples to help them navigate the difficult terrain of separation. As a neutral guide, she encourages couples to move forward in a positive direction through a collaborative problem-solving approach that focuses on their future and the future of their children. In the process, the parents’ toxicity and bitterness are often reduced, and their communication is more open and respectful. This, in turn, makes a huge difference for the children who often feel overwhelmed by the break-up and torn in their loyalties.
The desire to help others has always been an integral part of Lisa; a seed planted in her by her social worker mother. In the early 1950’s, as an Asian American woman who earned her MSW, Lisa’s mom was a trailblazer who embodied the caring and compassionate behavior that is so integral to Lisa’s work today.
When Lisa finished law school in 1994, however, her “helping seed” received little outer nourishment as she navigated her way in the traditional legal system. Fighting, rather than collaboration, was the more conventional way to handle cases, as opposing lawyers battled it out before a judge. While doing her best to serve her clients, Lisa struggled to find her ground in a system that she began to see as diminishing her clients’ control of their own future. For her, that diminishment was implicit whenever resolutions about their future were made by a judge.
Lisa’s helping seed began to more fully take root when in the late 1990’s she worked as a civilian attorney at the Naval Legal Service Office at Pearl Harbor, where she provided free legal adoption services to military families. She was deeply impacted by the adopting parents who were so committed to ensuring the children they loved had a sense of belonging and security. Meeting the families at Family Court, witnessing all the balloons and hugs, seeing the positive impact her efforts could have on children -- all of it struck a deep chord in her that still reverberates today. Also, around that time, Lisa served as a volunteer facilitator for the Kids First Program at Family Court, where she engaged with groups of children who were experiencing divorce and re-assured them that they were not alone.
Lisa’s helping seed has continued to flourish. After stepping away from full-time practice temporarily to devote more time to care for her three children, when the time was right to re-enter the workforce, it became very clear to her that she didn’t want to practice law in the traditional way; instead, she wanted to help her clients move forward in a problem solving, constructive manner which became the impetus for her own business. By modeling respectful communication and collaboration, Lisa has provided a safe space to work out contentious issues and also an opportunity for relational healing.
Lisa, herself, often provides a healing experience in how she treats people. As she so movingly told me, “It’s hard when people are in conflict and they think they are so in the right and the other is so in the wrong. I just know we’re all human, we all have things to work on, but we also all have strengths that we value and can bring to the community and other people. I try to see the best in people and help them bring their best selves to others.”
Besides being a wife, mother, mediator, and collaborative lawyer, Lisa volunteers at the Mediation Center of the Pacific where she is a senior mediator, facilitator, mentor to newer mediators, speaker, and assistant trainer. For the past 10 years Lisa has also been volunteering and serving on the Board of Directors (including Board President in 2016) for Conflict Resolution Alliance, a local nonprofit that works to promote and support peaceful conflict resolution and collaborative decision making at all levels of society, whether in one’s home, school, `ohana, workplace, or community. Since January 2015, Lisa has volunteered as Co-Chair of the Hawai’i State Bar Association’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Section, where she coordinates training opportunities for attorneys to enhance their mediation skills.
On her website https://ponodivorce.com/ there is a long list of additional professional and civic activities she is engaged in. We, at EPIC, are grateful to be one of them. For the past 5 years Lisa has contributed her wisdom and values to our board’s guidance. We are so fortunate to have her as a living example of the values that we at EPIC also try to embody: truly seeing the strengths in people and deeply listening to their concerns, being solution focused, empowering people to help create their own future, and encouraging voices that are often silenced to speak up and be heard. In doing so, we, like Lisa, are helping families find a way forward so they can provide their children with loving, stable relationships that enables them to thrive. For Lisa, that is the kind of help that matters the most.
