Page 19 - ECF_Thrive-Sept-2025

You’re
still one
family
Melissa Bourgeois’s
practice is changing how
couples divorce
By CAITLIN HART Photos KATE ASTAIRE
LAW HAS BEEN called the “burnout profession.” A 2022
study found that billable hours and emotional demands of
clients contribute significantly to burnout and mental-health
challenges in the profession — factors that can hit family lawyers
particularly hard, as they navigate some of the most challenging
circumstances families face, like divorce and custody.
Melissa Bourgeois, founder of One Family Law, has seen
firsthand the toll that traditional practice can take on lawyers
and clients alike. As a family lawyer for over a decade, she’s felt
it herself.
“I was kind of at the end of my rope in terms of the traditional
models of family law. It just didn’t make sense to me,” Bourgeois
says. “It was something that I found difficult even when I was
representing just one client, to forget that the other person was
a human having their own lived experience.”
Searching for a better, gentler way to practice took her to
London in 2019, where legal professionals had started representing
divorcing couples together. The model, referred to as “One Couple,
One Lawyer” or joint representation in England and Wales, allows
a lawyer to represent both sides in a legal separation.
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