A Colorado Divorce & Family Law Attorney Explains Why She Uses TalkingParents in Her Practice
Sabra Janko is a Divorce and Family Law Attorney located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She has been practicing law since 2000, gaining a wide breadth of experience in dissolution of marriage, parenting time, child support, relocation, separation agreements, parenting plans, and more. Janko is also a former Judge Advocate General (JAG) Attorney, which defends the Army and its Soldiers in all military legal matters, including divorce and family law issues.
- 2 min read
Implementation
Janko started her own practice, Janko Family Law, where she says she often deals with cases involving parents who have difficulty communicating.
“I see people recommend various platforms for parental communication, TalkingParents being one of them,” says Janko. “That’s the one I typically recommend because I’m very familiar with it and I think it’s a really good platform.”
Janko says her clients are often given stipulations to abide by when communicating through TalkingParents.
“Many times, the parenting plan will include provisions on how to communicate, such as when the parents must respond by,” she explains. “Those stipulations tend to be put as recommendations in a proposed parenting plan, or the parties just agree on them, and the court orders it.”
Janko says she often incorporates TalkingParents into parenting agreements for her clients.
“I just think it’s a really good way to have communications in one place, and a good way to have a Record of those communications,” she says.
Records
Janko frequently uses TalkingParents’ Records as evidence in court.
“Generally, the Record is used in situations where I need to show that one party has attempted to involve the other party, and the other party has refused to actively participate,” she explains. “Whether that be in a decision regarding the children or another matter, the Record really comes in handy in those circumstances.”
In Janko’s opinion, TalkingParents’ Records are very easy to use.
“I usually just include the Record as one of our exhibits,” she explains. “I identify the relevant information in the transcript and go over it with my clients to prepare.”
Janko has never encountered a situation in which the opposing council objected to her use of a TalkingParents Record as evidence.
“I think it’s commonly understood that the TalkingParents logs are automatically admissible in court,” she says.
Benefits
Janko says she prefers TalkingParents to the other co-parenting communication platform she has experience with.
“I have also used Civil Communicator, and I’m not a big fan of it,” she says. “It’s designed for high-conflict cases. The communication is very constrained, which I suppose is the whole point, but it sometimes makes it difficult to accomplish basic things. I think TalkingParents is a great healthy medium because it helps keep communication civil in high-conflict cases, while also allowing people to communicate freely. So, if they dig themselves a hole, it’s on the Record and they have to live with it.”
TalkingParents makes Janko’s job as a lawyer easier in numerous ways.
“TalkingParents not only gives me a Record of communications that is automatically admissible in court, but it gives it to me all in one place,” she says. “It can be very difficult to track down different text messages and emails and then try to put them all together in a sequence. And it not only helps me present my cases, but it truly helps the parents.”