The Hippocratic Oath?

First, do no harm.  That is the Hippocratic oath for doctors.  It should be the oath for all of us. As some of you may know, I am not only a lawyer but also a trained mediator and parent coordinator.  I started my first parenting coordination this week.  Both parents have highly capable attorneys.  They had already been to mediation, with a highly trained mediator.  When they came to me, I expected two people who couldn't agree on anything.  What I found was that one of the lawyers told his client not to talk to his spouse. Then, at mediation, the wife asked for an explanation behind the reasoning for the husband's offer, and the mediator refused to ask, telling her that she just needed to make a counteroffer.  They had each taken the other one's actions and  made assumptions of the rationale behind them.  They distrusted each other completely.  Then they came to me.  They started talking and found that all of their interpretations were wrong.  All of their assumptions were false.  They discovered that they weren't as far apart as they thought.  All because they took the time to hear the other and try to understand.  We made a lot of progress, but we would have made more, and faster, had the professionals involved had not made things worse.  The professionals acted as if the case were litigation as usual, instead of a dispute between two people who needed to have a relationship together as parents for the rest of their lives.  Their divorce will set the stage for all of their interactions in the future.  First, do no harm.  Sounds good.