How Do You Measure Success?

A few years ago,  I was appointed as a pre-judgment parent coordinator in a case, but I was only somewhat successful in helping these parents reach a parenting schedule.  To tell the truth, I felt a bit like a failure about it.  They were nice people, with obviously different gifts and strengths to share with their child.  They were polarized by anger, by their differing communication styles, and their attorneys.  Yes, I said their attorneys.  They both had very good, but highly combative attorneys.       Fast forward a year and a half, and they called me to help resolve a child support issue.  Sort of parenting related, so I made the appointment.  They came in today.  They have two different lawyers, same communication problems, and the anger is still there.  We made a lot of progress.  We'll resolve the issue.
I took a lot away from our mediation.  It drove home that success is measured in many ways.  No, they didn't resolve their initial parenting issues with me, but obviously, we built enough trust in each other and the process that even though they were back in court, they both thought I could help them avoid a contested hearing.  I was successful with them a year and a half ago, even though it didn't feel that way at the time.  I measured success by reaching a solution; they measured success by having a safe place to talk, and someone to help reframe what they said so the other could hear.  They also both liked that I helped them weight their options by playing "what if" with them in a way none of their attorneys would (more on that in a minute).  I helped them deal with the conflict so they could focus on resolving the dispute.  Even though they may continue to have disputes, I think they are successful as well because they both recognize they need to resolve their dispute and need help doing it, and they both agree on who they trust to help them.  That is incredibly huge and healthy. These folks will ultimately be OK.  They will never like each other, but they can manage their conflict, and to me, that's success.
The other piece of my work with this couple was disturbing - between them, they had been represented by four different lawyers.  They don't like or trust any of them.  They thought their lawyers were out to drag out their case in order to increase fees.  They both laughed that the least true thing their attorneys said was that they weren't doing anything on their case "to save them money." They knew their case was being ignored.  They said they would email their attorneys and would never get a definitive answer; they figured it was to keep it so that they didn't have enough information to solve their own problem - it was to keep them dependent.  They felt comfortable telling me this even though I'm an attorney too.  To them, I was different and not like their attorneys.  I'm glad that they thought I wasn't like all the others.  I'm sad that they had to make the distinction.  If only we could see ourselves the way others see us.  Here in the Trenches.