“This year, it has been a case of when it rains, it pours,” Cassandra Kalpaxis of Kalpaxis Legal told Neos Kosmos, regarding a deluge of nominations.
In the AusMumpreneur Awards, she is a finalist in numerous categories, those of ‘Business Excellence’, ‘Rising Star’, ‘AusMumpreneur of the Year’, ‘Women’s Champion’ and ‘Service Business’. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as she is also a finalist in the Australian Law Awards, Small Business Champion Awards, Local Business Awards and Western Sydney Business Champion and the list goes on.
She believes her work in promoting “kind separation” may have had something to do with it, leading to “a significant year”.
Her book, “Dignified Divorce: How to separate simply and stay out of court”, advises couples how not to use her services, and this in fact has put her services in high demand.
“Kind separation,” she said, “is not very common, but an alternative to traditional types of divorce.”
Her book advocated taking a different approach to separation “for the sake of children and ultimately being able to utilise alternative dispute resolution as much as possible as well as collaborative practice for people to separate amicably, and that is not something done very commonly.”
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She has lived through the trauma of divorce vicariously through her clients but also went through a difficult period of time in her marriage before investigating kind separation, and ultimately saving her own marriage.
“There are no winners in family law, and what we are hoping for is a smooth transition,” she said. “Family lawyers who are daring to move outside the traditional model are seeing clients and children emerge winners.”
Admitting that it may mean less money in her pocket, the rewards are many in terms of satisfaction and there are repeat clients as well as recommendations to families and friends as a result of the positive experience people have.
She said that she has a strong connection to her father’s family from Corinth, and the Greek family values instilled in her growing up have “underpinned every single thing I do in business and practice.”
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“For my team to be nominated for all their hard work is validation for what they are doing and what they believe in and how important it is to continue championing the message (of kind separation) for the community despite the fact that it isn’t always supported, particularly by the legal industry,” she said.
The award which moved her the most is the AusMumpreneurs because it is recognition for those that go “above and beyond all that is motherhood and juggling a business.”