When Dave Hakanson broke into divorce mediation more than a quarter-century ago, the idea of helping couples work out their differences outside of the court system was brand new. Though he didn’t know it, Hakanson would become a state leader in helping divorcing parents sort out how to share their kids.

In his office on NW 14th Street, sitting at what he described as an old kitchen table, Hakanson has worked with thousands of families to figure out how children will be shared following a divorce. Over more than 25 years, he said he’s probably helped people save millions of dollars in litigation.

“People come in and out, they’re unhappy, they have unsolvable problems sometimes, they’re frustrated,” Hakanson, 63, said. But his goal is to help parents set out a parenting plan.

Deschutes County hired Hakanson in 1985 as a family therapist, and he started working in divorce mediation in 1987, where he’s remained ever since. Back then, divorce mediation was brand new; some lawyers even felt threatened by it, Hakanson explained.

Before coming to Bend, he had worked for Marion County, and for a youth services program as a family therapist , but divorce mediation was still uncharted territory.

“I took trainings as I could find them and took off from there,” he said.

Hakanson helped parents splitting up decide how they would share taking care of their children, through a parenting plan. Because Hakanson worked for Deschutes County, his services were provided through court filing fees.

“The service was set up to be a parenting plan service,” Hakanson said last week.

The parenting plan, a court document, outlines what days, weeks or holidays parents will have their kids.

Before divorce mediation came along, Hakanson said, family lawyers had struggled with how to treat families during a court process. Unlike in a criminal case with a suspect and a random victim, the court was dealing with what had once been intimate relationships.

“It was a harsh system,” Hakanson said. “It took estranged people and got them more estranged. … these are relationships, there isn’t a crime that’s been committed.”

Hakanson said with the less hostile process of mediation, relationships after divorce have become possible.“Now we want people to have lifelong, working relationships that are respectful,” Hakanson said, promising he’s practicing what he preached with his own ex-wife.

Hakanson said in the years leading up to mediation, judges and lawyers saw that there needed to be a “gentler and kinder approach to the divorcing family.” But some lawyers still felt mediators might make part of an attorney’s role obsolete.

“We kind of had to prove we weren’t a threat,” Hakanson said. “Now we’ve really been accepted by the bar and embraced by the bar.”

Twenty-nine years ago when Hakanson began, if people wanted to represent themselves in a divorce case without a lawyer, they would have to study how to do that at the library. Today, those documents are available online, and more than half of divorcing couples don’t use lawyers, he said.

At the same time Hakanson was figuring out for himself how to be a mediator, he was chosen to help decide how mediation would work across the state.

In 1992, Gov. Barbara Roberts appointed Hakanson to the Oregon Dispute Resolution Commission, which mapped out the requirements for people to become mediators and how programs for it would work in Oregon. Hakanson served as a commissioner through 1996.

He then served on the Oregon Family Law Advisory Committee from 2002 to 2009 developing the state’s first parenting plan materials still in use today. Hakanson also helped create the Deschutes County basic parenting plan as a member of the local Family Law Advisory Committee.

He explained mediation isn’t appropriate for everyone; in domestic violence cases for example, programs like Saving Grace, which provides family violence and sexual assault services, are what’s needed. In practice, mediation is a business-style meeting where he helped couples communicate.

“It’s practical, it’s pragmatic, and they aren’t easy answers,” Hakanson said, adding his go-to phrase for getting mediation done — “We’ve got to get ink on the paper.”

Even though Hakanson used a direct approach, it wasn’t without care, according to one of his longtime colleagues, Lillian Quinn, a family law attorney in Bend.

Quinn served on the local Family Law Advisory Committee with Hakanson.

“He’s just really been an advocate,” Quinn said. “I think he really cares about families for not just moms but dads as well.”

Quinn explained Hakanson was always open to adjusting the established parenting plan for the family in front of him. Hakanson also didn’t see people as stereotypes, Quinn added.

Quinn offers divorce mediation, but she often recommended clients of more modest means utilize Hakanson’s services. “What I like about him is he’ll just meet with people three, four, five times if needed,” Quinn said, describing Hakanson as “very patient.”

Hakanson always kept his “ear to the ground” in the family law world, Quinn said, bringing new insights to organizations like the Central Oregon Matrimonial Attorney group and putting on courses with Quinn to continue local attorneys’ legal education.

Though it’s been Hakanson’s job to make communication easier for his clients, that doesn’t mean every meeting has been smooth sailing. He admits it’s been a “stressful occupation,” and revealing his job at parties “is like a fart in church.”

That’s why outside of the office, he’s taken on activities that help him de-stress. Since 1992, Hakanson has danced in the Central Oregon School of Ballet’s Nutcracker, in which he’s played Dr. Stahlbaum, King Rat and Columbine. He began when his daughter was taking ballet lessons, but after she outgrew them, he continued. Alongside younger students, Hakanson said he feels a sense of connection in that all the dancers are just playing their roles to the best of their abilities, no matter their age.

“We’re equals, we’re both dancers,” Hakanson said. He’s also performed at Cascades Theatrical Co., where Quinn saw him in “Man of La Mancha.”

“He’s a fantastic singer and actor,” she said. “The guy can sing — he’s got this beautiful tenor voice.”

Hakanson worked for the organization Outward Bound too, which offers expeditionary courses from middle-school age children to veterans, and he served on the National Ski Patrol. In retirement, he’ll do some “major traveling” with his wife, Shelley Hakanson, 64, spend more time with his grandchildren (which, he said, he knows is the classic line), take care of his aging parents in Portland and, of course, keep dancing in the ballet. His last day is Monday.

“It’s fun to be in this stage,” Hakanson said, adding he can give insight to his clients with young children. “I can assure people, ‘You’re going to be having a beer with your kids at McMenamins before you know it.’”

— Reporter: 541-383-0325, kfisicaro@bendbulletin.com