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Separating or divorcing is never easy. But when couples and their advocates take a less adversarial approach, the entire family benefits. Collaborative law helps families resolve divorce issues with dignity and respect.

In the collaborative process, husbands, wives, their attorneys, and any other collaborative professionals working with the family, agree to resolve all issues of their case without contentious court proceedings.

Collaborative practice is designed to minimize conflict while working toward that resolution. Working together, they strive to dissolve the marriage in a way that addresses everyone’s legal, financial, and emotional needs.

Collaborative Family Law is a method of negotiating that is designed and structured to maximize your chances for success. Success is what you define it to be. But your goals need to be realistic, and this is where your collaborative family law lawyer will assist you. Your lawyer’s job is not to tell you what you want — their job is to listen to what is important to you, place that in the context of what is achievable, both legally and realistically, to determine your real goals, and then execute a plan to get you as close as possible to your goals. Each person hires his/her own specially trained Collaborative Lawyer.

The parties and the lawyers sign a binding contract to:

Participate respectfully in four-way, settlement driven meetings.

Not go to court.

Disclose all relevant information including financial documents.

Financial Disclosure is normally required in any court case dealing with division of property or support issues, but Collaboration streamlines the process. In fact, if a person involved in Collaboration wants to go to court or does not wish to disclose information, his or her lawyer must withdraw from the case. This keeps the process settlement focused.

While each person will meet with their own lawyer privately and receive expert independent legal advice, Collaboration focuses on four-way meetings with both lawyers and both parties working as a team. Applying their legal knowledge, and cutting-edge settlement skills, the lawyers assist people in reaching constructive solutions.

Parties are encouraged to participate throughout and contribute their own ideas on what works best for them and their children.

In addition to lawyers, Collaborative Family Law may include other professionals including like-minded mediators, child specialists, financial advisers and business valuators who also have special training in the Collaborative process and Mediation.

While these professionals are not mandatory, they may add an essential element allowing the process to move quickly and smoothly, ultimately reducing the cost to you.

For example, child specialists may be involved by addressing special issues surrounding the children and to meet with them to assess their needs to help the parties develop a parenting plan.

Likewise, financial specialists may assist in resolving issues around support, asset division and tax concerns. Mediators may become involved when negotiations reach an impasse.

What if the process is unsuccessful?

Success using Collaboration is high. If, however, either party discontinues the process, both lawyers must resign and must have no further involvement. Parties are then free to pursue other or more traditional means of dispute resolution.

Why Avoid Court?

Property division and custody issues stemming from the breakdown of a relationship can be draining both emotionally and financially. Going to court, is by definition, adversarial. To make a bad situation worse, people separating are required to fight over their children and assets. Any goodwill is soon crushed. At the end of the day, a third party (the judge) makes decisions regarding their future, children, and assets. Participation in the court process is limited and court decisions may not be questioned except by way of appeal and even then, only on a narrow basis.

Collaboration, on the other hand, allows people to engage in the constructive planning of their post — separation future, and to have their own input on the important questions like: ‘Who will raise the children? What sort of time will each parent have with the children? Who will live in the family home? Or will it be sold? How will assets be divided? Who must pay support and how much will that be?’

Although many cases settle before trial, a great deal of time, money and energy is spent on court applications and trial preparation. Collaboration, on the other hand, directs all resources at developing solutions, and problem solving, rather than strategic preparation for court. Experts are jointly engaged to determine the best approach instead of attempting to gain a tactical advantage for court.

How much will it cost?

Because Collaboration is a settlement driven team approach, the cost is normally significantly less than going to court. The lawyers and other experts focus on solutions rather than preparing for court. Each case is unique and the cost will depend on the complexity and the lawyer’s hourly rate. You will need to talk to a Collaborative Lawyer to find out the specific costs associated with your situation.

Is Collaborative Law the best choice for me?

It isn’t for every client (or every lawyer), but it is well worth considering if some or all of these are true:

You believe it is important to protect your children from the harm litigation can inflict.

You place a high value on personal responsibility in resolving conflict.

You are able to focus on a positive solution for the entire family.

You want to preserve a respectful working relationship after the process is over.

You believe that conflict resolution with integrity involves that you disclose full and accurate information about financial issues.

You recognize the restricted range of outcomes generally available in the court system, and want a more creative and individualized range of choices available to you and your spouse or partner for resolving your issues.

You value control and autonomous decision making and do not want to hand over decisions about restructuring your financial and/or child-rearing arrangements to a stranger (i.e., a judge).

Getting Started

Share the information from this article with your spouse or partner. If you are both interested in the Collaborative process, each should:

1. Select and contact a Collaborative Lawyer; and;

2. Meet independently with your lawyers to:

Discuss your situation and issues that need resolution;

Discuss the lawyer/client relationship and terms of engagement;

eceive initial advice;

Sign a Participation Agreement.

Once the above preliminary steps have been taken, the lawyers will arrange an initial four-way Collaborative meeting convenient to all to begin the process. Together you, your spouse and your lawyers will determine what issues need to be addressed. Maybe you have already agreed on some major or minor points and just need help with a few issues. Perhaps you have some general agreements and need help tying it all together in a legal Separation Agreement. Perhaps you are starting at “square one”. You may decide to seek the assistance of outside help with some of your issues, such as parenting. You will together decide what order the issues get talked about, and decide on what information is needed (the lawyers will be able to help with this one). Then the time is spent gathering the information (and information isn’t emotional, its just facts, and the best facts should be objectively determinable) analyzing the information in the context of the law, and generating options for agreement.

Often, once you go through the process of information gathering and analysis, the solution is obvious. Sometimes, that is when the negotiations really begin. It is often when the (sometimes hard) work starts: Examining interests and positions from different angles, brainstorming, creative thinking, challenging, re-framing and postulating. This is where the (specially trained and experienced) lawyers make the difference.

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