What is collaborative law? It is a way to resolve disputes or make decisions by using a cooperative, team approach to getting things done.
Collaborative Divorce
A collaborative divorce might seem like a contradiction in terms, but it is possible with the help of a trained team of collaborative professionals. The goal is to help you through your divorce in a way that honors your marriage and your family–including the new family structure you are creating post-divorce.
In a collaborative divorce, each spouse has an attorney, and in many cases, also a collaborative coach. Spouses, attorneys, and coaches meet together in a series of four-way or six-way meetings to discover what is important to each person and to make decisions about the future, including dealing with assets and debts and creating a parenting plan that maintains the best interests of your children. It’s also very common for the team to include a neutral financial specialist and, if you have children, a neutral child specialist to help pull together the needed information and provide guidance on difficult issues.
In a collaborative process, everything is transparent–information is shared without holding back, and all options are on the table. There’s no place in the process for bullying or hiding the ball. The expectation is that communication will be respectful, even when there is disagreement. Each person’s emotional experience is as much a part of the process as the legal rules, and negotiation is based on goals and interests, and the attorneys and coaches will help you look for creative solutions.
One unique feature of a collaborative divorce is that both spouses and all of the professionals enter into a signed “no-court” agreement that requires that the attorneys and other professionals withdraw from the case if either spouse decides to go into court instead of resolving things through the collaborative process. This relieves a lot of the anxiety of traditional divorce negotiation and allows you to approach the process with a strong commitment to resolution.
Collaboration for Prenuptial Agreements
Collaborative law provides a wonderful framework for spouses-to-be who want to prepare a prenuptial agreement. Traditionally, when a couple wanted prenuptial agreement, one person would go to see an attorney, who would prepare a draft and present it to the other person’s attorney. The negotiations were done through the lawyers, instead of directly between the people to whom they were most important.
In a collaborative process, no one starts drafting paperwork until both partners have met with their attorneys in a four-way meeting to talk about their goals for the agreement and to look at the interests they are trying to meet by entering into a prenup. The lawyers (and coaches, if needed) help the partners gather the necessary information and explore the practical and emotional aspects of the agreement, so that the document will truly reflect their wishes for their future together.