A Collaborative Divorce uses a team approach to help you arrive at
solutions. Depending on your situation, a team may consist just four people --
the spouses and their lawyers -- or of additional professionals in an
interdisciplinary model. By joining together as a team, you are able to harness
the skills, creativity, and efforts on problem-solving instead of on activities
that may be less productive. In a Collaborative Divorce, 100% of the effort of professionals is spent working towards a resolution, with no portion
of the effort diverted to strategizing for a court battle that is probably unlikely to occur.
The Collaborative Divorce professional team consists of at least four professionals who work together in a coordinated fashion to help clients reach resolution.
The professional mix is in alignment with the spheres of issues that are normal
in divorce. Practically every divorce touches these three areas: legal issues,
financial issues, and emotional issues. If you ha have children, there will also
be parenting issues to resolve. The mix of professionals in a Collaborative
Divorce team tracks these issues precisely.
The legal team addresses the legal issues in divorce. The neutral financial
specialist is a professional who focuses on the financial issues. The divorce
coach helps you with the emotional issues that may be in the way of reaching
agreement. And, the child specialist focuses on the children issue. By working
on issues with professionals who have the skill and training in those issues,
you will receive a solid foundation on which to make good decisions, and
generally more cost-effectively than having professionals who lack training in a
particular area to venture outside their areas of training and expertise.
The professional team works both individually and as a group. Most likely,
there will be separate meetings with each team member. There will also likely be
some meetings that involve different team members. While the precise mix of
meeting types is dependent on the needs of your case (as recommended to you by
the professional team), the goal is to ensure that services are provided in a
cost-effective manner. Often, cost-effectiveness is achieved by having you work
with team members separately; and at other times cost-effectiveness can be
achieved by having a larger professional team meeting. The team aims for "just
right" throughout the process.
The legal team consists of two lawyers -- one for each client. Your lawyer
represents you alone, and is not the lawyer for the other client. In a
Collaborative Law case, you are hiring your lawyer for a specific purpose. That
purpose is to help you reach a durable agreement with your spouse. Because the
purpose is not to "win" a case with a third-party decision maker (a judge or
arbitrator) who makes a decision, the
approach of your lawyer in a Collaborative divorce will necessarily be different
than in a conventional case. To reach a durable peace instead of a temporary
cease-fire, the lawyers will work together, and with you, to build an atmosphere
of trust with all so that the issues can be discussed and resolved. By using a
problem-solving approach using interest-based dispute resolution skills instead
of an adversarial approach and positioning, the lawyers will help you unravel
and work with what is important to each of you in order to maximize the
likelihood of resolution.
The neutral financial specialist compiles and analyzes financial information,
and helps educate the clients and attorneys about your unique financial
circumstances. The financial specialist assists in preparing
budgets, and sometimes projections, to ensure that present and future financial
needs can be considered. The financial specialist also helps
identify tax considerations to reduce the possibility of unforeseen surprises.
Most financial specialists who work in the Collaborative Divorce have
substantial additional training and experience working with the unique financial
and tax issues surrounding divorce, including the most common legal options that
are available.
Most lawyers have little or no training in financial matters. By using a professional who is
trained and experienced in financial matters, additional considerations that a lawyer may not know can be
addressed. As a neutral, the goal of the financial specialist is to be an honest
broker who can cost-effectively collect and disseminate information -- often at a lower
hourly rate than an attorney, and with the fees of a single professional split
by the spouses in some fashion instead of two professional bills for what can
amount to duplicative work. For the parts where lawyers are not needed, the
financial specialist will do his/her work without the attorneys present. The attorneys work with the information from the
financial specialist, and generally carefully review the
source documents and the work of the financial specialist to ensure legal issues
are not missed. The financial specialist will typically meet with the entire
group when additional professional input is helpful.
The divorce/communications coach assists parties with
communications to ensure that their discussions are as
productive as possible. The coach also helps the rest of the team identify
communication patterns and systemic patterns, to allow for more effective
facilitation to keep the process moving forward. Coaching is not therapy; the
focus is forward-looking rather than an exploration of the past. Local practice
and the circumstances of your unique case will dictate whether a joint coach or
individual coaches are recommended. Coaching is
time-limited, because its sole purpose is to help with what might hinder negotiations.
To ensure the process is cost-effective, the coach will meet with you separate
from your attorney. Oftentimes, it can be helpful for the
coach to be present at joint sessions.
The child specialist brings your child(ren)'s unique perspective to
the table so you, their parents, can make optimal decisions about your child(ren).
Child specialists have a strong background in child development theory and
practice, particularly as to children of divorce, and can provide information to
help you create
arrangements that work best. Divorce is not only stressful on adults, but is
also stressful on children. Normally, the child
specialist will interview the children to bring the "voice" of the child to the
parenting plan discussion so that you can minimize the stressors for your child. The final parenting plan is created by the parents
with the support of the child specialist, coach(es), and the attorneys, to ensure that it is
optimal for the children and parents. The child specialist too works individually with you, and with the coach, and with the full group when that is appropriate.
Because Collaborative Divorce is a team process, team members communicate
regularly with each to ensure smooth coordination. If you were to think of a
divorce team as crew members on a whitewater raft, you could see the havoc that
would be caused if one crew member saw a menacing rock but did not communicate
that to the others. Communication is needed among the rafting crew to make sure
everyone is paddling together so that the raft can travel safely down the river
without capsizing or running into danger.
Similarly, a Collaborative divorce team needs to communicate regularly to plan
for a safe and efficient voyage through your divorce.
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The Collaborative
Divorce Team