Here’s another article about Collaborative Divorce, this one from the Fort Wayne Indiana News Sentinel. Collaborative Divorce is a loose term that describes a more collegial appropach to divorce. Typically, it involves attorneys and their clients spending some time meeting alone with each other and then some time meeting with the other side. It makes frequent use of other disciplines, including accountants, financial planners, therapists, and coaches.
Divorce lawyers love Collaborative Divorce, and in a weird, twisted way, they have a point. Collaborative Divorce is a great alternative to adversarial divorce, and for the roughly 25% of us who would otherwise be stuck in that rut, any approach that allows us to work out problems rather than doing battle in court to resolve them is a good thing. It makes less sense for the other three fourths of us, the “silent majority” if you will, who are either too poor, or too smart, or both, to get caught up in all this nonsense.
For this majority, the distinguishing feature of Collaborative Divorce is not its collaborative nature; we’re already doing that now, thank you. The distinguishing feature of Collaborative Divorce, with its multiple meetings, sessions, and documentation, is its high cost, in many cases approaching the cost of a typical adversarial divorce.
For most of us, Collaborative Divorce is a good way to send the children of lawyers, accountants, financial planners, coaches, and therapists to college. It’s not a smart way to get divorced. Better to work out the details, do an uncontested divorce to get through the pain, and quietly move on with our lives.
For further critical analysis of collaborative divorce, see the following: Collaborative Law:
Is it for Your Lawyer Referral Service?
by Ana Otero, Dialogue (ABA Division for Legal Services), Summer 2004 – Volume 8, Number 3, http://www.abanet.org/legalservi…ummerlris.html;
Collaborative Divorce and Malpractice, Wisconsin Lawyer, Vol. 75, No. 5, May 2002, http://www.wisbar.org/AM/ Templat…CONTENTID=34351
Amen, brother. Also (at least here in Virginia) it also means that AFTER you spent all that dough, if you cannot resolve things, then you have to go hire a NEW LAWYER to start litigation.
I second that opinion. The Collbarative process is a smoke screen with no real value. It appoaches a scam in that it ove
rly comlicated the process, brings in too many players (all of which are sending thier kids to better colleges than those
poor folks stuck in the process) and does nothing for the kids. The smoke screen is that everything is doen for the well
beeing of the kids. Most divorces will go out of their way to keep the kids protected. Collbarative uses this (I call it the
the kid block) to get as much out of you as possible, maintining the kids emotional well being as the backdrop. In the
meantime your kids financial well being is being bled dry my these vultures circleing around your dying carcass of a marr
iage. I have been going through this process for 8 months now, 17,000 dollars and no separation agreement. Plus my
lawyer is lame, not standing up for my interestes while my ex’s attempsts every tick in the book to get more money for my
ex. Not very Collabrative if you ask me. So for all you folks out there in divorce land, avoid this style of a process.
Go to a mediator or just draw up a separation agreement, keep you kids in the front seat, and take your time to work it out
It will save you and your spouse allot of money and wasted time.