When you and your spouse/former spouse decide to use the Collaborative Process, each of you will hire a lawyer who has specialized Collaborative training. You and the lawyers will sign an agreement confirming that you will not go to court with your dispute (this document is called a Participation Agreement). You will get together in actual or virtual face-to-face meetings with your Collaborative team, which may also include Divorce Coaches, Child Specialists, and/or Financial Specialists. The meetings are designed to produce an honest and respectful exchange of information and a clear understanding of your family’s needs and expectations, particularly concerning the best interests and well-being of any children. The Collaborative team works with you to facilitate mutual problem-solving and interest-based settlements with the goal of concluding a final agreement.
Collaborative Process (also known as Collaborative Law, Collaborative Practice, Collaborative Divorce) has the following key elements:
(a) Voluntary, free and open exchange of information. This allows for the decisions you make to be fully informed. The hallmark of Collaborative Practice is the complete disclosure of all relevant information and documentation necessary to allow for good decision making.
(b) Genuine commitment and pledge not to litigate. The signing of the Participation Agreement commits you, your spouse and the professionals involved in your matter to strive only for consensual settlement. For the Collaborative professionals, that means that if someone decides to leave the Collaborative process and go to court, that professional cannot continue acting for you. In this way the professionals’ motivations and incentives align with yours, with no underlying desire to make things worse or more adversarial. You likewise have no need to fear your spouse’s lawyer ever taking you to court either. Because of the no-court commitment, the focus of Collaborative Process is solely on helping you reach an agreement.
(c) Balanced commitment to respect both parties’ shared goals and the family’s needs. The goal of Collaborative Process is to help you and your family find resolutions that take into account the unique needs and interests of you and your family. Throughout the process, the Collaborative professionals will assist you and your spouse in understanding, refining and communicating your interests and priorities and they are committed to helping you find creative and lasting solutions to work for you.
It is normal to have strong feelings about the relationship and challenges in communications in the post-separation dynamic between you and your spouse. The difficult emotions need not take away from a shared goal of resolving your issues in a consensual way and without an expensive and emotionally destructive court battle. Collaborate Practice will help you stay focused and establish or re-establish productive communication so that you can be forward-focused in negotiating the outstanding issues. Collaborative Practice is rooted in guiding principles of respect, dignity, openness and fairness; it promotes compassion, understanding and cooperation and is designed to build settlement on areas of agreement rather than fuelling discord.
In court, you and your spouse may come to see each other as adversaries and in the end, after a decision has been made for you by a judge, the lasting financial and emotional effects on you and your family, including children, can be costly and detrimental. - Collaborative Process promotes settlement in a respectful and non-adversarial manner. The Collaborative meetings are not battlegrounds and the professionals involved will work with you and each other to help you achieve a mutually agreeable resolution. Collaborative Process aims to minimize the emotional strains of relationship breakdowns and to promote and protect the well-being of children. The Collaborative Process can help you reach more creative and tailor-made solutions to your finances or parenting arrangements that would not otherwise be available to a judge.
In mediation, a neutral third party helps you and your spouse negotiate a settlement, with or without the participation of lawyers. The mediator cannot give either of you legal advice or provide support to one of you over the other and mediators cannot compel the production of documents or other information disclosure. Many people find that they need the support and encouragement of having the Collaborative team in their corner.
The engagement of additional Collaborative professionals will really depend on the complexity, emotional/inter-personal challenges, and level of financial awareness in your situation. Not every Collaborative matter needs the involvement of a Divorce Coach, Child Specialist and/or Financial Specialist and your Collaborative lawyer will discuss with you the potential roles and benefits of bringing in additional professionals and the value it would bring to you. Mindful of concerns about the cost and time implications of expanding the Collaborative team, the involvement of different Collaborative professionals is only ever intended to achieve an overall more productive negotiation and an efficient and enduring settlement. While each family is unique, the benefit of bringing on a divorce coach, for example, allows parties to get the expertise of someone who can provide guidance on how to support children during this transition and help come up with a parenting plan that serves the children well. The Collaborative Process also recognizes that lawyers are not experts in all areas impacting people going through divorce, and brings in the right professional often at a lower rate.
The Collaborative Process can only be entered when each spouse has a Collaboratively trained lawyer. The Participation Agreement must be signed by each spouse and their respective Collaborative lawyer. If your spouse does not have a lawyer or prefers to work with a lawyer who does not have the specialized Collaborative training, you will not be able to engage in the Collaborative Process but you still may be able to reach a settlement through negotiations, mediation, or other out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms. You can still tell your spouse about the Collaborative Process. If your spouse is interested in it, they may seek out different counsel or they may find out that another lawyer in the firm is trained in Collaborative Process and can take them on.