{"id":16781,"date":"2012-03-26T15:32:13","date_gmt":"2012-03-26T20:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=16781"},"modified":"2012-03-26T15:32:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-26T20:32:41","slug":"collaborative-divorce-an-aleternative-to-the-traditional-adversarial-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2012\/03\/collaborative-divorce-an-aleternative-to-the-traditional-adversarial-divorce\/","title":{"rendered":"Collaborative Divorce: An Alternative to the Traditional Adversarial Divorce"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Those of you who know me know that I am particularly interested in family law.\u00a0 Through my experiences learning about and observing the practice of family law, I have become convinced that our adversarial system is, more often than not, a poor way to resolve divorce.\u00a0 This is especially true where children are in the picture.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the alternative?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, but I did learn about a relatively new process that was created to avoid litigation in these cases called Collaborative Divorce (CD).\u00a0 The CD process involves both parties to the divorce voluntarily signing a contract called a \u201cParticipation Agreement\u201d.\u00a0 The participation agreement states that each party agrees to work toward a negotiated resolution and will not<\/em> litigate the case.\u00a0 To me, it sounded like a good possible solution for people who don\u2019t want to be dragged into litigation.\u00a0 But, the more I looked into CD, the more I realized it couldn\u2019t be for everyone (or even most individuals) who are going through a divorce.<\/p>\n

As part of the CD agreement, the parties must each hire a lawyer.\u00a0 In the event a negotiated settlement falls through and either party chooses or is forced to litigate the case, both<\/em> parties must fire their lawyers and hire new lawyers to litigate the case.\u00a0 The idea behind this is that it creates additional incentive for people to come to a resolution; both because having to practically start over from scratch with a new lawyer can be very expensive and stressful\/time-consuming.<\/p>\n

The CD process also involves each party retaining a CD \u201ccoach\u201d or \u201cmentor\u201d, typically a licensed therapist, to help him or her through emotional and other non-legal issues while going through the divorce.\u00a0 If there is a significant estate, the parties will also retain a financial expert to help with issues of property division and\/or support.\u00a0 Finally, if there are children, the parties will also have to retain an therapist\/advocate for the child(ren) (similar to a guardian ad litem in a traditional litigated case).<\/p>\n

The CD model calls for a series of meetings between the parties, their attorneys, and sometimes the coaches\/therapists, with a free-exchange of financial and other information, negating the need for discovery.<\/p>\n

In theory, CD might be very beneficial, and it seems like a far better way to handle a divorce case than the traditional way.\u00a0 However, between two (or four) lawyers, coaches\/therapists for each party, financial experts, and advocates for the children, it makes an already expensive process potentially even more so, and I wonder if the average person could afford the process even if he or she desired a Collaborative Divorce.\u00a0 I plan to practice CD in the future and to see for myself.\u00a0 In the meantime, I\u2019ll keep searching for an alternative to the traditional adversarial divorce.\u00a0 I\u2019ll let you know when I find it or if I\u2019m able to invent it myself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of you who know me know that I am particularly interested in family law.\u00a0 Through my experiences learning about and observing the practice of family law, I have become convinced that our adversarial system is, more often than not, a poor way to resolve divorce.\u00a0 This is especially true where children are in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-law","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/132"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}