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COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE - A material girl trend, or a sign of the times?

In recent months I’ve noticed increased interest surrounding a relatively new approach to
divorce - the collaborative divorce.  With celebrities such as Madonna and Guy Ritchie recently using the collaborative approach coupled with the tough economic times,  there is no doubt public interest will only increase.  Still, many people are unfamiliar with the term and how it differs from a traditional divorce.

What is it?

A collaborative divorce is, essentially, an approach to resolve a divorce by agreeing to agree.  The parties, and each of their attorneys, enter into a contract where they agree to resolve all the issues before any formal court filing or litigation occurs.  A successful collaborative divorce ends in a final marital settlement agreement disposing of all issues.  Once the parties have a signed the agreement then the divorce complaint is filed and the procedural formalities are followed to obtain the divorce decree and incorporate the settlement agreement.  The parties may never even set foot in a courthouse. 
   

The collaborative process generally involves numerous four-way meetings or “joint sessions” to identify and prioritize the issues and needs of each party and work towards an efficient settlement consistent with the needs of the parties.  Agenda are set by the attorneys before each meeting to insure progress is being made on all issues of the divorce including: property distribution, alimony, child custody, child support, and spousal support. 

   

The collaborative approach does not dispose of the need for a divorce attorney.  In fact, just as in a traditional divorce, each party must still have representation by their own attorney.  Collaborative attorneys, however, do not assume the hard adversarial role as in the traditional divorce.  The function of each attorney is to facilitate dispute resolution between the parties while advising their client as to what their legal rights are and insuring that full disclosure of all pertinent information is occurring by both parties so that informed decisions can be made.  The concept is for the parties to work as a team toward resolution of all issues.

   

Often the parties need additional professional help to resolve their disputes.  The additional help could be an expert to determine the value of a business, an appraiser to determine the value of an asset, a child custody evaluator to help decide on an appropriate custody schedule, a financial planner or tax expert to aide in the most effective distribution of assets, or any such professional as the facts of each case require.  Rather than having dueling experts for each side, the collaborative process requires the appointment of one independent expert to provide an unbiased opinion, thus saving money on expert fees for the parties and reducing litigation cost associated with conflicting expert opinions.

Full post as published by New Jersey Law Blog on January 30, 2009 (boomark / email).