Collaborative Financial Neutral; works with clients, their attorneys, and a mental health professional (coach)
Collaborative Practice. It begins with something you both can agree on, mutual respect.
Mutual respect is fundamental to the collaborative way. You may cease being spouses, but you don’t cease being worthy human beings. When respect is given and received, discussions are likely to be more productive and an agreement reached more easily.
The end of a marriage or relationship can be tragic enough. Often, the process of divorcing only adds to the pain. In a different divorce process, you and your spouse or partner may come to see each other as adversaries and the divorce as a battleground. You may experience feelings of confusion, anger, loss, and conflict.
Under such circumstances, you might find it difficult to see an end to divorce, much less imagine a hopeful future afterwards. But it doesn’t have to be this way. A growing number of parting couples, along with other professionals such as lawyers, mental health professionals and financial specialists, have been seeking a more constructive alternative. These professionals have developed the Collaborative Practice model.
Collaborative Practice is a reasonable approach to divorce based on three principles:
- A pledge not to go to court;
- An honest exchange of information by both spouses
- A solution that considers the highest priorities of both adults and their children.
If your attorney has referred you to Celia for your collaborative case, Celia will provide you with a fill-in version of her Client Organizer so you can both begin collecting documentation for the Collaborative Process. This is a voluntary process, but the professionals still have due diligence requirements, and both parties agree to provide clear documentation for each asset and debt so they can be identified by type, listed in the financial report, and allocated to one or both parties in their final documents. Clients also provide tax returns, tax documents for the most recent year, and other income/payroll data for the team to review. Once the documents have been collected and a financial draft has been produced, the clients and their professional team meet to go over the information and begin to discuss settlement ideas before coming to tentative agreements about maintenance, child support, and asset/debt division.
About Collaborative Practice
Collaborative Practice is a voluntary process in which parties settle disputes without resorting to litigation.
In Collaborative Practice:
- The parties sign a collaborative participation agreement describing the nature and scope of the matter.
- The parties voluntarily disclose all information which is relevant and material to the matter that must be decided.
- The parties agree to use good faith efforts in their negotiations to reach a mutually acceptable settlement.
- Each party must be represented by a lawyer whose representation terminates upon the undertaking of any contested court proceeding.
- The parties may engage mental health professionals, communication and family professionals and financial professionals whose engagement terminates upon the undertaking of any contested court proceeding; and
- The parties may jointly engage other experts as needed.
Collaborative Practice provides you and your spouse or partner with the support and guidance of your own lawyers without going to court. Additionally, Collaborative Practice allows you the benefit of divorce coaches, child and financial specialists all working together with you on your team.
In Collaborative Practice, each person, including professionals, commits to:
- Negotiate a mutually acceptable resolution without having courts decide issues.
- Maintain open communication and information sharing.
- Create shared solutions acknowledging the highest priorities of all.
Getting the Other Person to Participate
“I think this is what I want to do, but how do I get the other person to participate?”
Collaboration works best when both parties believe it is the appropriate approach for the family/situation and are willing to work at it. Any team member can provide you with information about Collaborative Practice. You might choose to share the brochures, pamphlets, websites available with your spouse. You can each educate yourselves about the following advantages of the Collaborative Process:
- You two are in control of the outcome keeping both sets of needs and interests central to your settlement.
- You two are best able to recognize a fair settlement and what is best for your children.
- It encourages cooperation rather than conflict, which is less stressful.
- It encourages strong, constructive co-parenting, which will benefit your children.
- You will learn new communication skills that can benefit you in the future, both in this and in other personal and professional relationships.
- You will have the opportunity to redefine your family relationships in a way that works for you.
- You are likely to feel better about yourself and your ex-partner afterwards than if you had engaged in an adversarial conflict.
- Your privacy is better protected if your differences are not aired in Court.
Contact Us
To learn more about how we can assist you with your unique needs, contact us. Celia offers a range of services, tailored to your specific needs, budget and lifestyle. Celia does not go to court.