An Experienced Family Law Attorney and Mediator

Collaborative Divorce is one of the options for a divorce. Most people are familiar with the adversarial process, which is court, but a Collaborative Divorce is an option that enables couples to divorce without fighting in court. The best way to describe how the Collaborative Divorce process works is the story of the orange. The story of the orange goes like this.

There is one orange and two children. Each child wants the orange. How can we effectively double the orange, so that each child gets what they want? By asking the right questions, we can determine that one child wants the rind of the orange to make icing for cupcakes, while the other child wants the juice. In this way, we can essentially double the orange, so that each child gets what they want. We can do that same thing for families in the Collaborative Divorce process, by asking the right questions.

In a Collaborative Divorce, each spouse has an attorney, so that the spouses have their own advocates to support and advise them in their case, and through a series of joint meetings, the case is resolved without the fighting, animosity, and long-term emotional and financial damage that court can cause. At the first joint meeting, the spouses state what is important to them and their family, such as for the children to have security and stability, for the parties to each have financial security and stability, and for the parties to have a good relationship with the children after the divorce is over. In most cases, the collaborative team includes a financial professional who assists the couple in gathering the financial information about their assets and their debts and helps them develop their post-divorce budget. The other member of the Collaborative Divorce Team is a trained mental health professional – one for each spouse or a shared mental health professional for the couple — but these professionals do not do therapy — rather they help the parties develop their own parenting plan, if they have children, and they coach the parties on communication techniques that will help them keep the process moving–communication breakdowns slow the process down, which ends up costing the parties money. Another member of the Team could be a Child Specialist who brings the voice of each child into the process and serves as a neutral representative of each child’s needs and concerns in the divorce. Instead of fighting in Court, spouses meet with the Collaborative Divorce Team for several approximately two hour meetings to review the financial information and the parenting plan, to develop options for the division of their assets and liabilities, to evaluate those options and to negotiate an agreement that is acceptable to them both. Finally, the attorneys draft the agreement, and once signed, the divorce Judgment is filed with the Court, but no one ever has to go to Court or go in front of a judge for the divorce. The couple and, if they have children, their entire family are less harmed by the divorce process and their future well-being is looked after when they take advantage of Collaborative Divorce.
For More Information about Collaborative Divorce, contact the Law Office of Rebecca Medina at 559-324-5427.