The Value of Collaborative Law for Divorcing Clients

I recently had the opportunity to join some of my family law colleagues from the Florida Collaborative Trainers (lawyer Rosemarie Roth, mental health professional Lana Stern, and financial professional Edward Sachs) for an extended interview on WLRN’s Tropical Currents. It was a fantastic opportunity to talk about Collaborative law with host Bonnie Berman and people who called in with their questions about divorce.

Rosemarie Roth had some excellent points in particular — talking about Collaborative divorce as a transparent process, how Collaborative law has more than a 90 percent success rate in bringing couples to a settlement that they determine themselves, and how Collaborative law creates an atmosphere of civility that begins with lawyers who are working together rather than fighting with each other.

I had the opportunity to talk about the benefits of Collaborative law — that it is the best way to handle family law, that it keeps the process from being destructive, that it creates a paradigm shift in which we think, act, and talk differently than we would in litigation, and how we help people shape their own destinies based on what they value, rather than what a judge values.

We also had the opportunity to talk about how Collaborative law reduces costs through the involvement of a mental health professional and a financial neutral on the team, how the initial meeting helps set the tone for the whole negotiation process, and how parents are able to establish better co-parenting relationships at the outset by going through the Collaborative Process.

I encourage you to listen to it; it’s a great introduction to Collaborative law.