Family Attorney
Commentary: Collaborative law can take the sting out of divorce proceedings.
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At some point during a divorce process, there is a four-way meeting of the divorcing parties and their attorneys. In a litigated case, the first in-person four-way meeting might be at a court hearing on a motion or at the pre-trial conference with the judge. This meeting might occur after many negative experiences with the opposing side, including depositions, discovery and correspondence on very painful points. There may be no history of collaborative work between the attorneys on behalf of their parties, and there is no guarantee that this first meeting at the courthouse will be anything but unpleasant. Key to collaborative process In a collaborative law case, the four-way meeting takes place right away. This can change the emotional pitch (and results) of the entire process, which enfolds by a series of four-way meetings between the two divorcing spouses and their collaborative attorneys. The crucial feature of collaborative law is conventionally thought to be the commitment not to litigate the case if the collaborative law process fails. At the inception of a collaborative law case, the parties agree that if the case goes into litigation, they must engage new attorneys and start all over. This is thought to “put the parties’ feet to the fire” in terms of… Source : accessmylibrary.com |
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