Collaborative Divorce isn’t for every person, or every case, or even every lawyer. However, it is worth considering if some or all of these principles and objectives ring true for you:
a) You want a civilized, respectful resolution of the issues.
b) The relationships you have created during your marriage are important to your future, including friends, extended family, and even your spouse.
c) You and your spouse will continue to parent your children together, and you want the best co-parenting relationship possible.
d) You want to protect your children from the harm associated with a conflicted, litigated divorce between their parents.
e) You have ethical or spiritual beliefs that place a high value on taking personal responsibility for handling conflicts with integrity.
f) You value privacy in your personal affairs and do not want details of your problems to be available in the public court record.
g) You value control and personal decision making and do not want to hand over decisions about restructuring your financial and parenting arrangements to a judge who may not realize what is important about your family.
h) You recognize the restricted range of outcomes and “rough justice” generally available in the public court system, and want a more creative and individualized range of choices available to you and your spouse or partner for resolving your issues.
i) You place as much or more value on your children and the relationships that will exist in your restructured family situation as you place on obtaining the maximum possible amount of money for yourself.
j) You understand that conflict resolution with integrity involves not only achieving your own goals, but also finding a way to achieve the reasonable goals of the other person.
k) You and your spouse will commit your intelligence and energy toward creative problem solving rather than toward recriminations or revenge—fixing the problem rather than fixing blame.
a) You want a civilized, respectful resolution of the issues.
b) The relationships you have created during your marriage are important to your future, including friends, extended family, and even your spouse.
c) You and your spouse will continue to parent your children together, and you want the best co-parenting relationship possible.
d) You want to protect your children from the harm associated with a conflicted, litigated divorce between their parents.
e) You have ethical or spiritual beliefs that place a high value on taking personal responsibility for handling conflicts with integrity.
f) You value privacy in your personal affairs and do not want details of your problems to be available in the public court record.
g) You value control and personal decision making and do not want to hand over decisions about restructuring your financial and parenting arrangements to a judge who may not realize what is important about your family.
h) You recognize the restricted range of outcomes and “rough justice” generally available in the public court system, and want a more creative and individualized range of choices available to you and your spouse or partner for resolving your issues.
i) You place as much or more value on your children and the relationships that will exist in your restructured family situation as you place on obtaining the maximum possible amount of money for yourself.
j) You understand that conflict resolution with integrity involves not only achieving your own goals, but also finding a way to achieve the reasonable goals of the other person.
k) You and your spouse will commit your intelligence and energy toward creative problem solving rather than toward recriminations or revenge—fixing the problem rather than fixing blame.
