As a family lawyer, you may encounter skepticism about collaborative divorce from clients or colleagues. Misinformation can prevent families from accessing a process that often leads to more constructive outcomes. Here, we address common myths you may hear about the collaborative divorce process and how to respond.
Since Collaborative Law came to Texas in 2000, more and more people have heard about it and have used the process to resolve family law matters. As more lawyers, mental health professions and financial professionals have become involved in Collaborative Law, they are telling more and more potential clients about the new option that is available. People are also hearing about it from friends and discovering it on the Internet and occasionally in the news media. Because Collaborative Law is such a new approach, many potential participants naturally have a lot of questions about it. This blog will answer many of those questions over time.
We will begin with a fundamental question most people ask: “Am I a good candidate for Collaborative Law?”
It can be helpful to have a starting place when beginning your “parenting plan writing” process. Gone are the days of assuming that one parent gets every other weekend and Wednesdays. Thankfully, the family law industry is moving in a much more equitable (and healthy) direction.
Here are some common parenting plan schedules that we see in Collaborative Divorce and parenting planning in general.
If you visit the Collaborative Law Institute of Texas’ website, you might notice that when looking up our members, mental health professionals are listed as well as lawyers. That portion of our member roster highlights something important about the collaborative law process: It’s a process that has each participant’s long-term well-being in concern.
In divorce cases involving children, the parties involved typically don’t stop interacting once the divorce is finalized, and the divorce doesn’t necessarily resolve the great number of emotions that can result from two people coming to the realization that they can no longer be a married couple.
When you enter into a Collaborative Law negotiation, you have a lawyer advocating on your behalf, and there’s another lawyer advocating on the other party’s behalf. Meetings involve you, the other party, and the respective lawyers, and the goal is to settle any outstanding issues outside of a courtroom setting.
In the Collaborative Law process, the lawyers involved cannot go to court and litigate against each other or the parties. This accomplishes several things crucial to developing a solution:
In 2001, Texas passed the First Collaborative Law statute in the United States, then after the Collaborative Divorce Process evolved, in 2011, a much more extensive statute was passed. Since the first Collaborative Law statute was passed in Texas in 2001, many other states and the Uniform Laws Commission of the United States (which seeks to make all states’ laws uniform) passed its own Collaborative Law statute. The one shortcoming to that statute, in many people’s opinions, is that it does not have requirements for lawyers to practice Collaborative Divorce.
Here are some suggestions from Collaborative Divorce Texas for picking your lawyer is you want a Collaborative Divorce:
As the “longest year ever” starts to draw to a close, we turn to thoughts of the holidays. The Halloween inflatables have come down, the candy has been eaten (except for that secret stash in the pantry!), and plans are being made for Thanksgiving and beyond. But how to plan and how to celebrate in this year of COVID-19? Extended families are separated by masks and geography. Many of us have experienced unspeakable loss since March, and all of us have dealt with fear, uncertainty, and an unsettling new normal. Some families have been challenged to the breaking point. This has resulted in an increased number of new divorce filings, with many additional families teetering on that possibility.
Do you wish your family was in a better place? Do you fear that these holidays could be the breaking point? Is this your first holiday season in two homes? Honestly, are you struggling with even thinking about the holidays this year?
It’s no secret that a divorce can be tough. There are emotional, financial and legal issues to consider. Before you decide to move forward with your divorce, it’s important to go through a pre-divorce financial checklist. Doing this will make it easier when the time comes to separate your assets and know what you need.
So, what do you really need to do to start on your financial checklist?
Is it time for us to divorce or do we both have one more genuine attempt left in our emotional and / or financial bank? This and so many other questions are best answered when we have a clear head and are able to make sound decisions. So, how is that possible when we’re contemplating divorce while our world is caving in on us?
Collaborative divorce professionals focus on your hope for your family’s future. The intent is to develop a mutually beneficial outcome that is driven by interests or goals as opposed to problems or people. Seek the wise, experienced counsel of one of these professionals to learn your options.
It’s time! Now what and how? I didn’t anticipate what you might call brain fog around the division of my marital estate. I’d worked in personal finance since 1998 and knew my financial world as well as possible. The peace-of-mind I received from having guidance from a clear-headed, unemotional, mentally available, experienced team is the best gift I’ve probably ever given myself.
Divorce is likely an event with which you do not have much or any hands-on experience. This process is one that has options that differ in each state. Counties and courts will even have their individual requirements. Working with a respectful team doesn’t take all of the emotion out of your divorce. It can, however arm you with education, knowledge, and forward looking counsel to help ease the fear, hurt, anger, regret, guilt or whatever emotions with which you will personally struggle.
Divorce is often described as one of the most stressful events of any person’s life, right up there with the death of a loved one. And it is the “death” of a relationship which was initially intended to last a lifetime. Even for the spouse who has decided the relationship should be over, divorce can be extremely stressful. So, how can the stress and emotional damage be decreased?
As soon as you know the relationship is over, whether you wanted it to be or not, you need to begin to accept that fact. The longer you fail to accept the end of the relationship, the more emotional upheaval you will experience, and the longer you will be in grief. Denial is the first phase of the grieving process, so acceptance is the only way to move to the next. Now, this is easier said than done, so you may need to use tip Number Two to get there.
This fictional profile gives insight to the role that a Financial Advisor plays as a neutral in the Collaborative Divorce process.
The Collaborative Divorce process is an alternative process to a traditional courtroom divorce. The process involves the divorcing parties, their legal representatives, a Mental Health Professional and a Financial Professional. The Mental Health and Financial Professionals are neutrals in the process – neither specifically associated with either of the divorcing parties.
The process and outcomes of divorce are always multifaceted and difficult, even in the best of economic times. When a couple divorces, they are divorcing emotionally, socially, legally and of course, financially. Depending on the timing of one’s divorce, these areas of divorce can produce problems that are particularly challenging relative to other times one might divorce.
When a couple chooses to collaborate in the context of a Collaborative Divorce, they are choosing a process that is designed to provide opportunities, including the opportunity to design a financial outcome based on their collective goals and interests. Whether verbalized or not, collaborating couples almost always want an efficient process where the financial outcome is reasonable and acceptable for both. In other words, how can we produce a financial outcome that best meets our collective goals and interests and do so as efficiently as possible? Even in the best of economic times, we know this is not an easy task.
April is “Autism Acceptance Month.” Prior to 2021, this acknowledgement was called “Autism Awareness Month,” but as we have begun to learn more about autism and what it means to be “on the spectrum” of autism, we have learned that being on that spectrum is like a rainbow–there are many variations of abilities and inabilities, challenges and yet special gifts that people on the spectrum bring to our world and the families in which they live.
One Texas Rehabilitation counselor says it best, “When you have met one autistic person, you have met ONE autistic person.” It is called a spectrum because everyone classified in that group is very different. Now, with society’s greater understanding and inclusivity, honoring different gifts rather than ostracizing people with differences, people on the spectrum are finishing college and advanced degrees and following career paths that historically would not have been available to them. One needs only to look at the life of Temple Grandin, Ph.D., and the Emmy, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe winning movie about her life and book, “Thinking in Pictures,” to learn that the possibilities are endless for people on the spectrum.
One of my favorite assignments as a board-certified family lawyer was being chosen by a family court judge to represent a child whose parents were divorcing. The reason the courts appoint attorneys for children whose parents cannot agree on post-divorce care and custodial arrangements, is to protect the children from the worst aspects of their parents’ dispute and to give them a voice in the process. It was a gratifying job, but a frustrating one.
What I heard from practically every one of my clients who were old enough to share their feelings was the plea to “please make my parents stop fighting.” Sounds simple, but it wasn’t. The very system they were embroiled in as an adversarial one – designed to pit people against each other, with the theory that a court could hear both sides and sort everything out to come up with the best solution. As my grandchildren would say: Not! Or at least, not always.
As a Collaborative Divorce Attorney, I have witnessed the sheer agony experienced by those I have served in making the decision to divorce. I have learned just how important it is to finally and fully decide it is the right time to uncouple in the right way.
Whether you are the spouse who is the one leaving or the one left behind, it is essential to attain complete acceptance that there is absolutely nothing left to do to save the marital relationship. Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. If you seek spiritual and marital counseling and pray for reconciliation and the marriage cannot be saved, then you will not be down trodden with guilt and give away the farm or repeatedly file and then dismiss the divorce case and incur avoidable legal expense and stress. Further, if you have not accepted that the divorce filed by your spouse in Texas will happen regardless of your desire or hope for reconciliation, there may be complications. Without acceptance, you may unintentionally sabotage a successful outcome by doubting yourself or question the true motives of your spouse, your lawyer, and the professionals who are trying their best to serve your interests and goals. Often, self-doubt is projected on others.
When it comes time to begin building out your parenting plan, the possible combinations of choices are literally endless. Here are just some of the topics that you’ll need to discuss and agree upon:
As a therapist who has spent the last 12+ years specializing in child therapy and parenting work, I can tell you that I’ve seen all sorts of arrangements and parenting decisions. Most parents I’ve worked with made reasonable decisions about parenting, but ALL parents I’ve worked with have loved their kids deeply.
One of the most common concerns parents have as they approach divorce and separation is this: “What should we tell the kids, and how should we tell them?”
Telling your children that you are separating or getting divorced can cause enormous feelings of guilt and sadness in parents. Parents are also understandably concerned that their kids will feel pain, anger or confusion, and parents often want to shield their children from these feelings. I can certainly understand that.
Now that the difficult decision has been made to divorce, the time has come to find the right attorney who will guide you through the challenges you are about to face. At a minimum, you need this person to have the knowledge and experience to advise you through this new and emotional time in your life. You want to find a person who exhibits the appropriate level of concern and respect for you, and your family, as you work your way through the decisions involved in getting a divorce and beginning the next phase of your life.
You will need to speak with two or three attorneys in order to get a feel for the various styles and personalities that family lawyers possess. You might ask family or friends for recommendations, but, unless they have been through similar circumstances, it is difficult to select an attorney based solely on someone else’s 2nd or 3rd hand impressions.
