Collaborative Options for Divorcing Families

Sandra M. Rosenbloom, Attorney at Law

"Can collaborative law help me settle my divorce more amicably? How is it different from mediation?"

"Amicable" and "divorce" do not have to be incompatible words. A broken marriage does not have to result in a broken family. If you can work towards cooperation, you will find that the result is always more amicable than litigation.

Collaborative law and mediation are processes that incorporate cooperation. Both also share a common goal: to keep decision-making in the hands of the people who will be most affected by those decisions.

Where collaborative law and mediation differ is by the path each process takes to help the parties reach that goal. Mediation lessens the risk of litigation; the collaborative law process strives to eliminate it.

Attorneys practicing collaborative law are committed to settling marital and family disputes without litigation. Once a couple chooses the collaborative law process, each retains his or her own separate, collaboratively trained attorney. Each attorney then signs a contract binding the attorney from being called as a witness in the case, or representing the client in court for any adversarial reason related to this issue.

Shedding their traditional adversarial roles, the lawyers work with the husband and wife as a team to resolve divorce or child related problems, and to craft a settlement that will be in the best interests of the entire family. The husband and wife, and their respective attorneys, attend settlement negotiation conferences together. When advisable, the "team" may decide to seek outside expert advice from accountants or child or family therapists. Unlike the litigation process, experts are brought on board to help the family, not to help one side against the other. Mediators may also be brought in to work through any impasses that may develop.

Collaboratively trained attorneys can advise and suggest; mediators are ethically bound to do neither. Because of the need for at least one lawyer to draft and file the divorce papers and conclude the case in court (it is important to remember that ethically, one lawyer can only represent one client), divorce mediation does not dispense with the need for lawyers. Occasionally, because legal issues may not be sufficiently addressed during mediation, even after reaching an agreement a couple may have to go back to mediation or even abandon mediation for the traditional adversarial litigation process.

Litigation pits one spouse against the other. It usually leads to divisiveness. Mediation and collaborative law give a divorcing couple a choice "outside the box" of litigation. Having these choices helps divorcing couples feel empowered, not overpowered, by the process. Making these choices gives a husband and wife the opportunity to work cooperatively, and yes, even "amicably" together to end their marriage without ending their family.

Attorney Sandra Rosenbloom assists clients in all matrimonial law matters--such as, collaborative and traditional divorce proceedings, custody, and post-decree modifications--in Cook County and Lake County, Illinois (IL)--including Chicago, Skokie, Northbrook, Northfield, Deerfield, Lake Forest, Highland Park, Glencoe, Wilmette, Winnetka, Evanston, Lake Bluff, Buffalo Grove, Vernon Hills, Gurnee, and Lincolnshire.