The collaborative process can help you and your ex reach agreement about financial matters or children’s arrangements whilst retaining your own team of professionals.
What is the collaborative process?
Under the collaborative process, each person appoints their own collaboratively trained lawyer and you and your respective lawyers all meet together to work things out face to face. Both of you will have your lawyer by your side throughout the process and so you will have their support and legal advice as you go.
Besides your lawyer, you will have the opportunity to work with an independent financial advisor, a family consultant, a child specialist or an accountant, who will provide you with specialist help regarding financial matters and those concerning children, parenting, communication and emotional support if and when you need it. All these professionals will collectively make up your collaborative team.
You and your team sign an agreement that commits you to trying to resolve the issues without going to court and prevents them from representing you in court if the collaborative process breaks down. This means that everyone is absolutely committed to finding the best solutions by agreement, rather than through court proceedings.
How long does the collaborative process take?
One of the benefits of the collaborative process is that it’s not driven by a timetable imposed by the court. So to a large extent the process can be built around your family’s individual timetable and priorities, as these meetings follow agendas set by you and your partner.
Sometimes only a couple of meetings are needed, in other cases four or five. Once an agreement is reached, your lawyers will put it into effect, obtaining a court order where needed.