Divorce is difficult, but not all divorces are created equally. Here in Tampa Bay and Greater Sarasota, more and more people are choosing to resolve their family law issues via the collaborative process. Collaborative divorce is a method of dispute resolution where the spouses agree from the beginning that they are each going to retain attorneys who will work as settlement specialists and who will not engage in court battles.
Hillsborough collaborative family law attorney Adam B. Cordover recently had a Letter to the Editor published in the Tampa Bay Times. The letter addressed the unequal legal status of children of same-sex marriages. You can find the text below:
Marriages still not equalWith the recent Supreme Court decision declaring that same-sex couples have as much right to marry as opposite-sex couples, we may be on the precipice of a renaissance of civil rights and equality not experienced since the 1960s. And just as we no longer classify marriages as being either interracial or segregated, we may soon be in an age when we do not classify marriages as either same-sex or opposite-sex.But in this state, we are not quite there. And this has profound consequences for Florida’s children.There is a strong presumption in Florida family law that a child born during an intact marriage to a husband and wife is presumed to be a child of the marriage, regardless of whether both parties are actually the biological parents. In fact, according to a long line of cases, this presumption of a child’s legitimacy is one of the strongest presumptions known to law and is based on protecting the sanctity of the family and the welfare of the child.
The presumption means that both opposite-sex parents will be placed on the child’s birth certificate, and both will be considered the child’s guardians. Both parents will be able to make decisions concerning the child’s education, health care and general welfare, and the child would have the right to inherit from both parents in the event either dies without a will.
Collaborative divorce has one simple requirement: The spouses must each retain attorneys who focus solely on helping them reach an agreement on all issues. The collaborative attorneys are private problem-solving specialists, and they cannot be used in contested court hearings. This requirement creates a safe, non-adversarial environment so that each spouse knows that the other spouse’s attorney is not attempting to gather information to use against him or her later in court. It also ensures that resources are directed towards helping the clients reach an agreement rather than wasted in opposition research or dirty trial tactics.
There are many different models of collaborative divorce that are used throughout the world. The model that is most frequently used here in Florida involves one neutral facilitator, who generally has a mental health background, and one neutral financial professional. This model was created in Texas by, among others, Linda Solomon, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist.
You can learn more about Linda Solomon and the beginning of this model in the video below from Cutting Edge Law:
In 1990, a Minnesota family law attorney named Stu Webb began promoting what he deemed “Collaborative Law,” or the practice of law separating out trial work and creating negotiation specialists. Collaborative Law is now used in Tampa Bay, throughout Florida, and around the world, as families have realized that they don’t want to be placed in the adversarial proceedings of trial practice for divorce and other personal matters.
On February 14, 1990, Webb wrote a letter to The Honorable A.M. “Sandy” Keith,
a Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, describing Collaborative Law. Below is the text of the letter:
Dear Sandy:
I met you at a party at Steve & Marilyn Erickson’s several years ago. I was interested in your involvement with mediation. I also heard you talk last November at the Conference for Dispute Resolution Practitioners Seminar.
I, too, took Steve and Marilyn’s mediation training and have done mediation, mediation wrap-ups and, generally, have been vitally interested in exploring alternative dispute resolution in all its manifestations.
I think I’ve come up with a new wrinkle that I’d like to share with you. One of the aspects of mediation that I feel is a weakness is that it basically leaves out input by the lawyer at the early stages (sometimes that’s an advantage!). By that I don’t mean adversarial, contentious lawyering, but the analytical, reasoned ability to solve problems and generate creative alternatives and create a positive context for settlement. Of course, these attributes of good lawyering are not utilized greatly in the usual adversarial family law proceeding either.
But you and I have both experienced, I’m sure, those occasional times, occurring usually by accident, when in the course of attempting to negotiate a family law settlement, we find ourselves in a conference with the opposing counsel, and perhaps the respective clients, where the dynamics were such that in a climate of positive energy, creative alternatives were presented. In that context, everyone contributed to a final settlement that satisfied all concerned—and everyone left the conference feeling high energy, good feelings and satisfaction. More than likely, the possibility for a change in the way the parties related to each other in the future may have greatly increased. As a result, the lawyers may also develop a degree of trust between them that might make future dealings more productive. Read more →
The Law Firm of Adam B. Cordover is proud to offer divorce and family law mediation for families throughout the greater Tampa Bay Area. Attorney Adam B. Cordover has successfully completed a 40-hour mediation program sponsored by the Conflict Resolution Collaborative center of the University of South Florida.
In 1969, a Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, published a book in which she described the five stages of grief experienced by terminally-ill patients. This work was later expanded to help explain the emotions of people who have lost a loved one and others experiencing personal loss, such as spouses going through divorce.
Divorce is a trauma, and anyone going through this trauma may be helped by speaking with a counselor or therapist. Additionally, you should consider whether the collaborative family law process may be helpful to your family, as it is a private form of dispute resolution that generally involves a neutral facilitator, who usually has a mental health background. This is in recognition that divorce is not just a legal matter, but also a highly emotional matter.
Regardless, below are the five stages of grief you may experience if you are going through divorce:
On May 29, 2015, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal released its opinion in the matter of Shaw v. Shaw. It determined that Florida should give full faith and credit to a same-sex marriage entered into under the laws of Massachusetts, and that Florida courts have the authority to dissolve the marriage.
This has been a long, tough road, but this is truly a great day for equality.
Keiba Shaw has authorized the release of the following statement:
An uncontested divorce between a man and a woman in Florida can be resolved in as little as a month. That’s just four weeks to dissolve a negative situation that both parties agree needs to end. It doesn’t matter how long they were married or WHERE they were married.
My [soon-to-be] former spouse and I used a next generation process, collaborative divorce, that was designed to resolve conflicts in a manner that was private, non-litigated, peaceful, and respectful. We reached a full agreement on all issues in two meetings that were one week apart.
And yet, because my former spouse and I are both women, my divorce has taken more than a year to be granted and has unnecessarily disrupted my life and that of my family members. The legal complexities have limited my options and the resulting financial burden has made it harder to take care of my family the way I envisioned.
Cynthia Schwarzkopf, daughter of General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr, discusses how she and her husband utilized the collaborative family law process to dissolve her marriage in a video released by the Tampa Bay Collaborative Divorce Group.
You can see the video below the jump:
In June 2014, United Kingdom researchers Anne Barlow, Rosemary Hunter, Janet Smithson, and Jan Ewing published a research paper titled Mapping Paths to Family Justice. The paper was based on research sponsored by the University of Exeter, the University of Kent, and the Economic & Research Council and which compared various forms of private dispute resolution for divorce, including collaborative practice.
As collaborative divorce is relatively new in England and Wales, there were comparatively few respondents for the research, so it may not be representative of all collaborative cases. Nonetheless, it may be helpful for Florida families and collaborative practitioners to review the results.
The study reviews three types of private forms of family dispute resolution. One type, solicitor negotiation, isn’t exactly utilized in Florida as we do not have do not have a distinction between solicitors and barristers, we just have attorneys. Either way, below are the definitions used for each process that was analyzed:
Below are some of the main findings and recommendations on divorces that used the collaborative law process:
When most people think of divorce, they think of a courthouse battle. Florida’s court system pits husband versus wife, mother versus father, and what ensues is many times not too different from divorces depicted in War of the Roses or Kramer vs. Kramer.
But collaborative divorce is something different altogether.
