Whenever a potential divorce client comes to my Tampa office, I always make sure to discuss the various process options for dissolving his or her marriage in Florida.
I discuss the litigation option, where the parties battle it out in a courtroom and let a judge decide how to divide their assets and raise their children. I discuss the mediation option, a form of alternative dispute resolution where the parties may resolve the entire dispute themselves, but where the parties and their attorneys always leave the option open of going back into courtroom battle mode.
And I discuss the collaborative option, where the spouses, and their attorneys, agree from the beginning that they are not going to let a judge decide personal, private matters such as who is going to tuck their children into bed at night; rather the spouses and their attorneys are going to act like adults, and respectfully and privately come to an agreement on important issues such as how to raise their children.
One of the most frequent questions I am asked when discussing the different divorce methods is which option is the quickest.
Though the timing of each option depends on the ability of the parties to communicate, among other factors, I have found the following to be true in my practice: All of my Collaborative Divorce cases have been resolved more quickly than any of my litigation or mediation cases.
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