Family Diplomacy recently received a client testimonial on a case in which the parties used the collaborative divorce process. FLORIDA BAR DISCLAIMER: Please note that every case is different, and you may not receive the same or similar results.
You can find the client testimonial, originally entered on Avvo.com, below the jump.
Collaborative divorce starts out with a pledge by both spouses: We will not fight one another in court. Each spouse hires his and her own attorney, and the two attorneys and two clients sign a participation agreement formalizing the pledge not to fight one another. The attorneys are then barred from filing any contested legal pleadings or appearing in any contested hearings on behalf of the clients.
In the most common collaborative divorce model that we use in Tampa Bay, a neutral facilitator, who generally has a mental health background, is retained to help the clients focus on the future and the issues (such as parenting) that are most important to them rather than the arguments of the past. Additionally, a financial professional is retained to cost-effectively ensure that each has retained sufficient financial disclosure (i.e., trust but verify) and to help them development financial options that are tailored to their family.
Cypress collaborative, a group of experienced collaborative professionals in Washington State, have put together a fantastic video that further explains the collaborative process. You can see the video after the jump.
The Lawyer Magazine has published an article co-authored by collaborative attorneys Adam B. Cordover and Jeremy Gluckman on “A Simplifed Protocol for Collaborative Dissolution.” The article is on page 22 of the Summer 2015 edition of the Lawyer Magazine, which is published and distributed by the Hillsborough County Bar Association.
The article is reproduced below:
One objection that most professionals have heard regarding the collaborative process is that it is too expensive and complicated. Though there are many arguments against this objection, in some cases it is valid. If there are relatively few assets and debts and clients are in general agreement regarding their children, a simplified process may be in order.
What follows is a step-by-step guide to simplify the use of a full team in a collaborative dissolution. This process has been successfully tested in Tampa. It requires more preparation from the professionals and clients than other versions of the full team model; however, it can promote two important goals: (i) speed up the process and (ii) reduce costs to the clients.
Below are simplified protocols for our full team model:
(1) A party meets with a collaboratively trained lawyer where the pros and cons of all processes, including litigation, mediation, and collaborative divorce, are explained.
(2) The attorney provides the party with names of at least three other collaboratively trained lawyers (and perhaps access to membership lists of local collaborative practice groups), who then provides those names to his/her spouse along with materials about the collaborative process. Read more →
Recently, Linda Solomon, a Licensed Professional Counselor, appeared on the Divorce Without Destruction podcast to talk about the unique introductory collaborative training that she and the Lone Star Trainers are putting together for both civil law and family law professionals. The training will take place September 11-12, 2015, at the beautiful St. Petersburg Yacht club in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Attorneys, mental health professionals, financial professionals, and mediators can learn more and sign up here.
For those who don’t know, Linda Solomon is one of the founders of the Neutral Facilitator model of collaborative practice that is most commonly used here in Florida.
You can listen to the podcast after the jump.
I am president of Next Generation Divorce, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and Florida’s largest collaborative practice group. Next Generation Divorce is composed of over 130 members who are attorneys, mental health professionals, and financial professionals dedicated to helping families resolve divorce and family law issues privately and respectfully, through the collaborative process. Next Generation Divorce’s practitioners cover the Greater Tampa Bay area, with offices in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Sarasota, and Manatee Counties.
Members of Next Generation Divorce are also required to register with an umbrella organization, the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (“IACP”). The IACP has over 5,000 members of various disciplines working in at least 27 different countries. And, every year, the IACP puts together a massive conference, the Forum, which helps collaborative professionals refine their skills and learn advance topics in collaborative practice.
Though Donald Trump is getting all of the press these days, it was not too long ago that another divorced billionaire was in the headlines. T. Boone Pickens, the oil magnate and proponent of windfarms and use of natural gas vehicles, also happens to have used the collaborative divorce process to separate from his former spouse. And, according to Pickens, collaborative divorce saved him millions.
From the Dallas Business Journal:
Billionaire T. Boone Pickens is clearly a man who knows a good deal when he sees one.
That’s why he used a collaborative divorce approach in his recent parting of ways from his fourth wife, Madeleine.
Pickens told a room full of lawyers about his experience Friday during a lunchtime panel in Dallas.
The State Bar of Texas didn’t let me into the room for his talk, saying it was a paid, private event, but I was able to grab a couple of comments from Pickens on the way out of the Hotel Palomar.
The collaborative approach saves both money and emotional wear and tear on families, the energy tycoon told me.
“Collaborative law keeps everything on a high level, and everybody cooperating,” Pickens said.
I asked him how much the collaborative approach saved him? Read more →
Tampa, Florida, August 7, 2015: When a person steps into a courthouse to file for divorce, he or she is entering an adversarial system pitting spouse versus spouse. Tampa attorney Adam B. Cordover has seen families publicly tear themselves apart in the court system, and he has decided to do something about it. Cordover will now practice exclusively in out-of-court dispute resolution, with a focus on collaborative divorce, mediation, direct negotiations, and unbundled legal services.
And on July 31, 2015, the fifth anniversary of the establishment of The Law Firm of Adam B. Cordover, P.A., Cordover has changed his firm’s name to reflect this new focus. His firm is now “Family Diplomacy: A Collaborative Law Firm.”
“We have wonderful and caring judges, but they are limited in a system that turns parents into ‘opposing parties’ and attorneys into opposition research experts,” says Cordover, who will no longer appear in contested court hearings. “There are better, private methods, such as collaborative divorce, to help families resolve their differences and still maintain a relationship and their dignity once the divorce is finalized.”
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.
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 →
