Those who have been through the old-style divorce court may have trouble associating divorce with empathy. This is especially true when it comes to financial issues. And yet, collaborative divorce professionals see families act with kindness and empathy all of the time.
In the video below, Certified Public Accountant and collaborative financial professional Ari Harper discusses a recent case where empathy made all of the difference:
Have you heard the news about the alimony tax deduction? It is going away for divorces finalized after December 31, 2018. But fear not! If you and your spouse act smartly and quickly, you can still lock in your alimony tax deduction.
The alimony tax deduction is currently enshrined in 26 U.S. Code section 215. It states that alimony (as opposed to child support or distribution of property) can be tax deductible to the payor and taxable to the payee. This means that the person who pays alimony will pay less in taxes, and the person who receives alimony will pay taxes on it as if it were regular income.
Today, the American Bar Association releases “Building A Successful Collaborative Family Law Practice,” edited by Forrest (Woody) Mosten and Adam B. Cordover. The book includes experts from around the field in collaborative practice and out-of-court dispute resolution.
Below is a list of the chapters and contributing authors:
Foreword: Nancy Cameron
Prologue: Making Collaborative and Non-Court Practice Your Day Job – Forrest S. Mosten & Adam B. Cordover
Chapter 1: Lawyers as Peacemakers. Really?!? Yes, Really. – David Hoffman
Chapter 2: How Collaborative Practice Will Improve Your Profitability – Robert Merlin
Chapter 3: Redefining Your Practice Signature and Creating a Profitable Peacemaking Practice – Kevin Scudder
Chapter 4: How Many Hats Can You Wear? Assessing If You Can Be a Collaborative Professional and Still Litigate – Carl Michael Rossi
Chapter 5: Being A Client Leader: The Art of Gaining New Collaborative Clients – Rich Grof
Chapter 6: Effectively Marketing Your Collaborative Practice – Gary Direnfeld
Chapter 7: Creating Collaborative Office Space – Zanita Zacks-Gabriel
Chapter 8: Integrating Technology into Your Collaborative Practice – Brian Galbraith
Chapter 9: Getting Buy-In for a Collaborative Approach from the Other Spouse and Attorney – Enid Miller Ponn
Chapter 10: The First Client Meeting: Gateway to a Collaborative Case – Bev Churchill
Building A Successful Collaborative Family Law Practice by Forrest S. Mosten and Adam B. Cordover is now available for pre-order on the American Bar Association website. The book brings together experts in the field of collaborative practice to help professionals learn to make a living while helping families restructure in a better way.
Reviews have already started coming in:
I personally believe Woody Mosten and Adam Cordover have done the Collaborative Practice Community a tremendous service by bringing together this group of respected Collaborative Practitioners to share their experience and expertise. They gathered these voices to speak to the Collaborative Practice and peacemaking world, in an attempt to answer the call of the Community for more Collaborative cases and for a way to stop going to court forever. For those who want to devote their life and practice to changing how families resolve their disputes and to help them move forward in peace, this is the book for you.
Christopher M. Farish, Collaborative Lawyer
Dallas, Texas
President of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals
You have wisely chosen to engage in the collaborative process rather than a more traditional, adversarial process. You—and your spouse—are to be congratulated for choosing a more peaceful path.
One of the cornerstones of the collaborative approach is the use of team meetings. These are the working meetings that include you, your spouse, both attorneys, and any neutral professionals that you have engaged. These meetings are very different from traditional settlement conferences. This handout is designed to help you prepare for your collaborative team meetings.
Collaborative practice is a structured process. We follow a roadmap that has helped thousands of families to resolve their disputes. It can be summed up as the “4 D’s of Resolution:”
Many people decide to enter the collaborative process, but then want to skip right past disclosure and option development. They mistakenly believe that jumping immediately into proposal/counterproposal will save time and money. However, in our experience, skipping the intermediate steps actually ends up costing more time and money because perspectives get entrenched, emotions spike, and the whole process gets derailed. Further, either or both spouses may not yet know what is in the marital pot. As a result, they may leave assets on the table or fail to address an asset or debt. In either case, that may cause a dispute down the line.
If you are looking at your divorce options (from traditional divorce to collaborative divorce to mediation), you may have come across the term “Collaborative Facilitator.” What is a Collaborative Facilitator?
A Collaborative Facilitator is a neutral professional in a collaborative divorce. He or she is oftentimes utilized as a team leader and communication specialist within the collaborative family law process. He or she generally has a background in family dynamics, childhood development, and/or conflict management. A Collaborative Facilitator will have credentials and a license. These will be in the area of marriage and family therapy, mental health counseling, social work, psychology, or psychiatry. However, the Collaborative Facilitator is not engaging in therapy as part of the collaborative process.
Author, psychologist, and collaborative trainer Jeremy S. Gaies, in A Clear and Easy Guide to Collaborative Divorce, discusses the role of the Collaborative Facilitator (which he describes as “coach,” using the nomenclature of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals) in the following excerpt:
Recently, Forrest “Woody” Mosten shared notes from a 1996 meeting he had with fellow innovative family law professionals. In attendance at the meeting were Stu Webb (who created the concept of collaborative family law), Woody, Jody Mosten, Bill Howe, Ed Sherman, Cheryl Woodard, Susan Cameron, Ed Cameron, Carol Farr, Peggy Williams, Hillis Williams, and Lowell Halverson.
You may be considering using the collaborative process to divorce in a more private, amicable way, but you may wonder: “What if my spouse is hiding assets? Can we use the collaborative process? Will it work if there are hidden assets?”
In the video below, California attorney Pauline Tesler, a founder of interdisciplinary collaborative practice and the first president of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, addresses hidden assets:
Divorce is not only stressful and life changing for you, but also for your children. As a parent, you want your children to come out of your divorce as unscathed as possible. How do you ensure that happens?
You are likely more emotional and busier than ever during your divorce process. However, now is the time to stay connected with your children. Spend special time with them doing activities that they enjoy. Check in with their teachers, coaches, and friends to make sure that they are doing okay.
Is divorce on your horizon? If so, are you fearing entering a public adversarial system where husband is pitted against wife, and mother is pitted against father? Fortunately, there are alternatives. One alternative is the collaborative divorce process, where you and your spouse sign a participation agreement that states, among other things, that your attorneys can only be used to help you reach an agreement outside of court. This means that none of you or your attorneys’ time, energy, or billable time goes towards opposition research, motion practice, or costly trial preparation.
The collaborative participation agreement spells out the rules of the collaborative process. Below you will find a sample participation agreement that I oftentimes use in my cases here in Florida. Please note that different professionals and different communities use different participation agreements. Further, the same professional may have different participation agreements depending on the type of matter or the complexity of the matter.
As I have had the fortune to model my participation agreement based on the work of others, I welcome other professionals to modify and adapt the collaborative participation agreement below as their own:
