A collaborative practice group out of North Carolina called Separating Together has put together an excellent video that emphasizes that divorce is not only a legal process, but it is also an emotional, logistical, and financial process.
You can see the video below:
We see it in the news and magazines all of the time. Publicly available divorce documents accuse a celebrity of secretly supporting a child born out of wedlock. Sports figures’ assets and judgment become public spectacles. Politicians and their spouses lob accusations at each other for all to see. Businessmen’s private details and dirty laundry end up as front page stories.
Fortunately, your divorce does not need to be in the public eye.
Collaborative divorce is a relatively new concept in Tampa. It is counterintuitive to think that attorneys would promote a concept that keeps divorcing spouses out of court. Further, who would think that attorneys would be willing to take a step back, and allow (i) mental health professionals to take the lead in emotional divorce discussions and (ii) financial professionals to be the point people on the division of assets and debts and other support topics.
And, yet, that is what collaborative lawyers do.
Collaborative practice is growing around the world, including in Brazil. Below is a video in Portuguese that discusses collaborative divorce in Brazil:
Stu Webb is an attorney from Minnesota who one day decided that he no longer wanted to be involved in the destruction of divorce court, and so he created collaborative divorce. Collaborative divorce is a private process where spouses become teammates rather than opposing parties, and attorneys focus on problem-solving rather than fighting.
Oftentimes accountants, psychologists, financial planners, therapists, and others are used to make sure that not just the legal needs, but also the emotional and financial needs of the spouses are met.
Collaborative Divorce has become more common here in Tampa Bay as families and attorneys realize that the court system should be seen as a forum of last resort, rather than first resort, to resolve personal issues.
Now, as it turns out, Stu Webb is not only the founder of collaborative divorce, but he is also an avid fan of Jazz. You can find a short video he helped create comparing collaborative divorce to jazz after the jump.
Collaborative divorce and family law began 25 years ago, in 1990, when a Minnesota attorney named Stu Webb decided that he simply no longer wanted to be part of an adversarial divorce process. He strongly felt that divorce did not belong in the court system: decisions about where children should sleep at night should be made by the parents, and discussions of financial issues should happen around a private conference room table rather than in a public courtroom.
And so, he developed collaborative divorce, where parties agree from the very beginning that their collaborative attorneys cannot be used to fight it out in the court system.
The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals has put out a video commemorating 25 years of collaborative practice. You can find the video below the jump.
Rosemary Barkett, the first female Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court and former federal judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit believes that the court system is not an appropriate place to resolve divorce-related matters.
![[PORTRAIT: Justice Rosemary Barkett]](http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/about/gallery/barkett.jpg)
Below are excerpts from a series of interviews of Justice Barkett conducted between 2006-2009 and recorded as part of the American Bar Association Senior Lawyers Division Women Trailblazers in the Law program:
I recently was at the St. Petersburg studios of Money Talk 1010 AM with fellow attorney Joryn Jenkins to discuss, among other things, how a collaborative divorce tends to make more financial sense then going through the traditional courthouse divorce. The discussion was facilitated by Let’s Talk Law’s Roxanne Wilder and sponsored by Next Generation Divorce.
The radio program begins around the 5:30 mark after the jump below.
I recently had the opportunity to appear on the Let’s Talk Law radio program along with Licensed Mental Health Counselor Linda Peterman. We were introducing collaborative divorce to the Tampa Bay listeners of Money Talk 1010 AM and had a great conversation with host Roxanne Wilder.
Collaborative divorce is a private form of dispute resolution where each spouse retains an attorney. The attorneys only focus on negotiating an agreement, and they are contractually barred from engaging in contested court proceedings. All negotiations are had in a private conference room rather than the public courthouse.
A neutral facilitator, who generally is licensed in a field of mental health, oftentimes helps the spouses focus on what is most important (such as the welfare of the children) rather than the arguments of the past. A neutral financial professional, who has either a financial planning or accounting background, is frequently retained to efficiently ensure full financial transparency and aid the spouses to make the transition from married life to financially independent single life.
You can listen to the radio program, which was sponsored by Next Generation Divorce and aired on September 4, 2015 immediately after the Dave Ramsey Show, after the jump.
While Collaborative Divorce began in the United States in 1990 when Minnesota family law attorney Stu Webb declared that he would no longer take any new litigated cases, it has spread throughout the world to provide spouses with a private, respectful method to separate.
One such place that it has spread is Israel, where a practice group named “L’Hitgaresh B’Shalom” based out of Tel Aviv is teaching Israelis how they can constructively restructure their families. L’Hitgaresh B’Shalom roughly translates as “The Peaceful Divorce,” “To Divorce in Peace,” or “Divorcing Peacefully.” In a region that is oftentimes in the midst of physical battles, it is amazing that there are professionals who are attempting to insulate families from the destruction of court battles.
Lately, as a member of Next Generation Divorce, one of the nation’s largest collaborative practice groups, I have had the opportunity to appear on Money Talk 1010’s Let’s Talk Law program. Those programs will be on the web shortly.
In the meantime, you can find a 60 second commercial on Next Generation Divorce and the collaborative process below.
