Collaborative Practice

Control the process.   Do not let it control you.

Collaborative Practice is a holistic approach to settlement.  Collaborative Practice or Collaborative Divorce offers you and your partner or spouse the support, protection, and guidance of your own lawyers without going to court.  Collaborative Divorce also allows you the benefit of child and financial specialists, divorce coaches and other professionals all working together on your team.  You work with your lawyer to negotiate for the items that matter most to you.  Throughout the process, you and your partner or spouse weigh the options to make decisions about what will happen over the long-term.  Collaborative Practice allows participants to bring in Collaboratively trained professionals in other disciplines to help work through the issues to resolution.  Experts may include:

• Financial Specialists
  

  Financial Specialists act as a neutral party who assists both spouses in gathering all the financial information about the couple or family in a supportive and nurturing environment.  Each client is encouraged to assist in financial disclosure and documentation of the income, expenses, assets, and debts of the family.  The essential shift is from a data focus to a system focus, whereby the financial counselor listens and then helps the clients understand the overall picture created by their particular family's financial situation.  The knowledge gained by the clients through the data collection and documentation can aid each partner in achieving the financial settlement he/she desires.  This professional can also assist with tax planning.

• Divorce coaches
  

  A Divorce coach is a mental health professional, trained to manage a wide variety of emotions and issues that arise during divorce.  Collaborative Divorce Coaches are all licensed mental health professionals (for example, psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists).  Each Coach is experienced in the area of divorce and each Coach receives specialized training in Collaborative Divorce and the Collaborative process.  Divorce coaching is not legal advice and not therapy.  Divorce coaching is not about placing blame, finding fault or dealing with the past.

• Child Specialists
  

  An experienced, licensed therapist with specific education and training in the expected behaviors, stages, challenges and tasks of the development of a child.  The Child Specialist can help in designing a parenting plan that specifically addresses the defined needs of the child(ren) as they go through the restructuring of the family.  The Child Specialist can also work with the child(ren) to address specific emotional and practical day-to-day needs as they relate to the divorce process.

• Other experts
  

  Depending on whether you have a business, significant assets, or other unusual situation, consultations with professionals in various fields of expertise can help you develop creative, cost-effective resolutions to your divorce disputes.

What to expect from your Collaborative Practice lawyer

Collaborative lawyers listen to both parties and understand the dynamic of the family or business as a whole.  We seek to achieve an equitable result.  Almost always, this can mean a more positive outcome for everyone involved at lower cost, both financial and emotional.   By thinking and working outside the traditional litigation model, we often find solutions that maximize resources rather than minimize them.  Collaborative lawyers work toward constructing a new family or business model rather than destroying the old one.

All negotiations take place in four-way conferences between the parties and their attorneys.  Sometimes other Collaborative professionals are also present.   Each party has a Collaborative Practice lawyer at their side throughout the process, providing legal advice and guidance.  Each attorney is committed to guiding the clients toward reasonable resolutions in a safe and contained environment. The attorneys offer guidance, ideas, supervision and experience.  Everyone involved relies upon an atmosphere of cooperation and professionalism.

You should know that in Collaborative Practice, your lawyers cannot represent you in court if the Collaborative process fails to achieve the desired result.  If either party decides to back out of the negotiations, both parties will need to hire new attorneys and start over from scratch.  This caveat provides an additional incentive to engage wholly in the process.  You should also know that most Collaborative matters are successfully resolved.

What types of matters can be resolved through Collaborative Practice?

Collaborative Practice can be used in various types of cases, ranging from family matters to business disputes to inheritance conflict.  Collaborative Practice requires that all parties commit to the process and the Collaborative agreement requires that both parties agree to the following guiding principles:

• All parties will disclose all relevant and pertinent facts and will not hide information.
• Everyone works together in good faith.
• All experts hired jointly will be unbiased and objective.
• If either party opts out of the collaborative process:
• Their Collaborative divorce lawyers are disqualified from representing them at trial.
• What is said in settlement proceedings remains confidential.

How Collaborative Divorce works

When you and your spouse can commit to the following statements, Collaborative Divorce could be the right approach for you:

• I want to work out the financial agreement without a war.
• I intend to make the conscious decision to put our children first.
• I prefer to compromise, instead of submitting to the binding decision of a judge.

Katherine Eisold Miller is an active member of the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals and says,

"Collaborative Practice helps couples divorce in a way that is far healthier for the couple and the children. It saves time, it often saves money and, best of all, it protects everyone from a lot of unnecessary pain and turmoil."

How Collaborative business resolution works

Collaborative practice enables businesses to preserve their relationship with a variety of partners and stakeholders, including vendors, suppliers, distributors, manufacturers, customers, and other parties.  With the help of experts, Collaborative Practice gives you the opportunity to make responsible, financially sound decisions in your negotiations with the other party.

How the Collaborative process works for wills, estates, and trusts

Rights of inheritance are often volatile in nature.  With the help of financial consultants and coaches, if necessary, Collaborative Practice allows each party to acquire the relevant information needed to resolve conflict in ways that endure the long-term and preserve important family relationships.

Collaborative Practice: The better way to move forward

Collaborative Practice attorneys for both sides agree to work together and with their clients to resolve conflicts and reach agreements, with the help of relevant experts.  By reaching consensus with the help of these experts, the agreements made through Collaborative Practice look to the long-term and provide you with solutions that are likely to achieve long-lasting results.

For more information about Collaborative Law, please visit the website of the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals: http://www.nycollaborativeprofessionals.org.

For information specific to your case, contact the law office of Katherine Eisold Miller at 914-738-7765 or email us using our online contact form.