• To assist you and your spouse/partner to resolve all matters arising out of your separation in a dignified and respectful way for the benefit of the whole family.[top]

• Both you and your partner retain separate specially trained lawyers to assist you in resolving issue without going to court.

• Your collaborative family lawyer acts for you, providing legal advice and guidance throughout the process, but working with your partner and his/her lawyer as part of a team to help achieve settlement.

• You, your partner and your lawyers agree to work together in a respectful, honest and dignified way to try to reach settlement without threatening to go to court. All sign an agreement disqualifying your collaborative lawyers from representing you at court if the collaborative process breaks down. Neither of the lawyers, nor their respective firms can then act for you, although they would still be bound by confidentiality about the negotiations. You would need to instruct new lawyers to proceed to court.

• Issues are discussed and hopefully resolved in ‘4 way’ face-to-face meetings between you, your partner and your lawyers. Settlement discussions take place in your presence, which helps you and your partner to remain in charge of the process. The process thereby helps improve future communication, particularly important when you have children.

• You and your partner have a duty of full and frank disclosure – all information and documents are provided within the process.

• Correspondence between lawyers is discouraged, thereby keeping costs and acrimony to a minimum.

• Discussions focus on the needs and interests of you, your partner and the children.

• Meetings are arranged at the start of the process without you having to wait for court dates. Provided all the participants enter the process in good faith, the process is faster, cheaper and less acrimonious that court proceedings to reach a resolution.

• You and the lawyers can work as part of a group of professionals, including counsellors, mediators and child and financial specialists to draw on the skills of other professionals to assist you and your partner in the process.

• For issues requiring expert opinions (for example an accountant to give tax advice or value a business) the collaborative team will normally jointly instruct independent consultants.[top]

Collaborative family law is not for every client or indeed every lawyer but it is worth considering if any of the following are important for you: -

• You want a dignified non-aggressive resolution of the issues.

• You and your partner have children and wish to reach a resolution by agreement with their needs and interests at the forefront.

• You do not wish to incur the costs and animosity generated by court litigation.

• You would like to keep open the possibility of friendship or a relationship with your partner in the future.

• You and your partner have extended family and a number of friends to whom you would both wish to remain in contact in the future.

• You value retaining control over decisions about restructuring your financial arrangements or arrangements in relation to the children but with advice from experts.

• You do not wish to "hand over" such decision making to either your lawyer or a complete stranger (a judge).

• Your main aim in the process is not to "seek revenge" on your partner

• You need the assistance of a lawyer to help you negotiate in face-to-face meetings.[top]

• In mediation the mediator is prohibited from giving either of you legal advice and cannot assist you in advocating your position. A mediator is neutral.

• The mediator is there to facilitate you and your partner and has a duty to advise you each to take separate legal advice, either during the process or after.

• Any settlement discussed during mediation is only binding once each of you have had the opportunity of taking separate legal advice and have transferred the agreement into a separate consent order of the court. The mediator cannot prepare the court documents for you nor finalise the court process.

• Provided agreement is reached your collaborative lawyer can act for you in the divorce and prepare the court papers to obtain the consent order.

• Lawyers are rarely present during the mediation sessions and their advice may be given too late in the process.

• In collaborative family law, you each have your own lawyer throughout the process advising you and advocating on your behalf. If you or your partner lack negotiation skills or financial understanding or feel vulnerable when in the sole presence of the other party, collaborative family law could still be preferable to mediation.

• Mediators may still have a role in the collaborative process if you and your partner wish to consult a mediator regarding an issue.[top]

• You and your partner must sign a binding agreement to provide full and frank disclosure of all documents and information that relate to the issue, entirely and early on in the process.

• The same duty of disclosure exists whatever model you choose to resolve your difficulties. To assist you, your partner and your future non-collaborative lawyers should agreement not be reached in the collaborative family law process, disclosure can be in the same form as in the court process.[top]

• This can of course happen as it does in mediation and in conventional legal representation. Under the terms of the collaborative agreement, the lawyer must withdraw from acting for their client is he/she has withheld or misrepresented information intentionally or is participating in the process in bad faith. Likewise it is open to your collaborative family lawyer to advise you to withdraw from the process if they do not consider that your partner (or indeed their lawyer) is keeping to the terms of the agreement.

• If you consider that your partner is unlikely to be honest during the collaborative process, is likely to lie about his or her financial affairs, then collaborative family law is unlikely to be a good choice for you.[top]

• The settlement agreement reached during the collaborative family law process is no different from any other negotiated settlement. If the outcome of the settlement would have been different if such information had been made available then it is open to you to seek to overturn the agreement, even if it has been made into a court order.[top]

• The reason that collaborative family law has been successful and developed (in other jurisdictions) is the fact that the lawyers are disqualified from acting for the clients should collaboration fail. The disqualification agreement means that all the parties, including the lawyers and clients, are attempting to achieve settlement without threatening or being subject to the threat of court proceedings when things become difficult.

• You are collaborating without the background of potential court litigation, and lawyers are encouraged to work together in assisting you to reach settlement.

• By agreeing at the outset not to go to court, you, your partner and the lawyers can be encouraged to reach creative settlements, having of course regard to the legal position but having you and your family’s particular interest at the forefront of any settlement proposals.[top]