Collaborative Divorce

Collaborative Divorce:
For Family Systems That Need More Support

Divorcing families often face legal uncertainty, financial questions, co-parenting decisions, and challenging emotions such as grief, anger, or fear about what comes next.

The collaborative divorce process is designed to meet those needs through an interdisciplinary team of professionals who are experts in their field and who are committed to helping your family reach resolution with dignity and care. 

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What is Collaborative Divorce?

A “collaborative divorce” follows the Collaborative Law Process, a confidential, out-of-court legal process that relies on an interdisciplinary team of professionals, including mental health, financial, and legal professionals.

Both parties hire collaboratively trained attorneys and sign a Participation Agreement, which commits everyone to working in good faith through a series of private settlement meetings. Depending on your family’s needs, this process may also include mental health professionals, financial neutrals, child specialists, or mediators/facilitators.

Your collaborative team

Collaborative divorce is built around the idea that families benefit from the right support at the right time from the right professional.

Collaborative Attorney

Each spouse hires a collaboratively trained attorney to ensure they fully understand the legal decisions they must make in their divorce. Collaborative attorneys are focused on helping you make informed decisions guided by your goals, needs, and interests. You always maintain a confidential attorney-client privileged relationship with your attorney, and your attorney will endeavor to assist you and your spouse to reach an amicable outcome. Collaborative attorneys are particularly focused on settlement because they sign a disqualification clause, which means if you don’t settle in the collaborative process, they are disqualified from representing you in court later.

Mental Health Coach

Collaborative coaches are mental health professionals specially trained in the collaborative model to help the parties regulate challenging emotions. Some families hire one neutral coach, and others prefer that each spouse has their own coach. Collaborative coaches are invaluable in assisting the spouses and the other professionals to understand the emotional process of divorce and the emotional states of the parties. In turn, the parties communicate more effectively, and the negotiations are more focused and efficient.

Financial Neutral

Divorce involves numerous financial decisions and often creates feelings of financial insecurity. Financial neutrals are financial professionals who make sure you have all of the information you need to make decisions and identify options for creating more post-divorce financial security.

Child Specialist

A child specialist is a mental health professional with special training in child development. When families have special concerns regarding co-parenting and making child development-focused decisions, they can choose to hire a child specialist.

Mediator/Facilitator

Some families in a collaborative divorce find it helpful to have one neutral to help navigate the process and facilitate each step along the way. KCFL professionals utilize their mediation training to serve in this role on some collaborative cases.

  • “Collaborative Divorce” refers to using the Collaborative Process for divorce. The Collaborative Process is an out-of-court process that uses an interdisciplinary team of professionals—legal, mental health, financial—to assist families going through divorce. Both spouses sign a contract, known as a Participation Agreement, committing to meet in good faith negotiations in a series of confidential, out-of-court meetings.  

  • It depends on your family’s needs. At minimum, each spouse usually has their own collaboratively trained attorney. From there, your family may choose to include additional professionals, such as a financial neutral, mental health coach, or child specialist. One of the benefits of collaborative divorce is that your team can be shaped around your family’s specific legal, emotional, financial, and co-parenting needs.

  • Yes, in a collaborative divorce, each spouse typically hires their own attorney. Your attorney helps you understand your legal rights and responsibilities, prepare for meetings, and make informed decisions throughout the process. You still maintain a confidential attorney-client relationship with your lawyer.

  • With the skillful use of the interdisciplinary professional team, we can often make collaborative divorces less expensive than a litigated divorce. In a court-based process, when there are disputes over children or financial issues, often both parties hire their own set of experts creating double the costs of utilizing one neutral in the collaborative process. In addition, by coming together in meetings to discuss difficult topics with your spouse, we can quickly get answers to questions that would require the filing of costly legal pleadings and court appearances in a litigated process.

  • The disqualification clause in the Collaborative Process means that if either spouse decides to go to court, the collaborative attorneys must withdraw and cannot represent either spouse in litigation.

  • No. At KCFL, we serve as either one spouse’s collaborative attorney or as a neutral mediator/facilitator. We then work together with our client, their spouse, and their spouse’s collaborative attorney to assess what other professionals are needed and assist in the selection process.

  • Collaborative meetings either occur in person at one of the professionals’ offices or over zoom. The professional team will work with the couple to maximize efficiency and determine who is needed at different meetings based on the needs of the family. Sometimes there are full team meetings with all professionals and both spouses, and other times, it makes more sense for one or both spouses to meet individually with one neutral professional.