Does my partner need his own lawyer, or can one collaborative lawyer represent both of us?

You each need your own specially trained collaborative lawyer, if you and your partner want the many benefits of collaborative divorce. Traditional lawyers, no matter how friendly or cooperative, lack the special skills and training that your collaborative lawyers can provide.

Note also that in most states, it is a violation of professional ethics for one lawyer to represent both divorcing spouses. But even if your state law permits one lawyer for both of you, that mode of representation is entirely different from a collaborative divorce.

I like the idea of agreeing to hire collaborative lawyers who work only toward a settlement, but why do I have to lose my lawyer if the process breaks down and we have to go to court?

Traditional lawyers are very comfortable with conflict and often see court proceedings as just another way to reach decisions about divorce issues. And traditional lawyers can be impatient about the time it can take divorcing spouses to recover sufficiently from the shock of a failed marriage to be able to focus on divorce issues intelligently. These and other factors explained in our book can cause even very reasonable lawyers to end settlement efforts too soon and take clients to court for costly litigation when the couple could have reached agreements if they had worked with collaborative lawyers.

We know from experience that people feel very much more positive about results they choose themselves as compared to the exact same results ordered by a judge after a trial. In collaborative divorce the two collaborative lawyers keep discussions going as long as they are constructive, and work to keep them that way. They don’t try to persuade you to accept any particular solutions, but they work very skillfully to keep constructive problem-solving alive. Traditional lawyers’ natural impatience to “get it done,” their aggressive focus on the financial bottom line without regard for the collateral damage to the people involved, and their tendency to end discussions and go to court too soon, remain present as risks if the lawyers are allowed to file motions and take issues to trial.

That’s why, paradoxically, you get more, not less, when you retain collaborative lawyers: more focus on understanding the facts, more focus on exploring your concerns, more effort to resolve impasses and reach resolution. When lawyers can go to court, their clients are more likely to end up in court proceedings that could have been avoided with collaborative lawyers.

This entire team will be very expensive, won't it? Lawyers are expensive enough as it is.

Whatever the particular mix of personalities and issues involved in your divorce, you’ll benefit both economically and in terms of quality and lasting power of the solutions if the right mix of professional advice is on tap, as in collaborative divorce. That’s because every divorce involves a complex intertwining of emotional, financial and legal issues that no single professional has the range of skills to address comprehensively.

In collaborative divorce, each team member steps in to provide exactly the kind of professional services that a couple needs at that moment. In addition to having the right specialist working with you, the team members work together in a coordinated way to maximize your ability to achieve the best possible outcome for you and your family. For example, if one of you is frightened or angry, instead of going to the divorce lawyer, you'll spend a few sessions in coaching and then come back to the legal negotiating table much better equipped to think clearly and negotiate for long-term lasting resolution. Without that kind of help, the legal fees tend to escalate but with the right help, you spend only what is needed for the right kind of constructive help to solve the problem.

Another illustration: if one of you thinks the other is hiding money or wasting it you'll spend some time with your neutral financial consultant, who will help both of you sort out what's really going on financially so that when you go back to the collaborative lawyers, you are able to talk realistically about your differences rather than slinging accusations and re-hashing old arguments. If the money issues are emotionally loaded, as many are, coaches will help you sort out and express those feelings so they don't lie simmering just under the surface, where they inevitably get in the way of clear thinking about decisions that will have long term effects.

Most importantly your children will have the help and support of a child specialist so that they have some voice (in the form of input, not decision-making power) in the solutions that so greatly affect their lives. They also will have the support and guidance they need to adjust to the new family arrangements. Divorce is a family event and only collaborative divorce addresses the needs of each member of the family.

When you have the right team member available to help solve the problem, it usually gets solved more quickly and economically and at a higher level of sophistication. You’re less likely to return again and again to court to rehash problems that weren’t really resolved in the first place. That’s why -- paradoxically -- a team generally costs a couple less, not more.

Collaborative Divorce is just like mediation, isn't it?

Collaborative divorce is as different from mediation as a piano solo is from a jazz quartet. In most communities, divorcing couples who choose mediation work with a single neutral mediator and if they have lawyers providing legal advice, that advice and counsel often takes place entirely outside the mediation process. And, many mediators will meet only in joint sessions with you and your partner, not privately with either of you. In mediation, the agenda is usually to help divorcing partners get quickly to a deal they can live with. It's not in any professional’s job description to ensure that each partner has the tools to participate constructively in the negotiations, or to help each of you deal with strong emotions that can cloud good judgment, or to make sure that both partners have a complete understanding of the financial issues, or to ensure that all important concerns and priorities have been fully explored and communicated, or to ensure that the children have a voice and an advocate in the process.

Where the playing field is level, the emotions are under reasonable control, and the commitment to reaching agreement is mutual and serious, couples often can reach resolution using mediation. But no single mediator can possibly provide the rich resources of professional advice, counsel, and guidance that a collaborative divorce team offers, or the targeted skills that can help couples move constructively through rough patches in the divorce.

I want to get my divorce over and done with as soon as possible. Will collaborative divorce be faster than other methods?

Hasty decisions that paper over differences and fail to explore a broad range of possible solutions are not the goal of collaborative divorce. Careful, fully-informed, wise decisions that take into account all the real concerns and interests that both partners and their children may have in connection with the divorce are the goal of collaborative divorce. Your collaborative divorce process will take exactly as much time as you and your partner need to gather and understand the facts, explore concerns and options, and reach deep resolution -- no faster, and no slower. That’s the way to reach decisions that work, decisions that last.

Can we use just one collaborative coach, not two? It would be much cheaper and easier that way.

If you and your spouse are both working with one person, it's not coaching. It's divorce counseling or consulting or mediation. The definition of collaborative divorce coaching is: each partner has his/her own specially trained collaborative divorce coach who provides unique, structured, time-limited, and remarkably effective kind help in communicating clearly about highly emotional divorce-related challenges. Each coach focuses on the needs of one divorcing partner as the intimate relationship ends and a new way of interacting is built. Each coach helps one partner to be the best they can be, both during and after the legal process leading to a divorce decree. Each collaborative divorce coach will work with you alone and in “fourway meetings” with your partner, helping each of you to communicate and cooperate about divorce-related issues at your own “personal best.” For this kind of coaching to work, each partner needs his and her own personal ally to meet with privately and together.

Collaborative coaching is just like marriage counseling, and that didn't work, so why would we want to consider coaching in our divorce?

Marriage counseling (also called marriage therapy, family therapy or counseling, and couples therapy or counseling) is aimed at healing damaged relationships, building or rebuilding intimacy, and bringing couples closer together. The collaborative divorce coaches' role and intention is entirely different.

Divorce coaches work as members of a team with lawyers and a financial specialist to help couples leave a soured intimate relationship with dignity and mutual respect. They help each partner come to terms with ending the intimate relationship, and coach them in how to participate at their personal best as they make complex decisions during a difficult transition. Coaches focus on the future, emphasizing strengths and teaching ways to minimize negative consequences of strong emotions, while helping the partners to be their best in difficult circumstances. Coaches work first individually with their clients and then jointly so both adults can think clearly, communicate better, reach wise decisions that last, and recover from the divorce process more quickly and healthily. This work is aimed at providing the foundation for effective co parenting in the future.

Collaborative divorce coaches work effectively every day with couples just like you, who first attempted marriage counseling and then decided to divorce. People who can't live together can still learn to be good co-parents to their children during and after a divorce. Collaborative divorce coaching makes the divorce less painful, and provides the best possible scenario for protecting children from divorce-related "collateral damage."

My child already has a psychotherapist in connection with this divorce, so we will not need a child specialist, will we?

The child specialist doesn't in any way duplicate the work of a psychotherapist. Your child’s psychotherapist has the job of providing ongoing treatment that will help your child deal with significant emotional challenges. It's great that you have provided this kind of assistance for your child but this therapist's role is entirely different from the role of a child specialist in a collaborative divorce. Your child's psychotherapist usually will not participate in the divorce process and that’s wise because doing so could compromise the therapeutic relationship with your child. Working on divorce issues with the adults is not the child therapist’s proper role.

A child specialist works in a very focused, short term way to help your child understand what is happening in the divorce, and to help your child express his/her concerns and needs about the divorce and the changes in the family structure in a way that is entirely safe and that will be heard. The child specialist also can give reliable information about divorce to your children and answer questions they often are afraid to discuss with a divorcing parent. The child specialist can work with all the children in a family, while your child's psychotherapist probably would not. The child specialist is a trained member of the team and works with the coaches and lawyers to help all participants—you and all your professional helpers -- understand what is really happening in the minds and lives of your children during your divorce. The child specialist reports back to you and your partner during a coaching session, so that both parents can have a facilitated discussion about the needs of their children without either parent having to speak for the children or persuade the other parent about their needs and concerns. The work of the child specialist is divorce-focused and time-limited.

My child is doing just fine after our separation, and my wife and I have already agreed on 50/50 joint custody, so I can't see any reason for any more than the two collaborative lawyers and coaches. We don't need a child specialist, we don't want the kids involved.

Sometimes, parents who are conflict-averse will decide to "divide up" the kids' time this way in order to speed up the divorce process and avoid disagreements. But kids are not loaves of bread, and dividing them up without finding out what might work best from their point of view is a mistake. Asking them directly is a bad idea: it puts them in the position of possibly betraying a parent or appearing to take sides. The child specialist is able to glean information from children about how the divorce looks from their perspective in ways that do not feel like taking sides. When parents are able to hear this information they make much better parenting plans.

Children need at least as much support as their parents during a divorce, if not more, but parents have a lot to deal with as a marriage ends and often are less available to their children than before. This is the major reason for the child specialist in the collaborative divorce process. In our experience, children do much better during and after the divorce when the child specialist is involved.

My husband has already served me with nasty divorce papers and I am worried about our kids in this divorce. Is it too late for Collaborative Divorce?

We can't tell you whether it's too late or not, but you are asking the right question. It's worth the effort to talk with your husband about collaborative divorce if you can. Give him a copy of our book, and ask him to read it and consider whether you all might come out of this better if you choose the collaborative way -- especially your children. Or if you hesitate to communicate with him directly, ask a trusted mutual friend or advisor to intercede and suggest collaborative divorce. Nasty divorce papers often are the result of fear. If your husband knows you want a civilized divorce, he may be interested, too. His reasons for choosing collaborative divorce do not need to be the same as yours.

My husband had a secret affair and I now don't believe a word he says because he has proved himself to be a liar. He wants me to consider Collaborative Divorce. Why should I?

You might want to consider collaborative divorce so that your parting from your husband can be as dignified as possible, and so that your recovery from this painful experience can be facilitated rather than thwarted by the divorce process itself. Coaches can help you communicate your needs, concerns, and feelings so that you can think more clearly and make decisions more effectively. The financial consultant can ensure that you understand the divorce financial realities and, if anything appears fishy, the consultant will alert the collaborative lawyers. The collaborative lawyers will help you focus on constructive solutions that will allow you to move on with your life, rather than tying up your emotional and financial resources in a costly battle that’s really about hurt feelings. The decisions in a collaborative divorce will be made by you, not imposed by a judge who may or may not see things as you do.

Your divorce is a major life passage. You have been betrayed by your husband in ways that have broken the intimate connection but this does not mean that you should allow your wounded feelings to govern how you conduct yourself during the divorce.

If you cannot bear to be in your husband's presence, hiring a traditional lawyer who will insulate you from seeing him during negotiations (though not at trial) may appear attractive in the short run, but with the help of the coach and your collaborative lawyer, face to face meetings that address your real concerns can often result in quicker and more complete recovery from the pain of the breakup than turning over all divorce decisions to professionals. And if you have children, it is essential that you and he be able to communicate well in their interests during and after the divorce. Collaborative divorce can help in all these ways. This is the man you married and the man you will be divorcing. He behaved badly but people in your position are often more able to put the past behind them and move on when they participate in a dignified ending to the relationship.