Out of Court Solutions
Television promotes the idea that divorce should be a battle and that fighting is a necessary part of divorce. However, most people would rather not have to fight and go to court for their divorce. The uncertainty of what will happen, the cost of the litigation process, the fear and embarrassment of putting your personal life in the public eye, are all reasons people want other options. Many people do not realize that if you do not officially handle your divorce as a Collaborative Divorce, you are in the litigation process. You may eventually settle your case, but there will be costly detours along the way, including court hearings, discovery in the form of written questions sent back and forth between the parties (their attorneys), depositions, mediation, and trial, all of which are costly in both time and money.
The litigation process is a messy, expensive one which breeds mistrust and complicates and duplicates effort and expense. If you go through litigation, a judge you have never met will hear all the details of your case in court and will have control of the outcome of all the issues in your case. In a Collaborative Divorce, you only appear once in court in a very short and discrete presentation of the Agreed Decree of Divorce to the judge for his or her signature. Instead of dragging your personal conflicts into the court, in a Collaborative Divorce the entire process is handled privately, in the offices of the clients’ attorneys, with the clients, who know the most about their case and their children, having the ultimate decision-making power, input and control over their family’s future.