FAQS

1	What are my choices for professional help in my divorce?
2	Can you say more about Collaborative Law?
3	Is Collaborative Law only for divorces?
4	What is the difference between Collaborative Law and mediation?
5	How is Collaborative Law different from the traditional adversarial divorce process?
6	What kind of information and documents are available in the Collaborative Law negotiations?
7	What happens if one side or the other is not completely honest in some way?
8	How do i know whether it is safe for me to work in the Collaborative Law process?
9	Is Collaborative Law the best choice for me?
10	My lawyer says she settles most of her cases. How is Collaborative Law different from what she does
11	Why is Collaborative Law such an effective settlement process?
12	How do i find a Collaborative Lawyer?
13	How do i enlist my spouse/partner in the process?
14	How long will my divorce take if i use Collaborative Law?
15	How expensive is Collaborative Law?

Why is Collaborative Law such an effective settlement process?

Because the collaborative lawyers have a completely different stateof mind about what their job is than traditional lawyers generallybring to their work. Instead of being dedicated to getting thelargest possible piece of the pie for their own client, no matter thehuman or financial cost, collaborative lawyers are dedicated tohelping their clients achieve the best all round settlement for themselves in their post-divorce restructured families. They expectand encourage the highest good-faith problem-solving behaviour fromtheir own clients and themselves, and they stake their own professional integrity on delivering that, in any collaborative representation they participate in. Collaborative lawyers trust oneanother. They still owe a primary allegiance and duty to their own clients, within all mandates of professional responsibility, but theyknow that the only way they can serve the true best interests oftheir clients is to behave with, and demand, the highest integrityfrom themselves, their clients, and the other participants in the collaborative process. Collaborative law offers a greater potential for creative problem solving than does either mediation orlitigation, in that only collaborative law puts two lawyers in the same room pulling in the same direction with both clients to solvethe same list of problems. Lawyers excel at solving problems, but inconventional litigation they generally pull in opposite directions. No matter how good the lawyers may be for their own clients, theycannot succeed as collaborative lawyers unless they also can findsolutions to the other party's problems that both clients findsatisfactory. This is the special characteristic of collaborative law that is found in no other dispute resolution process.