Collaborative Family Law Archives | Page 4 of 4

May 30, 2013

It occurs to me that just as in the rest of our lives, some of the best things in divorce are free. Here are more than a few free items that I came up with on a recent afternoon. Initial Consultation Most importantly, many atttorneys and other divorce professionals offer free (or low cost) initial consultations to help you understand your options. I enjoy offering free consultations because I can make the most impact on a person’s life by helping them at the very beginning before they waste time and money. General Divorce Information It’s free to keep reading this blog! There are many helpful articles to help guide your decisions. You can learn what is involved in divorce and how to choose professionals to help you with the divorce process. Read my Family Law blog called Always Family Center for free information about many Family Law topics. Learn more about Collaborative Divorce here. Want to look through the statute on divorce to get an overview of the law? It’s available for free here. Go to your local library. They all have a section on divorce and other legal topics. Why not take advantage of the free books at your local library? You already paid for it with your taxes, right! Parenting in Divorce You can view an 8 hour online class for divorcing or separating parents called Parents Forever for free or very little cost provided by the University of Minnesota. Children’s Expenses Here is a link to the Minnesota Department of Human Services publication titled Understanding Child Support: A Handbook for Parents. If you are curious about how the Minnesota Guidelines Child Support Calculator works, that’s available for free here. If you want to look through the statute on child support to get a more in-depth view of the law, it’s available for free here. Budgets Do you want to know what your budget is? Just look at your checkbook or last credit or debit card statement and make a list of the most common expenses. Thinking about moving out and living somewhere else and want to know how much it would cost? For rentals, just look online or make some phone calls from ads in the paper, all for free. Parenting Plans Want to create a great parenting plan? Consult with a Neutral Child Specialist. You can find one here. Look for the area titled “Find a Professional by Profession” and then chose “Child Specialist”. Here is probably the best available court system parenting schedule guide, which happens to be from Arizona (But helpful regardless of where your kids live!). Here’s the Parenting Agreement Worksheet from the Minnesota Court system. Again from Minnesota, here is A Parental Guide to Making Child-Foccused Parenting Time Decisions. Sending an email to your child’s other parent to tell them that you appreciate something about their parenting is free. Picking up the phone and talking with your ex about your child’s upcoming events is free (or nearly free). Want to search for a Collaborative Divorce attorney or financial professional or coach or child specialist? It’s right here on the Minnesota Collaborative Law Institute website.

May 13, 2013

There is such a thing as a Do-It-Yourself Divorce. Not that I recommend it, but it’s out there. As an attorney who focuses on Family Law, Mediation and Collaborative Practice, I discourage this route to end a marriage, mainly because of details that can be missed. My definition of a Do-It-Yourself divorce is one in which you and your spouse are handling the entire legal process without any attorney help. This includes gathering information, making decisions, and completing the legal paperwork and processing that paperwork with the court. This is not something you should be doing without help! Perhaps surprisingly, there are many people who do indeed choose this path: to divorce without the help of an attorney. Especially for those with no children and little to no assets or debts, and likely a shorter marriage, it’s not uncommon. There are free forms available on the Minnesota Supreme Court website that can be printed and used. However, in the following circumstances, clearly an attorney would be helpful: if you have children; significant assets or debts; if you own a house and/or land; if you have been married for many years; if one spouse earns a lot more money than the other. So, after you determine it is a good idea to procure an attorney to ensure the specifics of your divorce, what next? Are you looking for a courtroom battle? No, of course not. Then why not consider a Collaborative Divorce? What is a Collaborative Practice divorce, anyway? The most basic definition requires that both spouses have attorneys and everyone signs an agreement not to go to court. The idea is to settle the matter without ever setting foot in a courthouse. Even in a Collaborative Practice divorce the paperwork would be filed at the courthouse, but the attorneys and the clients would never need to have a hearing or even go to the courthouse. The paperwork would just be filed by mail. Collaborative Practice divorce is an out-of-court settlement process where the attorneys are hired to settle the case and not to go to court and where other neutral professionals often help on the case to provide neutral meeting facilitation, child-focused input or special financial expertise. Collaborative Practice means more than just the technical completion of the divorce process. It means a commitment to settling the case out of court. It means using neutral experts help educate clients about the unique emotional, child-related and financial circumstances of their particular case and to explore potential settlement options. For Collaborative Practice professionals, being a member of the Collaborative Law Institute of Minnesota means regularly participating in additional training above and beyond their underlying professional continuing educational requirements. We do this in order to focus specifically on the client experience and out-of-court negotiation and settlement. As with most things, of course, you get what you pay for. While a do-it-yourself divorce is possible, if instead you are looking for a cost-effective, quality process, take a look at Collaborative Practice divorce. You will be rewarded with a high-quality method that includes professionals that take extra care and training to learn ways to resolve cases outside of court and neutral professionals that will help educate you about your specific circumstances and help you explore your options, all while agreeing not to set foot in a courtroom.

April 24, 2013

Most of us are familiar with the concept of holistic medicine. The importance and interdependence of body, mind and spirit in our overall health is becoming accepted in the world of healing. Less well known, however, is the Collaborative divorce process, which utilizes a holistic approach to help struggling families heal. Collaborative practice uses a team of experts who work with the parents and their children to achieve deeper resolution. Contrary to popular belief, divorce is not just a legal event. As countless couples in the throes of separation can attest, accusations about the past and fears about the future can make constructive conversation impossible. Frustration sets in and one or both parties “lawyer up.” So begins the all-too-often lengthy, unpleasant and expensive process of litigation, during which parents are often discouraged from communicating with one another. Fortunately, another option exists. In Collaborative divorce, both parties have Collaboratively-trained attorneys providing guidance throughout the process. In addition, they jointly use a team of neutral professionals to address their communication, financial, parenting and emotional issues. A series of meetings takes place in which these interdependent issues are discussed and resolved without court involvement. In this way, divorcing parties maintain more control over both the process and the outcome. Integrative medicine uses a team of specialists who communicate with one another to achieve optimum health for the patient. The Collaborative divorce process parallels this model by bringing together a team of divorce experts. This more humane method of dispute resolution can facilitate healing and result in a healthier post-divorce family.

April 22, 2013

I remember about 9 years ago when I needed to make a big life changing decision. I knew I needed to decide whether or not to leave my safe, predictable law position or go and start my own firm, practicing in a way that felt aligned with my values. But there were so many uncertainties about making the change. So I maintained the status quo longer than planned because I needed to get to the place of being ready to take that next step. And sometimes circumstances push us to a place of being ready before we were planning on it. This is what happens when people divorce. Usually, one spouse has been contemplating the idea longer than the other and when they make the decision to move forward with divorce, their spouse is not at the same place of readiness. And when people decide to get a divorce, wanting it over sooner rather than later is what many people want. But paying attention to where your partner is in readiness, can make all the difference between a good divorce and a bad divorce. This is something you have influence over. Giving your spouse a chance to “catch up” and come to terms with the end of the relationship means they will be able to move forward with less resentment, anger and sadness. And those emotions in a divorce do not make for smooth sailing for you or your children. If you want a peaceful divorce, readiness is your first opportunity to begin that process. There are things that you can do to move things forward that you can discuss with your attorney, while your soon-to-be ex catches up, like researching your divorce process options (i.e., Collaborative Divorce, Mediation, etc.), gathering necessary documents, working with a therapist, or exploring separating. But to push them into a process before they are ready, can end up being a disastrous decision. Giving them time, can be the best thing you do for yourself and your family as a whole. This is the difference between being penny-wise and pound-foolish and having a no-court divorce. If I had been forced to start my practice before I was ready, I might have chosen to do a different area of law; not found my great office space; and possibly made unwise financial decisions, rather than practicing Collaborative Family Law (something that I truly enjoy doing) in an office that feels safe and comfortable to my clients. Being ready made all the difference for me.