In part I of keep more of your money in your family; choosing your process wisely I wrote about the well known traditional litigated court based divorce process and mediation. In this issue, I will cover Collaborative Divorce.
Collaborative divorce is an option you and your spouse should thoroughly explore before making any choice about divorce process. It is my belief that you and your spouse should first decide upon process before you ever hire an attorney. You can then match the right attorney to the right process. Just because they are, a divorce attorney does not mean they can be effective and efficient in all processes. In a collaborative divorce , a collaboratively trained attorney through the entire process represents each spouse.
A financial specialist helps couples sort out their financial issues including gathering all the financial data necessary for the divorce decree and presenting it to their respective attorneys in a format that helps attorneys review the numbers more efficiently. Contrast this with you and your spouse providing each of your attorneys the financial data, the two attorneys talking together about the financial data and then going back to you their client to discuss those conversations then going back again to the other attorney to discuss. Let me ask you on just this one basic step in the financial process, do you think you would keep more of your money in your family? Do you want to be paying two attorneys to do this financial data gathering or would you prefer to pay one financial specialist? A financial specialist is the one person who is in the best position to help you keep more of your financial resources in your family throughout the divorce process. They can save you taxes, come up with some creative options, and other ideas that allow both you and your spouse to create the best financial outcome for each of you given your existing resources.
In any divorce with minor children, a parenting plan is created and documented. In the collaborative divorce process, this is usually completed with a child specialist. This person helps parents articulate and document a well thought out plan to co-parent their children. The child specialist meets with the parents and often times meets with the children separately and then with everyone together. This level of attention to the family well-being is not found in other processes. You can of course work with two attorneys or a mediator to come up with a parenting time schedule and perhaps another piece or two of a well thought out plan. What you are not likely to get is a complete parenting plan that increases the likelihood of your children successfully navigating your divorce with you and your spouse.
Also available in the collaborative divorce process is a neutral divorce coach. The divorce coach helps spouses communicate effectively during the divorce process and come up with a plan for post divorce communication and relationship. This can lower conflict, which can decrease costs. If emotions run high at some point during the divorce process, a coach acts to ground you in the areas that are important to you. This enables both you and your spouse, to effectively communicate your needs, interests, and concerns all necessary to produce the higher-level outcome intended to last for a long time.
It is interesting to me that I often hear people say they are concerned about divorce costs when learning about collaborative divorce. Yet the collaborative divorce process minimizes attorney involvement since much of the work with the neutral financial specialist, neutral child specialist, and neutral divorce coach is completed without attorneys present. Attorneys usually are the highest paid professionals in any divorce process and most are not trained in financial issues, child and family systems, or other family relationship dynamics. What attorneys are trained in is the law. So imagine yourself utilizing a divorce process providing you with a menu of professional resources to help you and your family work with specialists in their respective fields and yet always have access to your own attorney who will be your advocate. Of the three processes discussed in this two issue article which do you think will allow you to keep more of your money in your family, traditional litigation, mediation, or collaborative divorce?
Remember to help you keep more of your money in your family choose your process wisely. In Part II of Keep More of Your Money in Your Family, I will write about choosing your attorney wisely.
Getting married sometimes can be expensive if you let it. Getting unmarried can be even more expensive if you and or your spouse allows it to get that way. In divorce, emotions are high and often contribute to higher levels of conflict. Conflict is expensive. Many divorcing couples want to know how they can keep more of their financial resources between themselves and in their family. After all the more that goes to pay for divorce costs means less for each spouse and for their children if they have children. In this upcoming series, I will write about some tips on how to keep more of your financial resources in your family. Here is the first tip:
- Choose your process wisely. Study your options and know what you and your spouse want. I ask divorcing clients what would need to happen in your divorce so you could look back three years from now and say this was a successful transition for your family and you. Paint that picture for me. Be honest with yourself.
- If you want a knock down drag out divorce, you know the Katie bar the door kind or I will show him/her, or I will make him/her pay, a more traditional litigation process certainly fits that bill. Moreover, that bill will be very expensive. On top of that, someone else, a judge, will be making decisions for you since you and your spouse are not able to reach agreements on your own. If you think, you are going to win and be the victor you have already lost because there are no winners in divorce. Most judges tend to think the best outcome if they have to decide your divorce is one when both spouses equally share the pain and both spouses are somewhat dissatisfied.
- You may consider mediation. Most people have heard about mediation. Mediation can be less expensive than a traditional court based process. Mediators however, are not able to provide legal advice. This is true even if the mediator is an attorney. Sometimes couples choose to have their own lawyers present at mediation sessions to overcome the no legal advice dilemma. Mediators, even if they are an attorney are not able to draft/prepare final divorce decree documents. If a mediator helps you reach agreements, you, and your spouse take those agreements to an attorney to draft the final documents and that attorney can only represent one of you, not both spouses. I always encourage my divorcing clients to each have their own attorney when reviewing any final documents resulting from mediation. You may run into one or both of the attorneys encouraging you not to accept the mediated agreements or parts of the agreements. In my practice, I recommend to clients attorneys that I know and have worked with, are settlement oriented, and not inclined to escalate conflict in an already mediated agreement. That is not to say there will not be some tweaks here and there because there always are and for good reason.
A strategy used by some divorcing spouses and their attorneys is to threaten that they will take the other spouse to court. Threatening court is a negotiation strategy in an effort to get the other side to give up or significantly compromise their position(s).
When attorneys use this tactic, they often will prepare for a trial. The trial preparation ends up being extremely expensive and emotionally exhausting for the involved spouses. Often a hatred for the other spouse develops because of trials and/or the threatened use of court.
The reality is a small fraction of divorces end up in trial. The overwhelming reason those cases do end up in trial is because spouses and their attorneys refuse to negotiate. Sometimes a spouse will tell their attorney to go for the throat or they say I want to make him/her pay. It is the divorcing spouses and unfortunately their children, if any, that end up paying the price financially and emotionally. Seeking revenge does not have a place in any divorce process and accompanied by an unwillingness to negotiate in good faith sets up a strategy to fail.
Collaborative divorce on the other hand takes the threatened use of court totally out of the picture. Both spouses are represented by their own collaboratively trained attorney. Spouses and attorneys alike commit in writing not to go to court. Conceptually this enhances the likelihood of reaching agreements by placing the spouses and their attorneys on the same side of the table in an effort to settle on all issues.
Let me ask you which process do you think provides both spouses with a potentially better outcome? Which process do you think you will have the most control over the outcome? Which process will give your children, if any, a better opportunity for future success by creating an effective co-parenting plan? Finally, which process will seek to minimize the stress both emotionally and financially for you and your spouse?
Download this free divorce knowledge kit showing a comparison chart between collaborative divorce and a court-based litigation process, case studies, and general information how a collaborative divorce may benefit you. Additional divorce resources can be found under the about us section at www.integrashieldfinancial.com. Remember to choose your process wisely.
Divorce is unfair in that is often asks people to make some of the most important decisions in their lives at a time when they may be impaired by many emotions, including grief.
Many clients experiencing divorce have described the process as feeling like dealing with a death. It is true that no person dies, and therefore the analogy of death is not perfect, but a marriage dies and some amount of grief would seem quite natural. In addition, grieving the loss of a marriage can be complicated because there is less of a support network. As a culture, we have learned how to help people grieve death. However, the people in your support network may not know how to help you grieve the loss of your marriage, and that can cause them to respond with either anger or avoidance instead.
One of the significant trends in our society is an increased understanding of the role of hospice when someone in approaching death. Hospice occurs after all efforts to preserve life have been exhausted. At that time, the focus of the medical team and support personnel turns away from finding a medical “solution” and toward providing comfort and care and preparation for what lies ahead.
It may seem odd, to think about hospice for a dying marriage, but many of the same principles may apply. If all efforts to save the marriage have been exhausted, it may be best for the legal team, as well as friends and family, to switch to providing comfort, and, perhaps, to finding time to grieve.
Giving divorcing clients time to grieve, and providing resources to help them with the grief, (including options such as coaching, or divorce closure counseling), could help people make better decisions when they are ready to focus on divorce details.
If you are facing divorce, and feel like you need time to grieve, it is important to select a divorce team that understands why this is important, and to fully explore your divorce options so that your emotional health can be taken into account. To learn more, go to www.collaborativelaw.org or www.divorcechoice.com.
Did you wake up today and think to yourself, out of the blue, “I want a divorce.”? Not likely. Often divorce lingers in one’s mind and consumes one’s thoughts more months, even years. Contemplating divorce involves a lengthy process of weighing pros and cons, thinking about life without your spouse, what things will be like for the kids, managing finances, maybe having to go back to work or change jobs to make ends meet on a single income, and many other scenarios. Even once all things have been taken into consideration people sometimes get stuck on bringing it up with their spouse, that alone could take months. Then once they do bring it up, the spouse might convince them to stay and work things out. Months, maybe years later sometimes this cycle begins again.
There are no right or wrong answers when considering how long you should “think” about it before filing for a divorce. Some circumstances beget immediate consideration, while many wish to attempt marriage counseling and other resolutions first. Whatever then length of time that you’ve been considering a divorce, here are some important steps to take before going forward:
- Make copies of federal and state income tax returns from the past five years.
- If you don’t have a credit card in your name, open one up in case of an emergency.
- Establish online access to your joint bank accounts and check the account regularly for any unusual activity, which could include excessive spending or withdrawals.
- If you have a safety deposit box, photograph and inventory the contents.
- Obtain a copy of your credit report to see if you have any liabilities you might be unaware of.
- Obtain a copy of your will and powers of attorney.
- Go for a consultation with a divorce attorney even if you are still unsure if you want a divorce. Knowledge is power.
- Consider seeing a therapist for your own sanity and an unbiased opinion.
- Remember that, “Divorce isn’t such a tragedy… a tragedy is staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.” – quote by Jennifer Weiner, Author.
If you are facing the possibility of a divorce, choosing a divorce lawyer could be one of the most important decisions in your life. Divorce is unfair. It forces you to make some of the most difficult decisions in your life at a time when you might be least able to do so. Having someone you trust to advise you is important.
There are hundreds of lawyers in the Twin Cities with significant experience handling divorce cases. Regardless of what you may think of lawyers (and surveys would suggest that may not be overly positive) lawyers are, for the most part, like the rest of our society. They come in all shapes and sizes, and have varying degrees of skill, honesty and effectiveness. If you work hard and do your homework, you can find one of the really good ones. Perhaps more importantly, you want to the best attorney for you. The key is to know how to investigate and interview so that you find the right fit.
Investigating Lawyers to Interview.
The first step is to find attorneys to interview. The best way to start is to talk with people you know who have had a positive experience with their divorce attorney and find out what it is about their attorney that they liked. The other option is to research the internet carefully, at least to make sure you understand all of the process options available. While it would be reckless to choose an attorney from online information alone, the internet can be an effective way to find someone to interview. It is also a good way to learn about the main process choices that exist in our community; namely traditional representation; mediation and Collaborative Practice.
Once you have found an attorney to interview (or ideally several attorneys), you should contact each attorney (by phone or email) and find out if they charge for the initial consultation. Many family law attorneys will provide consultations for free, or at little charge, in order to give you the opportunity to meet them and learn how they work.
When you do interview the attorneys, do not be afraid to ask them difficult questions to help you determine if they are a good fit for you. Many books include guidance on questions to ask your attorney including, The Collaborative Way to Divorce.
Make sure that each attorney that you interview provides a description of the main process choices described above and make sure they describe their experience and training in each of these areas. Attorneys, like most people, have preferences and biases and their description of the three basic options can be filtered by their own preferences, rather than being based upon actual experience. If, for example, your attorney has not had significant experience in mediation or Collaborative Law, their recommendation may be based on third hand accounts of information or bias, rather than actual expertise. To find attorneys who have experience or expertise in Collaborative Law and mediation, go to www.collaborativelaw.org or www.divorcechoice.com. 
Our last blog post from Daisy Camp discussed ways you can avoid going to trial in a divorce. The last thing anyone wants is to go to trial, but sometimes going to trial is simply unavoidable. The good thing is, less than 5 percent of divorce cases go to trial, but what if you find yourself amongst that 5 percent? What can you expect in a divorce trial?
Judges generally try to help you resolve your case before the trial date, but sometimes that is simply impossible. If, after months, and sometimes even years of negotiations, you and your soon-to-be-ex-spouse still have not reached an agreement, your last recourse is to have a trial. Divorce trials typically do not involve juries, but are held by a judge in the judge’s chamber. The judge reviews volumes of documents, hears evidence from each spouse, your respective divorce attorneys, possibly witnesses, and then come to a decision based on evidence.
Trials can be as short as half a day or as long as several months (although that would probably be unusual for a divorce trial). The length of a trial depends on the number of witnesses, how long each examination takes, and what motions are made during the course of the trial. The emotional and financial costs rapidly add up. Divorces can be very expensive, but divorces that go to trial are even more costly, both financially as well as emotionally.
According to the book “The Collaborative Way to Divorce” by Collaborative Attorneys, Stuart Wells & Ron Ousky, “When divorcing the “traditional way” settlement may only happen only after you or your spouse have been to court on one or more occasion, for temporary hearings, settlement conferences, and so on. Sometimes these cases settle within days or hours before the trial is scheduled to begin – after you and your spouse have already incurred most of the financial and emotional cost of preparing for trial.” In these cases although the trial was avoided, the damage is already done. 
As a collaborative law professional, I work with divorcing couples on out-of-court resolutions that meet big picture goals and interests. It is challenging work that I have dedicated my career to and I strive daily to provide the highest level of service.
As a general practice, I check in with my clients a year or so after the divorce to see how things are going. I genuinely care about my clients and enjoy learning where they are at after a divorce and what accomplishments and challenges they have faced after the transition. While many traditional, court-based divorce attorneys hear from their clients often with post-decree disputes or modifications, I believe if I have done my job most effectively, clients will be prepared to handle most everything that comes up after a divorce on their own. More often than not, the only way I know how my clients are navigating a post-divorce world, is to reach out and ask them.
I recently heard from two former clients.
First, I heard from a spouse who had one of the more challenging financial situations I have dealt with. There was significant debt and substantial expenses (as there often are) and they had shared some unique financial goals regarding their investments and retirements moving forward. They also agreed to share future income in a manner that was unique in the eyes of the law, yet suited their big picture goals. The parents agreed on many parenting issues, but both had personal experiences with bad divorces in their own childhoods, so they were apprehensive and untrusting of the other. They also intended to move out-of-state for the main wage-earner’s work once the children finished the school-year, although there was concern on follow through with this agreement.
I heard from this client that the move happened without a hitch and they have peacefully transitioned into two homes in a new community. The children are thriving with the help of good communication and some family counseling. I heard from my client that “things are better than I expected” and that my client truly believes they are both doing really well. Most importantly, my client was excited to share the accomplishments of the children, yet sharing truthfully some of the difficulties they have had with the transition. This client expressed gratitude for a collaborative divorce process that allowed them to acknowledge the positives in their relationship and preserve what works, while restructuring things for a better future.
My other client had recently navigated his Wife getting remarried. He provided spousal maintenance to his ex-Wife and the decree had contemplated the financial circumstances changing upon remarriage if either spouse requested such a review. My client informed me that despite the decree allowing for a review, he had decided not to do so because he wanted to continue to support his ex-Wife in a financially stable situation for the benefit of his children. Even though he could have likely lessened his obligation, he felt most comfortable with maintaining the status quo and continuing support. Like my other client, he thanked me for providing a process that allowed him the flexibility to decide what feels right but also preserved the respect and caring he shares for his ex-Wife. Indeed, that respect has benefited her greatly as well through the support.
In my years of experience and check-ins with clients, I am continuously impressed by the level of gratitude clients express for the collaborative process. It is a process that creates unique outcomes tailored to each family’s needs and, I believe, results in longer lasting agreements and stronger post-divorce relationships. 
In divorce many people hire attorneys with the hope of receiving what the law entitles them to receive. They focus on their rights and ask their lawyer to help them get what “the law” provides, perhaps believe that this is the best way to protect their interests. Most people don’t realize how focusing on the law and “rights” is setting the bar very low and on occasion, guarantees them that they will need to settle for the very minimum rather than trying to achieve their most important goals.
Divorce laws are created to establish minimum standards for the government to apply if the family cannot come up with a solution on its own. For example, the child support guidelines give you an idea about the minimum amount that would be required for the support of your children if a judge is required to intervene. The property division that your lawyer tells you will be ordered under “the law” merely describes the minimum that the law will compel. The parenting schedule normally describes the minimum times that you must be allowed to see your children. Nevertheless, it is a curious aspect of divorce law that people often start out focusing on those minimums and do not stop to reflect on what might be possible.
Striving for minimums is an unusual way to begin down any path, particularly with something as important as family relationships. Outside of divorce, few of us would ever think that we should provide only the minimum to our family members. We would rarely respond to needs of our children, or our spouse, or a parent or even an aunt or uncle for that matter, and say “what is the very minimum that the law would compel me to do?” To the contrary, faced with these situations outside of divorce, we would be drawn to think in terms of doing the right thing; doing the best we can do under the circumstances. Yet, as soon as we enter the divorce world, we automatically assume this “minimum only” mentality and we hire lawyers to fight over those minimums.
No doubt some you are thinking that divorce is different because you are dealing with an ex spouse and that the rules of conscience and decency should not have the same sway as with a real family member. But is that really how it is?
First of all, if there are children involved, it is difficult to enforce minimums without catching them in the crossfire. Because your children will live in the same house as your former spouse for a significant portion of their lives, there is no way to force your spouse to accept minimums without impacting your children, at least to a degree. In addition, is your spouse, the mother or father of your children, someone who can be immediately relegated to the role of non-relative and allow you to feel a complete indifference to their well-being, (or worse)? No doubt, many divorcing people have found ways to view of their ex spouse in this way. However, most people, once they get past the anger, fear or sadness, admit that they do not hold this complete indifference and, in fact, express real caring, and concern for their ex spouse.
So, how do we shed the “minimums” mentality and approach divorce by setting the bar much higher? It will take more than one blog to cover the many different ways to create better settlements by appealing to higher standards. But here is a start. Go to www.collaborativelaw.org or to www.divorcechoice.com and find a divorce professional who speaks this language. You may be surprised by what is possible. 
Having recently become a grandparent for the first time, I am pondering the future with renewed urgency that my granddaughter’s legacy be one of hope and abundance. As she grows, there is no way to prevent the pain of grief and loss, the challenge of change or the regret of unfulfilled expectations, as major and minor crises are a normal part of our complicated human lives. But I want her to always know she is safe and loved, especially by her parents, as these are the building blocks of her resilience.
Almost always, children experience divorce or breakup as a crisis, a challenging change, a loss. However, as I tell the parents with whom I work, it is possible to keep this crisis from ever becoming a trauma. It is possible to separate or get unmarried in such a way that your children will continue to feel safe and loved by both parents. Selecting a process that enables a divorcing couple to make the transition to effective co-parenting is an investment in their children’s future.
As with other important investments, there is a need to balance potential gain with possible risk. In terms of impact on children, an adversarial divorce has minimum gain and maximum risk. A shorthand equation may be, the greater the court involvement, the greater the risk. In contrast, a process that focuses on respectful problem solving, and eliminates the need for court involvement, such as mediation or Collaborative Practice, has lower risk and potential maximum gain for children. Choosing the right professionals to guide you through the best process for your family can pay huge dividends in your children’s future.