Family Law: Collaborative Law
The Family Law Practice Group at the firm offers Collaborative Law as a dispute resolution alternative in family law matters, along with the more traditional negotiation and litigation alternatives.
Mary S. Pence, Jonathan M. Dana and Sarah Zimmerman are founding members of the Collaborative Law Alliance of D.C. and are active participants in and advocates of Collaborative Law. Mary Pence is also the chairperson of the Collaborative Law Committee of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers ("AAML").
Collaborative Law has been found to be particularly appropriate when used in domestic relations matters where sensitive issues involving children's well-being and the parties' interests after the divorce are involved. As the name suggests, the essence of Collaborative Law is the shared belief that it is in the best interests of the parties to commit themselves to resolving their differences in a collaborative fashion with minimal conflict. While fostering that collaborative spirit, the attorneys nonetheless act as advisor and advocate for their clients.
While Collaborative Law is not appropriate for every case, it is worth considering if:
(a) You want a civilized, respectful resolution of the issues in your case.
(b) You would like to keep open the possibility of friendship with your partner down the road.
(c) You and your partner will be co-parenting children together and you want the best coparenting relationship possible.
(d) You want to protect your children from the harm associated with litigated dispute resolution between parents.
(e) You and your partner have a circle of friends or extended family in common that you both want to remain connected to.
(f) You have ethical or spiritual beliefs that place high value on taking personal responsibility for handling conflicts with integrity.
(g) You value privacy in your personal affairs and do not want details of your problems to be available in the public court record.
(h) You value control and autonomous decision making and do not want to hand over decisions about restructuring your financial and/or child rearing arrangements to a stranger (i.e., a judge.)
(i) You recognize the restricted range of outcomes and "rough justice" generally available in the public court system, and want a more creative and individualized range of choices available to you and your spouse or partner for resolving your issues.
(j) You place as much or more value on the relationships that will exist in your restructured family situation as you place on obtaining the maximum possible amount of money for yourself.
(k) You understand that conflict resolution with integrity involves not only achieving your own goals but finding a way to achieve the reasonable goals of the other person.
(l) You and your spouse will commit your intelligence and energy toward creative problem solving rather than toward recriminations or revenge-fixing the problem rather than fixing blame.
More information can be obtained from Mary Pence, Jonathan Dana, or Sarah Zimmerman and from the website of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, http://www.collaborativepractice.com.
