Collaborative Law: Where Couples Respectfully Make Decisions Together About Divorce

Divorce is stressful at best. The number of decisions that a couple has to make to untangle their lives from one another is overwhelming, even in the best of circumstances. At Guajardo Khoury Family Law, our founding attorney has been helping couples in Houston get divorced for 25 years.

A cornerstone of Denise Khoury’s practice is ensuring that her clients in and around Houston are fully educated on their rights, options and choices. She is also a certified mediator and regularly practices collaborative law and collaborative divorce.

What Is Collaborative Law?

The collaborative law approach is a methodical, step-by-step process that allows parties to divorce without hearings, discovery, inventories, depositions or a trial. Typically, couples that opt for a collaborative approach also bypass the mediation process.

In a collaborative law divorce, both parties:

• Commit in writing not to go to court
• Agree to and comply with exchanging information fully and honestly
• Agree to respect the most important priorities of each other and their children

Divorcing spouses gather information and work through the various decisions that need to be made. A mental health professional and neutral financial professional help the parties sort through the details at a lower cost than an attorney would change in a traditional divorce case. When joint meetings occur, both parties have attorneys present, along with one or both of the aforementioned experts. An added benefit of involving a financial professional is that they can assist with financial planning for post-divorce life.

Advantages Of A Collaborative Divorce

The collaborative approach allows for civility in legal proceedings, whereby parties can respectfully decide together what is best for their family. Collaborative law also enables you to save time, money and the turmoil commonly associated with divorce. Other benefits include:

• The process is based on civility, respect and an individualized approach, which minimizes the potential for emotional trauma.
• Your children will be buffered and protected from the pain of litigation.
• Both parties take personal responsibility for their conflict resolution, leading to a better co-parenting relationship in the future.
• Both parties are active participants in making progress towards a settlement.
• Issues are resolved organically, fairly, and on your timeline instead of a court’s timeline.
• The collaborative process is confidential, which means that there is no public record of your assets (as there would be in a court proceeding).

In the collaborative law process, both parties have legal representation who guide them through the process ad ensure that their rights are protected. An experienced divorce attorney can help you understand if the facts and circumstances of your situation are conducive to a collaborative divorce. If both spouses are not capable of keeping reasonably open minds and are unwilling to work together to resolve your issues, a collaborative divorce may not work for you.

Streamlining The Divorce Process With Collaborative Law

In addition to avoiding the hostility and conflict inherent in litigation, collaborative law saves divorcing spouses time and money. They don’t need to take time off work to attend hearings; they can schedule according to what is convenient for them. They can save money on attorney fees as they avoid the hassles of discovery. They don’t risk a scenario where they attempt mediation, spending time and money on lawyers, only to have it fail. In addition, costly trials can take months to work their way through the court system. With much less paperwork, lower costs and less potential for emotional damage, a collaborative approach is a good option for those seeking divorce or modification of their decree.

Utilizing Collaborative Law For Post-Divorce Modifications

Whenever a family is transitioning through the divorce process, decisions are made based on the facts at hand. However, as couples separate and go on to start their new lives, circumstances can change. In some cases, these changes are so significant that the divorce decree needs to be modified to adapt to the new conditions. Parties may need to seek a modification of their divorce decree to adapt child custody or parenting time schedules due to a relocating spouse or address child support needs due to a job loss or a child’s changing needs.

Traditionally, the modification of a decree can require several steps and be quite costly. With a collaborative approach, the two parties and their attorneys can work together in a more timely and cost-effective way to come to agreements that accommodate various factors like unemployment, disability, child custody, visitation, child support and maintenance.

Collaborative Law For Same-Sex Couples And LGBTQ Families

For same-sex couples who have never married but want to terminate their relationship, a collaborative approach may be ideal for dividing their shared property and parental responsibilities and deciding financial support issues. For couples who have married, this approach is equally viable as it would be for any couple seeking to have the benefits of utilizing collaborative law to direct their divorce process. The confidentiality inherent in a collaborative divorce, as well as the customized and creative problem-solving methods inherent in the collaborative process, allow LGBTQ families to reach agreements that will be best for their families.

What Happens If The Collaborative Settlement Process Falls Apart?

The primary goal of the collaborative approach is to avoid the difficulties of the traditional, litigation-based approach. In a traditional, litigation-based situation, threats to go to trial are sometimes used as a negotiation mechanism. This is removed entirely by the nature of the collaborative law method. If a settlement cannot be reached, both parties are required to get new attorneys in order to go to court.

In other words, if the four-way settlement process in a collaborative divorce falls apart and one or both parties choose to go to court, both attorneys involved are effectively fired. Therefore, all parties involved have a vested interest in following a path that leads to cooperation and an agreeable settlement of the pertinent issues. The risk is thereby distributed to both parties as well as their attorneys.

Consult A Houston Collaborative Law Attorney Today

Our founding attorney at Guajardo Khoury Family Law is a certified third-party neutral and well-versed in alternative dispute resolution methods, like collaborative law. To schedule a confidential initial consultation, contact us today. You can also reach out to us directly by calling our office at 281-305-6381.