The emergence of collaborative law provides an alternative to court-based divorce proceedings and one is tipped to increase as the method of choice for divorcing spouses. A collaborative law divorce involves swapping the courts for the negotiation table and speaking directly with your partner in the presence of both your lawyers.
The idea behind a collaborative divorce is to encourage communication between the two parties in order to arrange a suitable outcome for each of them. This aspect can make the collaborative approach unworkable for some couples, but for the couples that can negotiate directly with each other collaborative law is a very positive, fast and affective way of achieving the desired outcome in your divorce matter.
James Maguire, expert family lawyer, trained collaborative lawyer and a Partner at Manchester law firm DWF LLP, says that despite it being “early days” for collaborative law in Manchester, “the number of practitioners dealing with collaborative law has increased”. This is a positive sign for the collaborative law approach and one that is reflected around the UK. Mr Maguire feels that “a lot of education needs to be undertaken with practitioners and the husband and wife” in order to further increase the use of the collaborative law method.
Resolution is a family law organisation with over 5700 members. They provide ongoing training and support for both collaborative law and mediation based approaches to divorce. They have been an integral part of the collaborative law movement across the UK.
It is not just divorce lawyers undergoing training in collaborative law. The process can also make use of financial experts, specialist family experts and life coaches, all of which are specially trained in collaborative law.
Collaborative training can also have an impact on cases that end up going to court. The collaborative approach enables lawyers to better encourage communication between their client and the other side even if the couple are unable to negotiate in a collaborative law format.
It is predicted that the coming years will see further increase in the public’s understanding and use of collaborative law divorce. With the number of collaboratively trained lawyers already on the increase, Manchester is in a fortunate position to lead this new era of divorce law procedure.
