What is a Collaborative Team?
A Collaborative team is the combination of professionals that you choose to work with to resolve your dispute. It can be simply you and your Collaborative lawyers. In addition to your Collaborative lawyers, you can choose to include a neutral financial professional, divorce coaches, a child specialist or other specialists you and your spouse believe would be helpful. Your "Collaborative team" will guide and support you as problem-solvers, not as adversaries.
What's the Difference Between Collaborative Practice and Mediation?
In mediation, an impartial third party (the mediator) assists the negotiations of both parties and tries to help settle your case. However, the mediator cannot give either of you legal advice or be an advocate for either side. If there are lawyers for each of you, they may or may not be present at the mediation sessions, but if they are not present, then you can consult them between mediation sessions. When there’s an agreement, the mediator prepares a draft of the settlement terms for review and editing by both you and your lawyers.
Collaborative Practice allows you both to have lawyers present during the negotiation process to keep settlement as the top priority. The lawyers, who have training similar to mediators, work with their clients and one another to assure a balanced process that’s positive and productive. When there is agreement, a document is drafted by the lawyers, and reviewed and edited by you both until everyone is satisfied.
Both Collaborative Practice and mediation rely on voluntary, free exchange of information and commitment to resolutions respecting everyone’s shared goals. If mediation doesn’t result in a settlement, you may choose to use your counsel in litigation, if this is what you and your lawyer have agreed. In Collaborative Practice, the lawyers and parties sign an agreement aligning everyone’s interests in resolution. It specifically states that the Collaborative lawyers and other professional team members are disqualified from participating in litigation if the Collaborative process ends without reaching an agreement. Your choice of mediation or Collaborative Practice should be made with professional advice.
What is a Parenting Plan?
A parenting plan is an agreement which sets out the parenting arrangements for your child and can include:
Who a child will live with (“custody”);
The time the child is to spend with each parent (“access”);
How a child will communicate with the other parent;
Arrangements regarding the welfare and future development of the child.
If you and your partner conclude a parenting plan you must be aware that for it to be recognised by a Court it must be in writing, dated and signed by both parties. It must also be made free from any threat, duress or coercion.
A parenting plan is not a legally enforceable agreement and there are other ways to document parenting issues in a legally enforceable manner. We would suggest that you contact us to find out if entering into a parenting plan is appropriate for your circumstances.
When is Mediation Effective?
Generally speaking, mediation can be considered when both parties to a conflict want to retain control over the outcome of their dispute. Both parties need to be prepared to engage in joint problem solving and focus more on the future than on the past.
Mediation is also a requirement before you enter the Court system in disputes in relation to children (called Family Dispute Resolution or “FDR”) and is a requirement along the Court pathway in financial disputes (Court ordered mediation).
Parties at any stage of a dispute can choose mediation quite separately to the Court process.
Is Mediation Right for Me?
To successfully mediate, parties should ideally have:
Some desire to work through the problem
Be able to communicate on some level
Be competent and in control of their actions and behaviour, not violent or under the influence of drugs or alcohol
Be able to follow some degree of structure (both in the mediation process and for the durations of any resulting agreement)