News

Essex Life | 1 April 2007

David Emmerson
of Family Law Consulting explains a new legal approach to divorce proceedings

A GROUP of pioneering family solicitors across the country are now offering a whole new way of making the break and surviving the aftermath of divorce or relationship breakdown.

It is a sad fact of life that divorce is quite common and the real cost is the personal and emotional turmoil that so often accompanies the end of a relationship. A bad divorce can leave lasting scars, not just on the two main protagonists but on their children and their extended family and support network too.

Resolution is a group of lawyers across the country who commit to adopting a non-confrontational approach to divorce and have encouraged couples to seek shared solutions and to reach agreement. Now, more than 90 per cent of cases involving solicitors who are members of Resolution, actually settle without court battles. The process is still, to a degree, adversarial.

You instruct your solicitor, who talks to your former spouse’s solicitor, and together they come up with a settlement of which the courts would approve. The risk is that you can feel removed from the decisions being taken on your behalf and perhaps left feeling that you wish it had been sorted out differently. After all, when your relationship breaks down, it is the whole you that needs to find a new life, not just the bit of you that needs to sort the money and the child care arrangements. So, you have every right to expect that your voice should be heard and acknowledged.

Imagine a situation in which you sit down, together with your former partner, and your solicitor, and their solicitor, and commit to sorting it out together. You share your hopes, your aspirations, your expectations and even your fears, and the four of you work together to create an agreement with which you will all concur. You emerge from the process ready to get on with the rest of your life without the bitterness and unresolved anger that so often accompanies the divorce process.

This approach is called Collaborative Law and for many couples and their children it is proving the very best way forward.

So how does it work? Firstly, everyone enters into a written agreement not to go to court. Lawyers who practice the collaborative approach have all the technical legal expertise you would expect. Additionally, they have extra training on how to work collaboratively. It does take a special kind of lawyer. They are skilled and compassionate professionals who are not afraid to call in additional help, from mediators or counsellors for example, where the situation demands it.

With your former partner, you set the agenda. You work at a pace at which you feel comfortable. You commit to full disclosure with regard to financial affairs and talk openly about issues that matter to you. You do not feel as if you are being dragged helplessly along a legal conveyor belt. This sends out remarkably positive signals to children who, research has consistently shown, benefit hugely from knowing that their parents are working out their differences together constructively.

It is not an easy option. It requires the right mind-set from
everyone involved. It also may not be cheaper financially, than a well-managed traditional approach, however, for certain couples it is right.