What happens during the collaborative divorce process?
During the collaborative divorce process, we usually start with the team meeting where all of the professionals are at the table with the parties. We want the parties to review and sign the collaborative principles document, and then we want them to make their commitment to the whole team and not to just one of us. At that point, we start developing agendas. Maybe we've got three or four things we want the neutral financial to be working on with the parties. Maybe we need to gather information. Maybe we need to figure out how to pay for this. Maybe we need to start working on support. So we'll develop an agenda for the neutral financial to work with the parties, and while that's happening, maybe we're pursuing a different agenda with the coaches. Maybe we're working on how to communicate. Maybe we're working on how to separate the emotional track from the business track, because in every family law case, even collaborative divorce proceedings, you have two different tracks running. You have the business of the divorce: the beginning, the middle, the end, the steps that are taken. You have the emotional track. You have the death of the relationship. You have the insecurities, the anxieties, the fear, the anger, the hostility. There're a lot of emotions, and people tend to jump tracks. The beauty of the collaborative divorce process is that when I'm working with my client as the collaborative divorce lawyer or mediator and they want to jump tracks and go into the "I'm hurting, I'm feeling resentful, I'm angry, I'm scared", then I can rotate the coach in and defer that issue to somebody who is really skilled, knowledgeable and trained. I'm very well trained at family law and I'm very well trained at mediation and the collaborative divorce process, but I'm not a coach. I have no training in emotional issues other than working with broken marriages and clients divorcing for 33 years. That's not the kind of training that helps me help them through the collaborative divorce process; it helps me understand where they're coming from, but it doesn't give me the tools to give them to help them work out their problems.
