What is the difference between collaborative divorce and divorce mediation?

What is the difference between collaborative divorce and divorce mediation?

Divorce mediation and collaborative divorce are ADRs; Alternate Dispute Resolution models. They're very different; they're similar in that you're not going to a divorce court, but they're very different as models. The mediation model is typically a lawyer or a mediator, and a mediator could be a lawyer or maybe isn't, and that person sits with the divorcing couple. Say if one mediator is speaking to two divorcing parties, and sometimes the divorcing parties go outside of the mediation process to converse separately with a lawyer; that's mediation. Collaboration is a team event, so you may or may not have a mediator, you may or may not have one lawyer or two lawyers; you're going to have coaches, you're going to have a child specialist perhaps, a neutral financial and everybody hears what everybody is saying. The difference is that in collaboration, your neutral financial is probably going to be a certified divorce planner and may have other specialties such as a CPA or a financial planner. Your coaches are generally their therapists who work with divorcing parties in helping them communicate, and then you have the mediator or the lawyers; everybody's got a talent. In the mediation model you're asking one person to wear all those hats; maybe he or she is gifted in some of those areas, probably not all. So, that's the basic difference in the two processes.