Collaborative law

Collaborative law, also known as collaborative practice, divorce or family law, is a legal process enabling couples who have decided to separate or end their marriage to work with their lawyers and, on occasion, other family professionals in order to avoid the uncertain outcome of court and to achieve a settlement that best meets the specific needs of both parties and their children without the underlying threat of litigation. The process allows parties to have a fair settlement. The voluntary process is initiated when the couple signs a contract (a "participation agreement") binding each other to the process and disqualifying their respective lawyer's right to represent either one in any future family-related litigation.

The collaborative process can be used to facilitate a broad range of other family issues, including disputes between parents and the drawing up of pre and post-marital contracts. As the traditional method of drawing up pre-marital contracts is oppositional, many couples prefer to begin their married life with documents drawn up consensually and mutually.

Collaborative law processes also have the added benefit of being cost efficient for the involved parties. As the necessary tasks in the collaborative model are assigned to specialist professionals without duplication of effort, cost savings are realized. These cost efficiencies, in addition to other potential benefits, have led parties in other contexts to explore the use of collaborative law to resolve disputes, including M&A transactions.

The history of the Collaborative Law process is disputed, except that it originated in the Midwestern United States. Although some credit Minnesota lawyer, Stu Webb alone, New Jersey divorce lawyer, Curtis J. Romanowski first introduced the concept in 1988 as "Collaborative Dispute Resolution (CDR)." At the time, Romanowski was based in Kansas City, Missouri, and was providing consulting services in Alternate Dispute Resolution to clients throughout the United States. Stu Webb's model of the process that he started calling "Collaborative Law" in 1990 was based upon the use of a "disqualification agreement," where, in the event the collaborative process failed, both attorneys would have to recuse themselves from further case involvement. Webb's approach also involved the retention of joint experts where indicated.

Although the name "Collaborative Law", or "Collaborative Family Law" in its present form, is believed to have originated circa 1988-1990, the ideas in the family law context, appear to have had a clear antecedent in the concept of "Therapeutic Family Law", as put forward by Canadian-born Chicago family lawyer and writer Nester C. Kohut in the 1960s, as set out in his bookTherapeutic Family Law; a complete guide to marital reconciliation and his later Therapeutic Separation Agreements, ideas that attracted favorable comment in several law journal articles. According to his writings, these are methods that he developed and implemented in his own Chicago family law practice.

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