What is Collaborative Family Law?

by Alisa Peskin-Shepherd | May 20, 2019 | Collaborative Divorce

One of the things I love about Collaborative Family Law is that we get the opportunity to really dig into how we function as people.

It’s like the human side of law.

Looking at our own values as individuals, as professionals, and how that affects our clients, we as professionals come to understand where clients are in the process, where they are with their emotions, and their ability to make decisions. It gives us tremendous insight and supports our ability to get to an outcome.

I told a client the other day,

“Clients don’t know how much work we do on our own time to be good Collaborative Professionals.”

As a newly appointed member of the IACP Diversity & Inclusion Committee, I seek opportunities for education and sharing of information in different communities all the time.

The benefit of immersing in this kind of professional development is that I can learn how other communities run Collaborative Practice differently. There’s not just one way to do it – which is a perfect mirror of the notion that each family that comes to us is unique, with their own needs for their case.

In Collaborative Practice, we have to design a process that works for each family that comes to us. And the outcome is the same – we reach an outcome that works for that family, which might not work for other families.

When a case goes to court, there are certain boxes you have to try to fit into. Collaborative Divorce gives us options outside that box – which ends up being good for everyone involved.