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Collaborative practice is a new practice that's been adopted in Scotland by Family lawyers.
It has only been around for the last six or seven years in Scotland, but the idea is that
it's a resolution process that avoids litigation. The parties sign up to an agreement, which
says that they won't go to court and they won't use the threat of court action when
they're negotiating their settlement. You can use it for any type of family case -- it
can be the breakdown of a relationship, matrimonial claims or child related issues.
One of the key concepts is that everyone deals with things by way of what we call 'four-way
meetings' and that's the two solicitors and the parties concerned in negotiating everything
at the meetings. This can have a good saving in terms of costs. Parties will find, not
having the traditional letters going back and forward between solicitors, it avoids
a lot of the posturing that sometimes characterises these cases and people get right to the nub
of the case. There's even scope also now for people who are known as 'family consultants'
and people might think they are more akin, perhaps, to councillors or therapists, but
what they can assist in doing is getting people over some of the emotional barriers that can
be an obstacle towards getting to the resolution and the more practical side, and they can
assist particularly in relation to child arrangements in relation to children or childcare.
The other beauty of the collaborative process is that they sign up to not going to court
and if either party uses the threat of court, or decides to leave the process to go to court,
both parties, and their solicitors, who have signed up to the agreement as well, have to
withdraw from the process. So they would have to start all over again. What that does is
it tends to keep people in the process.
Everyone is working together towards a shared goal and I think that's the essence of why
collaborative practice, hopefully, is going to be the future of Family Law.
You don't get this situation where there's 'Chinese whispers' in correspondence, where
you can be waiting three weeks for a response.
All too often with the traditional process, parties can find that it is very difficult
to maintain a civilised relationship after divorce. One of the real benefits to Collaborative
Law is it does allow people to engage in a very respectful and civilised way. It allows
them to divorce with integrity and that's very important for wider family and friends
as well, who quite often find themselves having to make a choice between a warring couple.
It's very beneficial. It works beautifully in relation to situations where there are
children, because you can deal with issues, which are arising, there and then with both
parties hearing the other party's version of events straight away and responding to
it with the advice of lawyers. Instead of two people fighting against each other, you
have four heads around the table working together for a solution.
I think if you have got clients who are incurring family problems from the breakdown of their
relationship or in relation to their children, they should take advice as quickly as possible
-- if only to get an idea of how things might pan out in the future if matters were to deteriorate,
and the beauty of dealing with things in a collaborative fashion, or in a non-dispute
fashion, is that you can set the bar for how things might proceed in the future in relation
to how you and your partner resolve your dispute. If both parties approach it in an amicable
fashion from the outset, with the right advisor behind them, then things can be dealt with
very quickly, very smoothly and very amicably and they can walk away talking to each other,
as opposed to a situation where one party launches into a court action too quickly and
perhaps too prematurely and they end up not talking to each other for the rest of their
lives. It's not good for them, it's not good for their esteem and it's not good for their
children. So, if they get the right advice at the outset, it can make all the difference.