No. Collaborative Practice needn’t cost more than other dispute resolution options and most importantly, you are involved in the process every step of the way so you can see how your costs are being incurred and make decisions about this. How the costs of the process are to be met can be discussed at the first collaborative meeting. If you each provide information in a timely way and cooperate in the process, it will likely be cheaper and quicker than other dispute resolution processes. All professionals charge for their services at different rates. Your Collaborative Professional will explain how they charge and provide you with terms of engagement. Ask your Collaborative Professional to explain how the costs of Collaborative Practice compare with the likely costs of litigation and other dispute resolution processes.

Disputes inevitably involve a level of conflict, high emotion and stress. This needn’t mean Collaborative Process won’t be able to help you. One of the advantages of Collaborative Practice is it can assist to de-escalate conflict and the harmful effects of it upon you and your children. Your collaborative professionals will help you focus on keeping discussions productive and are trained in engendering non-confrontational negotiation. Different views will need to be expressed in order to reach agreement, but you will be supported to do this in a fair, honest and respectful way. Your Collaborative Professional is trained to assess whether your situation is suitable for Collaborative Practice. If he or she thinks it is not suitable, your professional will be able to advise you about other suitable options.

Collaborative Practice may be for you if: you want to avoid the costs and animosity associated with Court proceedings or ‘traditional’ adversarial negotiations through lawyers; you want to resolve issues in a diginified, non acrimonious way; you want an efficient way of resolving your dispute; you want your family to maintain control over decisions about its future, rather than having those decisions made by a third party; you want to be able to make decisions with the benefit of advice and support from suitable experts; you value confidentiality and privacy; you have children and you want to prioritise their future needs and interests; and/or you may have a future, ongoing relationship with the other person which you want to avoid harming.

No. While most professionals often describe the way they work as being collaborative or collegial, they may not be trained and experienced in Collaborative Practice. Collaborative Practice is a specific, out of court, dispute resolution process – as such, your professional advisor needs specific training in how to conduct the process. You should ask your lawyer or other professional when and where they trained in Collaborative Practice and whether they are a current member of Collaborative Resolution NZ. This ensures they have to operate under CRNZ’s practice and ethical guidelines.

Contact a trained Collaborative Professional. You can search for a Collaborative Professional here. The professional will be able to assess whether Collaborative Practice is suitable for your situation and will be able to advise you about all your options and how the process works.

Both of you will need to commit to an agreement which says you will provide full information in an open and transparent way. If you are trying to resolve relationship property issues or do a pre nuptial agreement, the same law and the same requirement for full disclosure applies when you use Collaborative Practice as it would using other options. If you reach agreement using Collaborative Practice and later discover the other party has not disclosed relevant information, then the situation is no different from any other negotiated agreement reached using other dispute resolution processes. If the information would’ve altered the outcome of the agreement, it would be open to you to seek to overturn the agreement. Collaborative Practice will not be suitable for you if you are hoping to avoid giving full disclosure of your finances or if you are wanting to “out manoeuvre” the other party.

If you are separating, Collaborative Practice helps your family transition to the next stage of your family lives as smoothly as possible. If you have children, the process focuses on them and their future as a priority. Any agreement reflects your priorities as a family and is more likely to be realistic and lasting. By being a process that fosters dignity and respect, Collaborative Practice avoids some of the more damaging effects that families often encounter with litigation and the benefits of this will be invaluable long after the process is finished. You will also have a strong template for solving problems that may arise in the future. If you are separating and are having an ongoing relationship with each other, Collaborative Practice supports this and can assist you to create a better foundation to together move into the future upon.

Yes it is. The law applies to Collaborative Practice cases just as it does to cases resolved in Court or in other ways. You have your legal advisors on your Collaborative team to advise you about the legal implications of options you are considering. One benefit of Collaborative Practice is that your professionals are trained to help you identify and explore a wider range of solutions and outcomes that focus on your interests, rather than the narrower range of considerations that can occur with a more traditional legal analysis of your situation.

It is correct that in the uncommon event that you do not reach agreement using Collaborative Practice, you cannot use your collaborative lawyers for any future litigation. This is a very important aspect of the Collaborative Process because it is designed to ensure you feel completely comfortable being open and frank in the meetings without worrying the lawyers may refer to this in later litigation against you. If you did have to go to Court, the use of Collaborative Practice usually will have allowed you to agree on a number of matters which means the issues for the Court’s resolution have been narrowed down.

Not every family will need other professionals to be involved, aside from their legal advisors. However, when the need for input from another professional arises, your collaborative trained lawyers will be able to recommend professionals who are experienced and skilled in their fields and who are committed to the Collaborative way of resolving issues. The process is flexible and how an expert is used is decided and agreed upon by you. It can often work out cheaper to engage these professionals early on as their input can help you reach informed decisions about how to resolve matters. Furthermore, you usually will jointly engage the professional which will be cheaper than each of you engaging an expert which often happens with other dispute resolution processes.

The great thing about Collaborative Practice is that the time your matter takes to resolve is largely in your hands. You, the other party and your advisors schedule meetings to suit the commitments you all have and also having consideration to where you and the other party are at emotionally. Collaborative Practice is usually more efficient than other processes. You don’t have the time delays that can occur when lawyers simply try to resolve matters by exchanging letters. Conventional litigation can takes years to work through the Court process. Usually, a number of Court appearances need to occur which can be delayed by any backlogs the Court may experience.

Collaborative Practice is non adversarial and non litigious. Going to court to resolve your family’s issues can result in you seeing one another as adversaries pitted against one another. This conflict can be emotionally and financially stressful for you and your children. You also run the risk that you lose control over the outcome as a Judge may end up deciding what is to happen for you, your family and your finances. Collaborative Practice empowers you to negotiate in good faith and to achieve an outcome that is mutually agreed upon. It allows you to address emotional issues, focus on your children’s wellbeing and avoid the potentially damaging emotional fallout of litigation. There are times when court proceedings are appropriate and necessary. Your Collaborative Professional is trained to assess your situation and will advise you if this is the case for you.

Usually when lawyers negotiate with one another, it is done through the narrow lens of what your legal “positions” are and what the law says. This may have little or no bearing on what is truly important to you and your family moving forward and can see you both entrenched in different positions, struggling to find a solution. If “middle ground” is found it may not meet your interests. In Collaborative Practice, you will receive legal advice and support but the negotiations all focus on the future interests of you and your family members and finding solutions that meet those. In traditional lawyer negotiations, the threat of Court proceedings looms overhead. In Collaborative Practice, this threat is removed. In traditional lawyer negotiations, the negotiations occur through letters between the lawyers. If meetings are held, the discussions and negotiations are still in the context of adversarial “positions” and with the threat of Court. In Collaborative Practice, there are no lawyers letters. The work in the process occurs in meetings with you directly involved and the discussions centre around creating solutions that meet your future interests. There are times when traditional negotiations through a lawyer are appropriate and necessary. Your Collaborative Professional is trained to assess your situation and will advise you if this is the case for you.