Collaborative Law

I have been through the links on my blog and discovered some obsolete and broken ones. One obsolete link was for Collaborative Family Lawyers Scotland which  is now called  Consensus.

For those readers who are new to family separation collaborative law  is a process where separating spouses each choose their own lawyer.  Both spouses and their respective lawyers meet to work out an agreement that can work for the family around the table. The clients and  lawyers sign an agreement that commits the spouses to trying to resolve the issues without going to court and prevents the lawyers from working on the case if the collaborative process breaks down.  Before the round the table meetings  each spouse has  a preliminary meeting  with their own lawyer to discuss what needs to be done and to prepare beforehand.

The advantages of collaborative law is that everyone is committed to finding agreement rather than going to court,  it avoids conflict  so there is no unnecessary damage to long term family relationships and other professionals such as accountants or counsellors can be brought into the process. Because there are no court proceeding the cost are kept down. The disadvantage is if no agreement is reached the spouses have to pay for the collaborative lawyers and then conventional lawyers.