Collaborative family law, mediation, and Collaborative Divorce can reduce the negative impact that divorce, paternity issues, and child custody conflicts can have on children and community relationships, and reduce the costs commonly associated with divorce. Collaborative family lawyers provide support to the family as a whole by decreasing tensions while the family changes into a new format and structure.

How to Control the Cost of Your Divorce?

Divorce is expensive in many ways, not just financially. I have been working with families, either advocating for one side or the other in Court, or working with the family with a Collaborative Team in the Collaborative Divorce process, since 2007. I have witnessed the costs of divorce, most of which are hidden and not discussed or considered when entering into a divorce or “uncoupling” of a relationship. Going to Court is very expensive, both financially and emotionally, for everyone involved in the divorce and even those people not directly involved in the Court hearing. Focusing primarily on Collaborative Divorce allows me to help families control the cost of the divorce, financially, emotionally, and energetically.

The most common discussion about the cost of divorce centers around the financial cost of divorce; things like attorney’s fees, alimony, Child Support, property settlement, and dividing bank and retirement accounts. There are other costs of divorce that don’t get as much attention when the story of the divorce is retold for friends and family – those are the hidden costs of divorce, things like the toll divorce takes on your children, your emotions, your health, your energy, your relationships with others, and how divorce can completely interrupt your life. The hidden costs of divorce may be more disruptive and damaging than the financial cost of divorce.

Collaborative Divorce and Family Law takes those hidden costs into account and respects them as a family goes through a divorce or uncoupling. The Collaborative Team (attorneys, divorce coach/child specialist/mental wellness professional, financial professional, etc.) are trained and educated to pay attention to all the costs of divorce, and to help the family pay attention to them as well by keeping interactions non-confrontational and non-adversarial. Collaborative Professionals help keep the focus on the interests of the family and their future rather than spending time, money, and energy in Court and slinging mud at the other side. Collaborative Professionals help control the obvious (financial) and hidden costs of divorce by staying focused on conversations and tasks that help maximize the best possible outcome for all family members.