Collaborative Mediation

Collaborative Mediation is a respectful, team-based process for families who want mediation so they can keep decision making in their hands and also legal support to ensure their interests are being met. It is for families who want to stay out of court and conflict and reach practical, fair and durable agreements.

In this process, each person has their own collaboratively trained lawyer, and the lawyers are not there to threaten court, write adversarial letters, or take positional approaches. Instead, everyone commits to a non-court process focused on problem-solving, full disclosure, respectful communication, and resolution. While your lawyer will be looking out for your interests, they will also be concerned about your family and a process that is fair and not full of conflict.

The mediator helps guide the conversations, manage conflict, keep the process balanced, and support both clients in identifying the issues that need to be resolved. The collaboratively trained lawyers provide legal advice to their own clients, help generate options, and work with the team to move the family toward agreement rather than escalation.

Collaborative Mediation may involve joint meetings with both clients, both lawyers, and the mediator. Between meetings, the professionals may work together to organize financial disclosure, prepare support calculations, identify legal issues, and develop proposals for discussion. Where parenting issues are involved, the mediator may help the parents work through a parenting plan while the lawyers assist with financial and legal issues.

The goal is to avoid the conflict, damage, delay, and cost of an adversarial court process. Clients are supported by their own lawyers, but the entire professional team is working toward the same goal: a fair, informed, and workable agreement. The lawyers commit to keeping you out of court and out of conflict.

Collaborative Mediation is designed for families who want:

• A process that stays out of court
• Lawyers who are settlement-focused and collaboratively trained
• No threatening or adversarial correspondence
• Respectful, structured meetings
• Full and transparent financial disclosure
• Creative problem-solving rather than positional bargaining
• Support for both parenting and financial issues
• A written agreement that reflects the decisions reached
• A process that is efficient, timely and focused

Since the lawyers are involved from the beginning there are no delays in getting advice or formalizing your agreement.

The process begins with a conversation with our Intake Coordinator to determine whether Collaborative Mediation is appropriate. If both clients agree to proceed, one of our collaborative mediators is assigned and each person chooses one of the collaboratively trained lawyers who have committed to work with us in this process.

Everyone then signs a Participation Agreement confirming that the purpose of the work is resolution, not litigation. The parties agree not to use the process to prepare for court, and the professionals commit to a respectful, transparent, problem-solving approach. The commitment even extends to them not taking you to court if the process does not resolve as they would then refer you to traditional legal advocates.

You will have two initial meetings – one with your mediator and one with your lawyer.  The mediation intake will be focused on understanding your family history, your needs, your hopes for the process and more information about how you are approaching the issues.  The meeting with your lawyer will go into more details and facts about that history, your income and employment, assets and debt and other related factors.

The team of mediator and lawyers will then meet and share the important family issues, start preparing an Agenda and review whether there is any outstanding information required from each of you to make the first meeting more efficient.  They will also start the preliminary calculations so that they can be shared with both of you at the joint meeting.

Some people may meet with the mediator alone to work on parenting while the lawyers arrange for the financial pieces and disclosure before the joint meeting.

At the joint meeting, the mediator manages the process and all of the professionals help keep the conversation productive and out of conflict. The lawyers support their clients, explain legal principles together, assist with financial and legal analysis, and help develop settlement options. The focus is not on winning against the other person, but on building an agreement that both people can understand, accept, and rely on. Something that feels fair to both. Options will be presented to you as options, not as opposing positions.