Might you be interested in a collaborative divorce? Attorney Rachel Rust has been involved with the collaborative divorce movement for more than a decade. To help decide if the collaborative approach might work for you, call or text for an appointment at 800-929-1725. Rachel is an Of Counsel Attorney with the Law Firm of Wadler, Perches, Hundl & Kerlick. We have offices in Wharton, Bay City and Fulshear, Texas. We also have offices open by appointment only in Richmond and El Campo.
Summary of What Is Collaborative Divorce
Collaborative divorce or collaborative practice was created by an attorney in Minnesota some years ago and has kind of evolved. I believe it’s been in Texas since the ’80s.
It is more common in the cities than in rural areas. But it is a wonderful way, in my opinion, for families to try to figure out how to dissolve one way of being and create two separate entities, in which kids are going back and forth.
The unique thing about collaborative law is that the attorneys are hired specifically to conduct the case in the collaborative process. It is a practice approved by the Supreme Court of Texas.
Collaborative Practice Attorneys Are Committed to Finding a Fair Solution
The unique feature of collaborative divorce is the commitment to the collaborative process. The attorneys will represent their clients in the negotiation process, but if the negotiations break down and the parties don’t reach a final settlement, those attorneys cannot represent their clients in a litigated matter.
So it’s kind of like all your eggs are in one basket. You’re using all of your efforts to resolve the case and settle it. In most other cases, you kind of have one foot in the settlement box and one foot in the litigation preparation because you don’t know which way it’s going to end up. In collaborative you’re all in about trying to resolve the issues. The collaborative process works like a team, so your attorney and my attorney are helping us try to come to some solution.
It is individualized based on the couple’s values. So at one of the first meetings, you talk about what’s important to you. Where do you want to be at the end of this process? How do you want to get there?
For me to propose a solution then, I’ve got to also take into account how that’s going to affect the other side. It’s a little different for people. It seems kind of unusual, but you can come up with some really creative, wonderful solutions. It’s hard to say “wonderful” about a divorce, but the collaborative process can come up with wonderful ways to kind of reinvent how you’re going to operate as a family.
Divorce Can Have Lasting Effects on Your Children
Where kids are concerned, it is crucial that parents leave themselves in a position after divorce where they can communicate with each other about their child. They need to agree about how they’re going to co-parent.
For the rest of that child’s life, you have to deal with the other parent. If you’ve been through a knockdown, drag out child custody fight, you will hate that other parent more than you hated them at the beginning of the divorce.
The divorce laws in our country are absolutely a win-lose. In order for you to win, you have to tear down the other side, and in order for them to win, they have to tear down you.
So imagine sitting there and watching your former neighbors, your former in-laws, everybody that you’ve known, say every horrible thing you ever did, out of context. Then you do the same thing to your spouse. Then the court says here’s how I’m deciding on this, and you all go in peace and work together raising this child.
Given the win-lose environment in court, that post-divorce peaceful cooperation just doesn’t happen. It’s hard for people to imagine how devastating that situation can be.
Fighting During and After Divorce Is Expensive and Has Lasting Effects
I worked for years as a family counselor, a marriage and family counselor, in an alternative school for troubled kids. To place their children in the school, the parents had to agree to be in counseling. I can’t tell you how many families said to me, “why didn’t my lawyer tell me it would be this bad”? I never would have done my divorce this way.
They would tell me that it was absolutely not worth the extra money and the extra aggravation to fight about everything in the divorce.
Rachel Rust, Attorney
The parents would tell me, “we can’t communicate, we can’t get along, or we can’t do that.” So if parents are trying to find another way to not screw up their kids, they should consider collaborative divorce. Collaborative practice could resolve the issues that have to be resolved, but also leave a pathway for the parents to be able to work together. The parents will be able to cooperate when that cute 10 year old becomes a not so cute 13 year old and not raise a juvenile delinquent.
It’s so important that whatever choice parents make, is one that allows them to cooperate with each other for the sake of the child. Because otherwise a lot of bad things can happen.
Mental Health and Financial Advice Professional Can Be Part of the Collaborative Divorce Team
The settlement negotiations in collaborative practice have the most promise to maintain those critical co-parenting relationships because you can also have a mental health person as part of the team and/or a financial adviser.
The mental health person isn’t doing therapy. It’s not about all people getting divorced are crazy, although my mental health friends would have some adjustment disorder diagnoses for a lot of folks going through that process. It’s about helping people communicate with each other.
The financial person is involved to try to help people figure out how to value things. You can imagine the person who wants to stay in the house wants it to have the lowest value, and the person who want to sell it thinks it has the highest value and how do you fairly come up with a value? How do you split things in a way that leaves everybody as whole as possible?
In order to do a collaborative divorce, you got to hire somebody who’s been collaboratively trained. There are websites that advertise their membership and unlike mediation there is a Texas version and there’s a national version. And so if you Google “Texas collaborative divorce”, you can find a list of folks who have been collaboratively trained. These are attorneys who can guide you through that collaborative process.
Can Collaborative Divorce Work for You?
Call or text 800-929-1725 for an appointment with Rachel. She will help you determine if collaborative divorce might be a good choice for you. You can also send her an email by clicking the button.
