Collaborative Divorce

What is Collaborative Divorce in Colorado?

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I I mean collaborative is a world view

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but it is also a different way of

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proceeding in divorce and in Colorado as

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in Texas and in other states uh it’s

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embodied in our statute so in a

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collaborative divorce you have two

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parties who are willing to undertake

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their divorce come to all their

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agreements before anything is filed to

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the court it requires two

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collaboratively trained attorneys and

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parties who sign an agreement that says

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they will share all information

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collaboratively and they will work with

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joint experts and that they will meet

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together in a series of meetings where

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they will address the issues in their

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divorce usually the meetings being

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broken out into things like what are we

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going to do with the children what are

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we going to do with the house how are we

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going to Value the business how are we

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going to allocate the assets how are we

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going to allocate the debts so parties

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sign an agreement called a collaborative

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agreement ahead of time and they agree

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that they’re going to proceed with this

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process and settle their case and then

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file everything with the court it takes

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takes the pressure off the parties of

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being on the litigation path it has a

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tendency to decrease conflict because we

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provide support for the parties within

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the context of collaborative divorce to

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deal with emotional issues as they arise

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and it has the benefit of ensuring that

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hopefully people will be able to

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co-parent together in the future because

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they haven’t sort of undertaken this

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high conflict litigation path that can

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really disrupt families

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difficulties with the collaborative

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process I think are that if you sign on

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to the collaborative agreement you’re

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agreeing that if one of you decides you

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can’t finish the collaborative divorce

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and you’re just going to go ahead and

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file the case

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then the case automatically drops out of

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collaborative and both collaborative

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attorneys have to be fired and the

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parties will hire at that point new

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litigation Council to move their case

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forward in addition any joint experts

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that were hired during the collaborative

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process uh also have to be fired unless

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both parties agree that they can use

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that work product

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this is I think tough for people to

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comprehend but it does help keep people

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in the collaborative process because

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nobody wants to start their divorce over

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pay new attorneys to get up to speed so

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it makes it feel like everybody has some

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skin in the game and it has a tendency

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to ensure that everybody pushes to get

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the collaborative divorce done it also

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ensures that you don’t have counsel in

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the collaborative process who are really

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strategizing and creating their

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litigation case during the collaborative

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process it’s a very very helpful way to

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run a divorce for certain people some

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people have extremely complex issues

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that judges aren’t going to have the

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time on their docket to be able to

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address some people really have a focus

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on ensuring that they can maintain a

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good relationship going forward and the

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team is really focused on ensuring that

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that is the case so there are times when

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collaborative divorce is really the best

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resolution because litigation can spin

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out of control and it can damage people