New Advantages of Collaborative Divorce in the Covid-19 Crisis

There are lots of reasons to like Collaborative Law: privacy, confidentiality, safe environment, expert help, equality between the parties, control over the timing, control over the outcome, less stress and more creative solutions, among other things.

While I am already a Collaborative Divorce proponent, the Covid-19 pandemic has created conditions that show some new values from using the Collaborative process.

Here are some ideas to think about:

1. The Collaborative process gets around the backup at the courthouse.  With Collaborative, people can immediately begin meetings and working on their cases, making interim decisions as needed.  It won't matter to them how crowded the courts are.

Contrast that with the litigation situation. Our courts will not open until at least June 1. When they re-open, they will have been closed for 2 1/2 months. The floodgates will open June 1 when the courthouse opens. We will have cases that started during the closure and additional ones that are filed in June. There may be more filings than usual in June and July if people have gotten as tired of each other as it appears they have. The backup could last for months.

2. Collaborative cases tend to involve more creative, less standard, solutions.  Our economy is really in bad shape and that affects a lot of the issues in divorces. We have had unusually sudden and severe problems. Business values change. Income changes. People lose their jobs. Under those circumstances, standard solutions don't always make a lot of sense. It makes more sense to base the decisions on the needs, abilities and interests of the parties, rather than just an arbitrary percentage or standard solution.

3. Collaborative Divorce allows the parties to address their real fears and concerns. We negotiate based on the actual needs of the parties instead of taking extreme positions to begin bargaining, expecting to meet in the middle. And the middle often is nowhere near what each party really wants or needs.  In Collaborative cases, we don't insist on standard guidelines or solutions. We put together a settlement around what would help each party, so both parties come out ahead.

In our unusual environment,  there is extra value when we use the Collaborative process for divorces as we fight through the Covid-19 pandemic.