© Arnold D. Cribari, 2015
If you want to beat the system in a divorce and save a lot of money, a collaborative divorce or mediation is the way to go. You can “cut to the chase;” skip going to court and avoid paying for monumental hours of your lawyer’s time in preparation for court. Get to the heart of a settlement discussion early in the process.
Here’s how it works. You and your spouse meet together with both of your attorneys, arrange for necessary financial disclosure and start a four-way conversation about settlement. This obviates the need for unnecessary financial disclosure, legal motions, court appearances – and the thousands of dollars in lawyers’ fees generated by all of that paperwork and courtroom presentations.
In the collaborative process, both you and your spouse have your own attorneys. Your collaborative attorney is your ally and will make sure that you are fully informed of you legal rights and that your underlying needs and concerns are addressed in the settlement.
Moreover, if you go to a collaborative attorney at the outset, the attorney will offer another possible option to help you beat the system – mediation. Depending on your situation, mediation might be the best option for you. In mediation, a neutral professional will facilitate settlement discussions between you and your spouse. Mediation tends to be even less expensive than collaborative and is ideal when there is little or no imbalance of power between the two spouses.
Next step: Get on the phone and make an appointment with a collaborative lawyer, who will help you discern which option is best in your specific situation. A collaborative attorney will also give you strategies to help you get your spouse on board with mediation or collaborative – so you both can beat the system.
