Having been a divorce lawyer in Westchester County for almost 40 years, I have been baffled that more divorcing couples don’t choose collaborative divorce. I know about the divorcing process through the court system. It is impossible to overstate the emotional and financial toll that the litigation (court) process takes during a divorce.
When presented with a less painful, less expensive, less time-consuming, more private, and more-effective-in-the-long-term alternative, why would anyone choose to litigate their divorce?
I think I have stumbled upon the answer. I recently saw online this rejection letter that Einstein received when applying for a doctoral program in physics at the University of Bern.
06 June, 1907
Dear Mr. Einstein,
Your application for the Doctorate has not been successful at this time and as such you are not eligible for the position of Associate Professor.
While you posed an interesting theory in your article published in “Annalen der Physik”, we feel that your conclusions about the nature of light and the fundamental connection between space and time are somewhat radical. Overall, we find your assumptions to be more artistic than actual Physics.
Innovative thinking is “somewhat radical.” New ideas are “more artistic” than actually practical. Indeed, I can imagine such a letter from an old-time divorce lawyer to a practitioner of collaborative law:
Dear Ms. Smith,
Your explanation of collaborative divorce has been unconvincing and as such you are not eligible to join our law firm.
While collaborative divorce is an interesting theory, we feel that your conclusions about reducing conflict and expense are somewhat radical. Overall, we find your assumptions to be more artsy than actual Law.
Of course, today, Einstein’s theories about light, space and time are mainstream. As more and more couples try the “somewhat radical” process of collaborative divorce, collaborative will become mainstream. When couples who divorce collaboratively share their experience – that they are less battle scarred and more financially solvent than those who have divorced the traditional way – collaborative divorce will become the conventional choice.
© Arnold D. Cribari 2016
