Collaborative Family Law

Collaborative divorce is a  process designed to make more efficient the process for ending a marriage, and to encourage clients and attorneys to reach a resolution quickly, avoiding expensive litigation.  Attorneys have been practicing variations of collaborative divorce in Ohio for a long time.  However, Ohio recently adopted the Collaborative Family Law Process Act (R.C. §§ 3105.41 to 3105.54). The Act defines the Collaborative family law process as a “procedure intend to resolve a matter without intervention by a court in which the parties sign a collaborative family law participation agreement and are represented by collaborative family lawyers.”   

A Collaborative family lawyer is a “lawyer who represents a party in a collaborative family law process but does not include a lawyer who is a public official and who does not represent individuals other than public officials in their official capacities”.  Attorneys that practice litigation can also be collaborative divorce attorneys.  An attorney does not have to be in an association, club or specialized firm to practice collaborative family law.

In order for the collaborative process to be successful, everybody’s motivation and financial goals must be aligned.  In the event the parties do not reach an agreement, the Collaborative Family Law participation agreement and the Act require that the attorneys cannot represent the parties in any court proceedings.  Therefore all the time spent in selecting an attorney that each party likes and trusts and all the time and money spent negotiating trying to reach resolution will be lost if no agreement is reached.

The lawyers at Stafford Law have been employing collaborative law techniques to resolve cases for their clients even before the adoption of the Collaborative Family Law Process Act and are skilled at reaching the successful resolution of your divorce matter and achieving your family law goals.

For further information on this topic, or to schedule an appointment with Joseph Stafford call 216.241.1074 or visit Stafford Law Company's web-site at www.StaffordLawCompany.com