| Conventional Divorce Settlements |
Mediation & Collaborative Divorce |
| Inductive reasoning from appellate cases, detailed statutes, and trials; deductive reasoning from code criteria. |
Adding to or subtracting from code criteria; subjective considerations as suggested by the client(s) or by a relevant professional. |
| Looking backward to determine the present consequences of past actions or inactions; rulings based mainly upon past events or situations. |
Looking forward to formulate a future plan that is fair and workable and seeks to meet the legitimate needs and goals of each of the parties. |
| Ideas from the legal profession and other lawyers; reliance mainly upon legal sources, especially statutes and appellate cases. |
Ideas also from other relevant professions such as mental health professionals, financial planners, and accountants. |
| Zero sum game; if one party gets more, the other gets correspondingly less. |
Search for creative ways to “expand the pie” to address the needs of each party. |
| Keeping clients focused; managing difficult clients and not losing control. |
Understanding how the stages of the divorce process may affect clients’ responses. |
| Vocational specialist used to impute income to an unemployed or under-employed party. |
Career counselor to help a plan a career and suggest relevant employment opportunities. |
| Equitable distribution based upon statutory criteria for dividing property. |
Single impartial financial planner to help both parties plan sound financial futures. |
| Accountant hired to trace commingled property or dissipated marital assets and present evidence for one side. |
Impartial accountant hired by both parties to help negotiate issues of commingled or dissipated assets. |
| Evidence presented in court to establish that one parent is more experienced and competent than the other. |
Impartial evaluation by a skilled mental health professional or use of a parenting coordinator to aid parental cooperation. |
| Use of traditional terms such as “custody” and “visitation”. |
Use of terms such as “parenting plan” and focus on cooperative future parenting. |
| Use of civil discovery procedures to obtain information and documents when a voluntary exchange does not suffice. |
Contractual agreement to exchange information and documents that are reasonably necessary to the process. |
| Litigation and negotiation strategies; use of court procedures to influence settlements. |
Cooperative strategies to seek common ground and to achieve win-win solutions. |
| Formal detailed drafting based upon a tested office formbook. |
Drafting in understandable modern English; collaborative revision process. |
| What is a court likely to do? |
What is a fair and workable settlement? |
