Collaborative Law

What is Collaborative Law?

Collaborative Law (also often referred to as “Collaborative Divorce”) is a team based approach focused on helping the parties to a divorce or separation resolve their disputes using negotiation in a structured, non-adversarial process. Each party will retain a lawyer that is trained and certified as a Collaborative Lawyer and will sign an agreement committing to enter into a process that is premised on open, honest and informed negotiation usually in the form of a series of four-way settlement meetings involving both parties and their lawyers.

A certified Collaborative Lawyer will have both mediation training and further specific training in interest based negotiations that focus on a “win-win” model of negotiation and settlement. While in this process, both parties and their lawyers will agree to forego pursuing any contested court applications and will have further agreed to voluntarily provide each other with full and complete information concerning their finances, assets and liabilities.

The Collaborative process also allows the parties and their lawyers to engage and add other Collaborative professionals such as financial advisors or mental health professionals to the team to work towards and facilitate settlements that will be best suited for their family.

At Matkovic Allan LLP, we are fortunate to have Ms. Elise J. Lavigne as part of our team. She is a certified and trained Collaborative Lawyer who has been a strong proponent of the Collaborative process for many years.

If you would like more information regarding the Collaborative Law process, please contact Elise Lavigne to discuss any questions you may have.