The most common fear expressed by people considering collaborative divorce is that they will lose their attorney if the process falls apart, since no professional who signed the Participation Agreement that commits people to the Collaborative Divorce Process can continue with the parties outside of the process. That does sound scary since building trust with an attorney is both emotionally taxing and a financial commitment. Recognizing this fear, the process is built to prevent this from happening.
First, prior to committing to the Collaborative Divorce process, the couple usually meets with a divorce coach who walks them through the process and helps them to understand the benefits and pitfalls of this approach. During that meeting, the divorce coach assesses how well suited the couple is for Collaborative Divorce. If there are concerns, such as a significant imbalance of power between the spouses, they are addressed before the process begins. Therefore, everyone starts out knowing what is necessary for success.
Throughout the process, the job of the divorce coach is to keep the process on track. The divorce coach helps both the team of professionals, and the divorcing parties work through the extra sensitive areas and provides support as these difficult moments are navigated. If issues come up, the divorce coach can work with each party individually or work in combination with the attorney to get the issue resolved before it derails the process. For example, if one party feels like their needs are not being heard because the other party dominates the session, the divorce coach can pay special attention and make sure that both parties have an equal opportunity to speak and that both are listening to each other.
As scary as it may be to embark on the Collaborative Divorce route, the alternative options are even more daunting. If a couple is unable to reach resolution using the collaborative divorce process, then they would have been even less likely to succeed in mediation since a mediator cannot give legal advice, and there is no additional support from neutral professionals. Therefore, the only realistic recourse for a couple that has fallen out of the collaborative divorce process is litigation, and most couples know that they do not want to end up in court. They understand that by using the collaborative divorce process they may have a difficult time reaching a resolution they agree with, but at least they have agency and can negotiate from the position of their goals. In court, a judge, who does not know their family, will have to make the decisions the spouses could not make themselves, and few think that this is an improved option. Therefore, often this unwanted alternative keeps people committed to the process.
In summary, the collaborative divorce process presents the parties with all of the resources to succeed, but it is up to the parties to use them in this way. Therefore, the odds of reaching a successful resolution using Collaborative Divorce far exceeds the chances of the process falling apart. Moreover, those who believe that they would not be able to succeed in using Collaborative Divorce are then relegated to resorting to litigation, and it is worth trying Collaborative Divorce to avoid that.
About Me
Dr. Julie Davelman, Ph.D.
Dr. Julie Davelman received her Bachelor of Art in Psychology from New York University, and her Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Clinical Psychology from St. John’s University. She began her professional career as a counselor for students with financial and academic difficulties at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. After five years of guiding students towards academic success, Dr. Davelman transitioned into an intense clinical role at a private practice that contracts with the Division of Child Protection and Permanency (DCPP; formerly DYFS) to provide psychological evaluations and therapy for its clients. Having completed more than seven hundred evaluations in a wide range of cases with both children and adults, Dr. Davelman developed expertise in identifying the needs of families and pairing those needs with appropriate referrals and community resources. Dr. Davelman is licensed as a psychologist in New Jersey (# 5223) and New York (# 18015) and is fluent in Russian.
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