| The collaborative law movement is a method of alternate dispute resolution where divorce clients and lawyers sign a contract agreeing not to litigate and agree to only work for a non-court settlement. Since the movement began in the 1990s, it has enjoyed a growing number of enthusiastic followers who credit the movement with making the work of lawyers more rewarding, and more likely to result in a qualitatively different process and outcome for clients. Little has been known about the client experience beyond these claims, however. This project is the result of exploratory research to investigate the collaborative divorce client experience through in-depth interviewing of 11 collaborative divorce clients. Results support the potential for qualitatively different outcomes for clients as a result of a process that permits client voice, beyond the limitations of legal concerns, and in turn enables the pursuit and attainment of substantive justice for each particular couple through the flexible use of resources made available within a multidisciplinary model for collaborative divorce. However, while the process enables the achievement of such outcomes, there are no guarantees. A number of factors contribute to the successful construction of a fair agreement including the skill and experience of the collaborative professionals, the willingness of individual clients to persevere and resist becoming entrenched in positions, and the specter of possible litigation that influences every step in the process. While collaborative divorce is no panacea for all the problems of divorce, these clients' experiences provide a glimpse of its potential, a sense of its limitations and an indication of what more we might learn from additional studies involving divorce clients. |
