A NEW FORM OF FAMILY DISPUTE RESOLUTION
Two experienced Jersey Family Lawyers are proposing a new and very different approach to divorce and resolving family disputes and as a result, believe that a new identity for family lawyers may emerge.
Rose Colley and Zoe Blomfield of Viberts are advocating an alternative to the traditional adversarial approach to family law and are offering a new legal service called collaborative law. Both lawyers have recently undertaken training led by Pauline Tesler, from the Californian Bar, who is a world leader in the field.
The process strives to achieve a settlement that both parties will accept and which could incorporate the ideas of the parties, which the Court may not have the power to order. The process also aims to control the emotions of the parties and the sometimes aggressive stances of lawyers. This is achieved by a series of 4 way meetings between the parties and their lawyers (and any other necessary professionals). During these meetings, the parties brainstorm in imaginative ways whilst maintaining a balanced perspective, and carefully construct strategies to resolve the issues, without ever threatening to go to Court.
Before the process commences, the parties acknowledge that they cannot at any stage in the process threaten the other party with legal action. If this rule is broken, the parties must terminate the collaborative process, and this will automatically involve the standing down of both collaborative lawyers and new litigation lawyers must be instructed. This will obviously increase the parties’ costs. Interestingly, current studies show that this only happens in approximately 5% of cases.
The process facilitates the practical arrangements of a separation in a way which is driven by the clients, not the Courts, which minimises the pain caused to them and which ensures integrity and client satisfaction.
The benefits are obvious. A divorce/relationship breakdown may no longer adversely affect the next decade or more of the parties’ lives and their children will undoubtedly benefit from their parents’ ability to co-operate with one another and to co-parent.
The process is different from mediation as each party maintains their own lawyer, who will continue to support and advise them, but in a constructive and non-positional way. The lawyer remains an advocate rather than a neutral party. Both lawyers work together for a common goal determined by the clients.
Collaborative law is similar to mediation insofar as it is a type of Alternative Dispute Resolution. Alternative dispute resolution, usually referred to as ADR, is the collective term for the ways that parties can settle civil disputes, with the help of an independent third party and without the need for a formal court hearing.
Collaborative Law was initially developed by a family lawyer, to be used in family matters, but is now so popular that it is being extended to other types of law. The ADR Group believes that the same principles that have preserved the integrity and dignity of families, who wanted mediation with advice, can also bring relief to those in dispute to many civil and commercial areas of the law.
This third type of service is intended to run alongside litigation and mediation to give clients a greater choice as to how they would like to deal with their family disputes.
What is certain of any type of ADR is that it is eminently preferable to any form of resolution imposed by the Court.
A client of Viberts, commented, ’having experienced the mediation process, I would certainly say it worked where a previously intensely bitter dispute had begun to yield a diminishing number of genuinely positive outcomes. Initially I was deeply uncertain as to the tangible benefits of taking this route. I was however very pleasantly surprised.’
For further information regarding the Collaborative Law process please contact Zoe Blomfield, or Rose Colley at Viberts.
Zoe Blomfield
Jersey Solicitor
March 2006 (Current September 2007)