Collaborative lawyers work with you, your partner and your partner's lawyer, in a series of face to face meetings instead of conducting negotiations by letter or phone. The aim is to help the couple focus on their most important goals and especially their children if there are any. Each party will have their lawyer by their side throughout the entire process and therefore have the benefit of ongoing legal advice.

Those of you who have experienced divorce know how difficult and expensive the whole process can be and how going to Court to achieve settlement can increase the pain and resentment felt by the whole family. The Collaborative Family Law process can prevent this as it is respectful and diginified.

The process works by each person meeting with and appointing a collaborative family lawyer. The lawyers then speak to each other either face to face or over the phone in order to plan for your first ‘four way’ meeting.

At the first four way meeting the lawyers will make sure that you both understand that you are making a commitment to working out a settlement without going to Court and you will sign an agreement to this effect. You and your partner will be invited to share your own objectives and you will all plan the agenda for the next meeting. This will depend on your own individual circumstances but might typically include a discussion about how the children are responding to the separation, and how financial information will be shared and agree on who will bring what financial information to the next meeting.

Subsequent meetings address you and your partner’s particular priorities and concerns. You may also consider involving other professionals such as specialists in pensions, financial planning, or people trained to assist children in understanding and coping with the changes that your divorce or separation will bring to their lives. The meetings will enable you to reach agreement on how the finances will be shared or what arrangements need to be made for any children.

In the final meeting documents detailing the settlement terms/agreements you have reached will be signed and your lawyers will talk through anything else that needs to be done in order to implement those agreements.

One of the benefits of the collaborative family law process is that it’s not driven by a timetable imposed by the court – it is driven by you and can be built around your individual timetable and priorities.

To discuss this further please call Debbie on 0844 770 3799, email her on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or contact her using the contacts page of our website.