Spouses choose to utilize the collaborative process to resolve divorce-related issues for many reasons, but one of the most common reasons is the need to co-parent once the divorce is finalized.  Unlike the tradition courtroom divorce process, which treats mothers and fathers as adversaries, collaborative divorce treats parents as a team who want to reach an agreement that keeps their children’s needs at the forefront. I recently had the opportunity to appear on iHeart Radio’s Tampa Bay Tomorrow with “Clair.”  Clair is a father who went through the collaborative divorce process, and I represented Clair’s wife.  Clair’s collaborative...

  When I joined my firm three years ago, the managing attorney, Adam B. Cordover, preferred and advocated for out-of-court dispute resolution, including collaborative practice. We still had many litigated cases. Not every client, spouse, and other attorney is willing to agree to a more peacemaking approach, especially when they don’t know much about it.  But we had faith that we were on to something, and that if given the opportunity and knowledge, more people would choose collaborative law. In 2015, we changed our name to Family Diplomacy: A Collaborative Law Firm, and began practicing exclusively in out-of-court dispute resolution,...

In my jurisdiction of Florida, in order to become certified as a Family Law Mediator, you must observe a certain amount of mediations. This structure helps newly trained mediators become more comfortable in their role and also helps with quality control. We can learn from the successes of mediation, but one of the largest challenges that my collaborative community has faced is the unwillingness of clients and many professionals to permit “observers” or “shadows” on their cases. As a relatively young yet rapidly growing collaborative community, offering newly-trained practitioners the opportunity to see a collaborative case has become...

BEGINNING ANEW COLLABORATIVELY Not all divorcing spouses want to engage in nasty court battles. Such is the case of Tyler Nelson and Pamela Burton, who decided to end their marriage on an amicable basis without consuming years in costly and contentious litigation.  They decided to use a form of private dispute resolution known as collaborative divorce for their child’s sake, under the tutelage of trained professionals, to forge a new and different bond as co-parents for the rest of their lives. And, on September 20, 2013, they set a precedent as the first pro bono collaborative divorce ever completed in the state of Florida. [The term...