Suggested Questions to Ask a Collaborative Divorce Professional

When you are considering retaining a Collaborative Professional and someone is telling you that although they’re not on the Collaborative Law Institute of Illinois website, they are “collaborative,” here are the questions you may consider asking them:

• Are you a Fellow of the Collaborative Law Institute of Illinois?
• Are you a member of International Academy of Collaborative Professionals?
• What other kinds of cases do you have besides those that are Collaborative?
• Do you use CLII's Participation Agreement for Collaborative cases?
• Do you subscribe to the team approach?
  • Which other professionals besides lawyers do you involve in the process and at what point?
  • How are the other Collaborative professionals for a given team selected?
• How many Collaborative cases have you had (that is, cases where the Participation Agreement was signed by everyone?)
  • How many have you resolved successfully?
  • If some were not resolved successfully, what were the reasons?
• What kinds of ongoing continuing education programs/training have you attended?
• If a case needs to drop out of the Collaboration mode and become a litigated case, how do you handle that?

By asking these questions, you can ensure that you have the professionals you need working to help everyone involved get through this difficult transition more easily.