This executive summary sets out the principal findings of the Collaborative Family Lawyering Research Project. This was a three-year initiative funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Department of Justice Canada, which examined the practice of Collaborative Family Law in Canada and the United States. The objective of the research was to explore the differences that Collaborativie Divorce makes to the process and outcome of divorce disputes, and in particular to assess its impact on the clients of family legal services...(more)

• Collaborative Family Law: Restoring Sanity to the Divorce Process By David A. Hoffman
  
  At a recent gathering of lawyers, two former law school classmates were overheard reminiscing. One of them commented about the fact that each of them had married a psychotherapist. "How interesting," he said, "we each married someone in the helping professions, while we've chosen one of the harming professions....(more)
• Tips For Parents Engaged in the Collaborative Process by Gay G. Cox
• Welcome to the Future: An Alternative Approach to Resolving Disputes By Noel S. Sandomirksy, Q.C. and R. Bradley Hunter
  
  Welcome to the future of family law and to a new approach to handling family law matters. Collaborative law, as it is now known, has arrived. Collaborative law involves the fundamental shift in the attitude adopted by our profession towards resolving disputes. Lawyers as adversaries become lawyer as colleagues...(more)
• Tipping Toward Civility: The Development of Collaborative Law By Rebecca Glass
  
  "Never cut what can be untied." - Chinese proverb. Collaborative law is an inspirational new model for "untying" conflict and resolving disputes. Though lawyers are increasingly using collaborative law in employment, commercial and other areas, the movement's origins and most proven successes, from both the practitioner and client perspective, are in family law. In that context, collaborative law is relatively inexpensive, promotes creative, "win-win" resolutions, facilitates civilized, productive meetings between divorcing spouses, and offers greater peace of mind to its participants...(more)
  
  
• Interdisciplinary: To Be or Not to Be By Nancy Cameron

What is divorce? At its most simplistic, it is a court order terminating a marriage. All of us who have worked in the field know that, as a life transition, it is much more. It is dreams that did not manifest, or dreams that have run their course. It may be profound grief and it may be bittersweet freedom. It is about families restructuring: financially, emotionally, and practically. It is conflict and it is resolution. It is pain and it is relief. It is a surprise ball of legal, financial, emotional, spiritual and psychological dimensions. Robert Hass, in his poem "Regalia for a Black Hat Dancer"1, describes the experience of his divorce with this simple eloquence:

though I was hollowed out by pain,
honeycombed with the emptiness of it,
like the bird bones on the beach
the salt of the bay water had worked on for a season --
such surprising lightness in the hand --
I don't think I could have told the pain of loss
from the pain of possibility,
though I knew they weren't the same thing.

When I think of that time,
I think mainly of the osprey's cry, a startled yelp, the cry more a colour than a sound, and as if
it ripped the sky, was white,
as if it were scar tissue and fresh hurt at once.

I have re-read this poem numerous times. I have turned to it in times of contemplation, times of grief, and times of contentment. Through the poem, I have travelled with Hass from a Berkeley restaurant where he watches other parents visiting with children they no longer live with over supper, as he wanders down to the bay at Heart's Desire beach, as he visits the cave of the Sokkaram Buddha in Korea. Only now do I realize the significance of what Hass leaves out. No where in the poem does he mention his lawyer...(more)

The Ethics of the Collaborative Participation Agreement: A Critique of Colorado’s Maverick Ethics Opinion by the IACP Ethics Task Force

In the News:

Collaborative law -- solving disputes the friendly way
By Diane Curtis, American Bar Association

The divorce agreement had just been okayed by the husband and wife. The soon-to-be exes and their respective attorneys got up from their chairs to head for the door. But first -- hugs all around.

Mill Valley family lawyer Pauline Tesler is used to this upbeat goodbye scene after what other attorneys more often experience as a debilitating, take-no-prisoners process that ends in hostility and anger. But Tesler's practice is limited to collaborative law, and that, she says, makes all the difference....

Talking Through Divorce
The Walrus Magazine: 2005

Boston-- Copley Square is a study in contrasts. At the south end sits the stately Boston Public Library, founded in 1848 and built "for the people and dedicated to the advancement of learning."Directly across the park is the historic Trinity Church, under restoration during my recent visit. Towering over the church is the John Hancock building, a glass box whose opaque windows and shape (a large dollar bill) suggest that it was built by capital, for the advancement of capital. Between these extremes are hotels, one of which, the Westin, was hosting the fifth annual International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) conference. My wife was attending as a collaborative lawyer; I was in attendance as a somewhat distracted observer.....

The Art of the 4-Way, by Lynda J. Robbins

How Long Does it Take to Build a Collaborative Practice, By Liz Farris (2006)

Divorce Coaches: A New Resourece for Matrimonial Lawyers. American Journal of Family Law

Blogs

Collaborative Divorce Newsblog -- By Pauline Tesler

Family Law News Blog -- This blog is not specific to collaborative practice but contains many well wrtiten pieces.

Periodicals

Collaborative Law Journal, A Publication of the Massachusetts Collaborative Law Council, Inc. www.massclc.org (Their web site provides pdfs of the previous copies of the journal -- which is published once or twice per year. A more comprehensive journal is available through the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals.)