What do you think of when you hear the word “divorce”? Many associate divorce with arguments, fighting and bickering. However, there is an alternative that takes a lot of the negativity out of the process. It’s called Collaborative Divorce. The North Dakota Collaborative Divorce Group is a team of divorce coaches, attorneys, child specialists and financial experts who dedicate themselves to collaborative divorce. In other words, they work together to develop a reasonable, acceptable agreement.
What is Collaborative Law?
The focus of the collaborative divorce process is to protect the interests, dignity, self-esteem, and overall well-being of your family, outside a Court setting. It accomplishes this mission by:
- Preventing, rather than promoting litigation;
- Preserving family assets;
- Promoting, rather than destroying post-divorce relationships;
- Placing the children at the center of the dialogue, rather than in the middle of the fight; and
- Achieving more durable, lasting agreements.
Traditionally, divorces play themselves out in two separate, but related, processes that unfold at the same time. Somewhere in that process the divorce negotiations occur under the threatening shadow of looming litigation.
The collaborative approach creates improvements by requiring all involved -the husband and his attorney, the wife and her attorney, and any neutral experts- to sign a contract. All must agree, in writing, that neither party will serve and file the divorce action until an agreement has been reached. So instead of having all of the parties and their lawyer’s resources and energy devoted to litigation, they can be focused to negotiating. This makes negotiations more liberating and far less guarded.
What NDDivorce.com is
NDdivorce.com, run by The North Dakota Collaborative Divorce Group, provides information and resources about the collaborative divorce process. The website shows step-by-step instructions for getting started, from finding a collaborative attorney, to negotiating the settlement and obtaining a final decree. The website also lists attorneys, divorce coaches, child specialists and financial specialists who are all trained in the collaborative process.
Tracy’s involvement
One of our lawyers, Tracy Lyson, specializes in this alternative method of divorcing couples. Tracy concentrates in family/domestic law and civil litigation. She also negotiates divorce and custody agreements. Strong, experienced, knowledgeable, and assertive are all words past clients use when describing Tracy. She’s earned her stripes by strongly advocating for her clients.
If you’d like to hear more about how this process is different; give a call to Tracy Lyson.
