What are the negative aspects of the collaborative divorce alternative?
A. Collaborative family law begins as a choice exercised by each spouse. And like every choice in live, something is chosen and something is left behind. Competent lawyers will know what your realistic alternatives are, honest lawyers will explain them in a way you can understand and really good lawyers will care what the alternatives mean in terms of your life and future and will help you choose wisely. The principles and practices that constitute collaborative law add a moral and human element to a process that pretends to be purely legal. And the law – which is purely ‘legal’ – gives no weight to moral issues the law is not designed to consider. That is why, in litigation, the husband and wife are immediately treated by the court as adversaries if not enemies. We say ‘pretends’ to be purely legal because pretending so is necessary when those in authority administer a system that serves two masters. As noted elsewhere on these pages, marriage and divorce have two distinct but tightly
