Can you trust that you know everything you need to know about the family’s accounts and debts? Can you be sure that your spouse’s attorney will have your spouse give you any information that you are missing? Will you receive the missing information without depleting your financial resources? In the Collaborative Process, the answer to each of these questions is yes.
The Uniform Collaborative Law Act provides that during the Collaborative Law process, when a party requests, the other party must make a full, candid, and informal disclosure of information related to the Collaborative matter, and the disclosure must be updated if the information materially changes during the process. This requirement ensures that both parties have all the information about the family’s assets and debts that they need to make decisions. Further, the parties’ Collaboratively trained attorneys support the parties in their requests for and disclosure of information.
When the Collaborative team includes a Financial Neutral, the parties work directly with the Financial Neutral, independent of their attorneys, to compile information and collect documents, which the Financial Neutral uses to prepare schedules of assets and debts. The Financial Neutral also uses this information to help the parties create budgets for themselves and their children. The Financial Neutral then presents the parties’ financial picture to the attorneys.
This requirement for sharing information in the Collaborative Process benefits the parties in numerous ways, including:
- Having peace of mind, knowing that they have all the information they need;
- Being secure in the fact that their spouse’s attorney will honor the requirement of disclosure;
- Saving money by working with a Financial Neutral to create the financial disclosure as opposed to having the attorneys gather, analyze, and present the information to the team;
- Avoiding the significant expense of the formal discovery process that occurs in litigation; and
- Obtaining all the information you need without having to appear in court.
Christine Hissong is a Collaboratively trained attorney, who represents her divorcing clients in the Collaborative Process; a Certified Mediator, who serves as a neutral, helping client resolve their family law matters; and a Conflict Coach, partnering with her clients to help them develop conflict intelligence and manage conflict.
