The Birth of Collaborative Practice

• In the early 1990's Stu Webb, a family lawyer from Minneapolis, Minnesota developed the concept of Collaborative Practice as an alternative to the adversarial process. Webb was frustrated by the litigation model and the misery it caused both himself and his clients and was considering leaving the practice of law.
  
  
• Webb then took a radical step and decided that he would only continue those parts of his legal practice that he enjoyed. As a result, he decided that he would never step into another courtroom.
• Webb's first four-way settlement experiment was a disaster. However, from this experience Webb concluded that when the case becomes adversarial the settlement lawyers must withdraw. It was at this point that Collaborative Practice was born.
  
  
• Therefore, on January 1, 1990, Webb officially began practicing Collaborative Family Practice. However, Webb realized that he would be unable to engage in Collaborative Practice by himself and began to search out other lawyers who would be willing to work with him on a case-by-case basis with both lawyers signing a written contract to get off the file if the Collaborative Process failed.
  
  
• Webb's initial Collaborative Practice "Institute" started with four members which soon increased to nine. The Twin Cities currently have about 50 members in their "Institute." Webb's institute currently conducts training sessions, offers support to their members, and sends out information on Collaborative Practice and membership lists to prospective clients.
  
  
• Right away in 1990, Webb started hearing from lawyers from across the United States and Canada who heard about his concept and wanted to find a different approach to resolving family disputes.
  
  
• Chip Rose, another leading figure in the development of Collaborative Practice, also began doing training in the Collaborative Practice model in 1994 in Northern California and then across the United States and Canada.
  
  
• Stu Webb began conducting training in Collaborative Practice, himself in 1994 and with colleague, Pauline Tesler of California in 1998. They have both trained in the United States and Canada, including Florida, California, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Texas.
  
  

The Medicine Hat Collaborative Practice Model

• In August 2000 and February 2001, Janis Pritchard and David Carter of Medicine Hat, Alberta enrolled in Chip Rose's Collaborative Family Practice Training in Medicine Hat Alberta and Stuart Webb's Advanced Collaborative Family Practice Training in Calgary, Alberta.
  
  
• Since that time, Pritchard and Carter have fleshed out Webb's Collaborative Practice model by building a formal structure which lawyers can follow, as well as, formally recognizing that the clients are engaging in Interest-Based Negotiation as opposed to positional bargaining.
  
  
• Since September 2001, Pritchard, Carter and Hunter have been providing Collaborative Practice Training in the Medicine Hat Model to lawyers in Regina, Minneapolis, Saskatoon, Lloydminster, Red Deer, Edmonton, Yellowknife, Victoria, Fort McMurray, Prince Albert, Lethbridge, and Prince Edward Island.