Distinguishing Collaborative Practice & Mediation

General Overview

Collaborative Practice & Mediation

New Roles of Professionals

Steps in Collaborative Practice

Advantages of Collaborative Practice

- Two Approaches to Decision Making

- Collaborative Practice and Litigation

Development of Collaborative Practice

Distinguishing Collaborative Practice & Mediation - Page 2

Learning from the mediation exercise, family lawyers have now developed the next generation family law dispute resolution process: "Collaborative Practice." 5

With each client having his/her own Collaborative Practice lawyer, any differences in knowledge or negotiating capacity are significantly reduced, if not eliminated;

The Collaborative Practice professionals work with the clients to help them establish effective dialogue through the use of constructive communication skills;
Though the clients usually begin with significantly differing perspectives on the facts, the law and what is "fair", the Collaborative Practice Process will enable clients to go beyond these differences to mutually beneficial results and acceptable settlements.

Here, lawyers trained in the same language of the law, and competition, steeped in the same litigation strategies, and steeled by experience for confrontation and competition, break with tradition by making a pledge to clients to settle their client's issues by abandoning the lawyer's essential currency of litigation - the threat and use of power.

To the unquestioning adversarial lawyer, the attempt to resolve legal problems without resorting to any form of litigation is viewed, most generously, as totally unclear on the concept! After all, taking the element of power out of the process of representing clients is the legal equivalent of Toto pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz. 6

However, lack of the special professional skills required for successful resolution by either a single neutral mediator or a Collaborative team of professionals is one of the primary reasons the clients may fail to reach an acceptable settlement.

5. Pauline H. Tesler, "Collaborative Practice: Where Did it Come From, Where is it Now, Where is it Going?"(1999) 1 The Collaborative Quarterly (Journal of the American Institute of Collaborative Professionals) 1. (This journal was renamed The Collaborative Review in 2001.)
6. Chip Rose, J.D., The Philosophy of Collaborative Practice.

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