Collaborative Divorce Training: Lawyers, Coaches & More

As a collaborative divorce professional, you're part of a team who help clients reach a divorce agreement.

Through collaborative divorce training, you'll gain the skills and knowledge you need to make collaborative law a valuable part of your services.

Collaborative divorce training

All professionals who want to take part in collaborative practice must go through collaborative law training, hold a professional license in their field and regularly work with divorce.

All manner of family law professionals can attend training. This includes lawyers, financial professionals, divorce coaches and parenting coordinators.

Most collaborative law training concludes within a week. Training is available online and in person, and it typically covers:

• Informing clients of the divorce process
• Understanding the role of each team member
• Structuring the collaborative process around your clients
• Finding the best type of negotiation for a case
• Identifying what causes a case to be unsuccessful
• Listening effectively
• Abiding by ethics
• Producing documents (e.g., contracts)

You may review past cases to walk through the collaborative process from start to finish. Former spouses who divorced through collaborative law may come in to speak with the class about what worked or did not work for them. Plus, you may role-play scenarios to get a feel for what it's like to participate in a collaborative meeting. You'll get advice and feedback from experienced collaborative professionals.

Some training programs offer introductory training for those looking to get into collaborative practice and advanced training for those who are already practicing and want to expand their knowledge. They may also host workshops for dealing with high-conflict divorces and other special circumstances.

Costs for collaborative divorce training range from $350 to $1,000.

Once they begin practicing, collaborative professionals typically charge the same rate as they would for regular work in their field. Some choose to train in other areas, like divorce mediation, to expand their suite of dispute resolution services.

Keep in mind that collaborative divorce training is in addition to any other training needed for your profession. For example, initial divorce coach training generally takes a few weeks to a few months.

The role of each collaborative divorce team member

Collaborative divorce teams consist of a variety of professionals. A common team makeup is two lawyers, a financial professional, a child specialist and a divorce coach. The following lists some of their duties.

Lawyers

Each spouse has a lawyer to represent them in collaboration. The contract the spouses sign before the collaborative divorce process states that if they do not reach an agreement, they'll have to retain new lawyers.

The lawyers' responsibilities include:

• Leading negotiations
• Presenting settlement proposals
• Advocating for what their client wants
• Helping their client understand documents and laws

Financial professionals

Finances are one of the most contentious parts of a divorce. A financial professional makes sense of the spouses' combined and individual finances to help lawyers and spouses negotiate fair financial agreements.

Their responsibilities include:

• Collecting information about the spouses' finances
• Preparing statements of net worth for each client
• Providing guidance about finances
• Helping clients understand how divorce will affect their taxes

Child specialists

When spouses have children, divorce gets more complicated. A child specialist ensures the best interests of the children remain at the forefront of discussions that will affect the child.

Their responsibilities include:

• Helping parents learn how to speak to their children about divorce
• Giving advice on parenting during divorce
• (In some cases) Interviewing the child to get their perspective
• Informing parents of what the child needs at their age and stage of development

Divorce coaches

Collaborative divorce coaches offer emotional support and encouragement to spouses. They help clients manage their divorce and advise the team on how to best handle interactions between the clients.

Their responsibilities include:

• Improving clients' communication skills
• Giving the rest of the team insight into the relationship between the clients
• Guiding clients through the emotional turmoil of divorce
• Helping develop parenting plans and give co-parenting advice (if there are children)

Working with child custody as a collaborative professional

When your clients have children under 18, your work as a collaborative divorce professional will take on extra complexity. Your job is to help them find common ground that serves their children's interests.

Many collaborative law professionals use the Custody X Change online app to keep track of clients' current parenting situations and help them plan for the future.

With Custody X Change, collaborative professionals can:

• Build thorough parenting plans free of loopholes

  

• Create complete custody schedules in minutes

• Calculate parenting time precisely

  

• And much more

Custody X Change makes the job of the collaborative divorce team easier and your clients happier.