Here are some simple secrets (secrets are just rules we must learn from experience) of life we all know, lessons learned from every day experience. For example, if you go grocery shopping when you are hungry, you will end up buying more than you planned - especially the junk food. A similar rule of human nature applies to what you 'buy into' when you go to court.
1. Be very leery of litigation if you are hurt or angry. The first secret is that litigation will no more leave you feeling vindicated or justified, any more than that extra bag of pork rinds will make you slim and healthy.
2. Litigation is like alcohol - it has its place, but only at the right time, in the right hands and in small doses. The second secret is that litigation has a way of taking over if you put yourself under its influence.
3. By its purpose, nature and design, litigation serves two masters: First, the good order of society, and secondly, the individual interests of the litigants. This third secret is that like a person who serves two masters, litigation rarely delivers what it promises to the second master.
Hardheaded reasons to collaborate
1. It's much more efficient - this means cheaper.
Most of the time - and time is money - in divorce cases is wasted. Wasted in the sense that clients don't get anything of value from the time their attorneys spend fighting. Most of the legal work in a divorce is like a tug of war - each side paying their lawyer to pull hard on the rope while not much moves. In a collaborative divorce, the parties agree that the lawyers won't engage in useless contests that don't move the process forward.2. It's much faster - this also means cheaper.
With the lawyers working - while not together, since they each have a primary duty to their individual client - with, not against each other, the necessary information gets gathered and the necessary issues addressed without a lot of useless posturing. It saves a lot of money just working on the question to be answered, not fighting about the question to be answered.3. Especially if there are kids, it's never over.
Everything we do - and the way we do everything - teaches our kids. That alone is reason to collaborate. But the stress of divorce - expecially one that drags on - is really tough on the kids. Kids are resilient, but the scars a long time. And, at least til the kids are grown and on their own and likely much longer than that (if they don't stop talking to their parents completely) the couple getting divorced are linked through the kids. The marriage may end but the family doesn't.4. There is no chance of having something crammed down your throat.
The tongue in cheek aphorism in divorce is that if the spouses don't agree, the judge will agree for them. No matter how strong you think you are, no matter how smart and tough your lawyer claims to be, divorce litigation has a funny way of making both spouses unhappy - unhappiness made worse by the thousands of dollars they've spent and the dozens of friends and family members they've alienated.5. Creativity in time of change is beneficial and collaborative divorce allows more creativity than litigation.
