Your divorce doesn’t have to be a drawn-out battle. You and your spouse may sit down with your respective attorneys and work cooperatively on the details of a separation agreement, including child custody, visitation, support, and equitable division of property. A collaborative divorce can avoid the strife and lasting hard feelings generated by a contentious divorce.
The divorce lawyers at Younce, Vtipil, Baznik & Banks have experience helping people in Raleigh and throughout Wake County work through the many issues that arise in separation and divorce. When divorcing partners remain on civil terms, then we can work with you and your estranged spouse’s legal team to negotiate the terms of your divorce. A collaborative divorce saves time, money, and emotional stress for all concerned.
Contact the Raleigh collaborative divorce lawyers at Younce, Vtipil, Baznik & Banks online or by phone at 919-661-9000 to schedule an initial consultation. We can discuss this less stressful approach to the dissolution of your marriage. We have staff fluent in both English and Spanish to serve the Spanish-speaking members of our community. We use a state-of-the-art case tracking system to ensure optimal representation for each client.
What Is Collaborative Divorce?
In a collaborative divorce, the couple that is splitting up works together to take care of what needs to be done. If both marital partners are willing to compromise in good faith, collaborative divorce can result in steady, business-like progress toward a win-win dissolution of the marriage.
If you and your spouse think you can work collaboratively toward a separation agreement, you should each advise your divorce attorneys. You then can each sign a participation agreement that sets out your intent to collaborate on the development of a separation agreement. The participation agreement will include a clause that bars the lawyers involved from representing either spouse further if the collaboration fails. This helps ensure everyone’s full commitment to work toward a mutually-acceptable agreement.
Before signing a participation agreement, each spouse should confer with their own attorney to discuss what they most want to achieve in a settlement agreement and the various tradeoffs they would be willing to make to come to an agreement. The time to talk to your spouse about potential sticking points is before signing a participation agreement. If you find that there are certain issues that one of you absolutely will not concede on and the other partner cannot accept, then collaborative divorce may not be right for you.