Nora-
We are at the early stages of this process (both forming an organization and
starting collaborative cases) in Wisconsin. If you or others have sample
letters or forms you're willing to share, please post. The Medicine Hat
samples are excellent; I'll take them to our next meeting. Thank you to all
of you who are further along and willing to help.
Sue Hansen
Attorney at Law
----- Original Message -----
From: <norabush@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 1:56 PM
Subject: Re: [CollabLaw] Protocols - sorry - very long
Cathy: Thank you for sharing your documents. It will be great if we candecided
help standardize the practice of collaborative law by contributing to the
forms and documents that we use. I noted that you mentioned that you send
out a letter to the spouse. Is it contained in one of the documents that
you attached? We have several letters that we use and I would appreciate
receiving a copy of your letter for comparison. It seems that one of the
most challenging aspect of insuring that a case proceeds collaboratively
revolves around getting the other spouse on board.
Thanks again for sharing.
Nora Bushfield, Atlanta, Ga.
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Cathy Regier" <cathy.regier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 12:14 PM
Subject: RE: [CollabLaw] Protocols - sorry - very long
Janice;perhaps
I am part of the group in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada and we have
gone a step further than most of the groups I have read about. We
theright off that we would share everything in an attempt to standardize
Ifinformation going to everyone's client.choices -
Our process here generally follows the following outline. When a client
comes in for an initial interview, we give them the three process
litigation, mediation or collaborative (which we call CFL for short).
sendthe client chooses CFL (which is about 98%of the time) we immediately
beenout a letter to the spouse. The letter states that their spouse has
inout
to see a lawyer and wants to deal with the divorce amicably. It sets
four-waythe process choices briefly and it includes a list of the CFL lawyers inour
group. When the spouse goes in to see one of the CFL lawyers in thegroup,
he or she gets the same process choices information. If they buy in, we
begin to set up the first meeting between lawyers, and the first
standardmeeting.
We have a number of standard handouts that we give to every CFL client -
from homework to information about the CFL process. We also have
toguidelines that each of the CFL lawyers follows to prepare their clientfor
the first CFL meeting. Then we can tell our clients in all honesty thatmeeting.
their spouse is getting exactly the same preparation for the first
We also have a standard CFL contract to be signed by all fourparticipants.
While it is very similar to the contract posted earlier, we have tried
standardizedput it in more simplified language, with less legalese, so that theclients
can understand it more easily. (Those of us who drafted it are big
proponents of "plain language drafting") We are working on a
clausesfinal contract, so that the lawyers don't end up haggling over how
partyshould be worded.
We have talked about Sherri's question about what to do when the "jerk"
spouse does something outside of the process, that forces the other
toterminating
terminate the CFL process. We have included in our Contract a clausewhich
indicates that upon deciding to terminate the process, the person
terminating must give notice in writing, and cannot bring a Court
application for 30 days. Our reasoning was that if the person
applicationbrings an application within 30 days, the respondent could point to theCFL
contract and get an adjournment for the 30 day period. If the person
terminating feels that it is an emergency, they bring their application
immediately, but then must convince the Court that it is an emergency
requiring immediate action. Once the Court is convinced, the
iscould proceed within the 30 day time period. When we were having ourwe
discussion, the exact situation that Sherri brought up was discussed and
all felt that the Court would consider that an emergency requiringimmediate
action.
In relation to the issue of confidentiality, the position we have taken
tothat, once involved in the CFL process, the lawyers owe confidentiality
tothe process, but not as between the parties. In other words, if we are
going to do this CFL, everything must be shared, including the decision
fromterminate.you
I will attach a number of our shared documents (all in Word format), and
are free to review them and use them as you see fit - as are any othercould
groups that like the look of them. You will be able to see that we have
stolen unabashedly from any and every source we could get our hands on!
Because of the number of family law lawyers who are practising CFL in
Medicine Hat, almost all of our new files (and as many old ones as we
convince) are being handled in this manner. It sure has made family lawan
nicer place to be!!!we
If you have any questions about the documents, feel free to ask.
Cathy Regier
<<Collaborative Law Contract.doc>> <<Ground Rules for the Client.doc>>
<<Guidelines for ACFL(MH).doc>> <<Homework List - CFL.doc>> <<What is
Collaborative Family Law.doc>> <<Spouse - process choices.doc>>
-----Original Message-----
From: Janice Pardue [SMTP:jpardue@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 2:13 PM
To: CollabLaw
Subject: [CollabLaw] Protocols
Hi, everyone -
As collaborative law is fairly new in Texas and especially in Houston,
are working toward establishing protocols under which to operate. It
would be a huge help if those of you who are farther along on the
experience curve could share with us any protocols that you have
developed. Your experiences would be invaluable to us who can learn
atthem.
If you want to share them, please -email them to me or fax them to me
Houston.713-526-7974, and I will see that they are distributed here in
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Thanks for your assistance and guidance.
Janice
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