Category Archives: Collaborative Practice

The family dispute resolution (FDR) field has grown exponentially over the past ten years. This has been in response to the changes occurring in family law generally: more unrepresented people, backlogs in some courts, frustration with a non-specialist family law bench, lawyers becoming disenchanted with the traditional adversarial approaches, increased awareness of the prevalence of family violence, growth in communities …
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How can clients in collaborative practice work with a mediator to save costs and help reach agreements?

Do our Rules of Professional Conduct need to be updated to be of real use to lawyers?

When should mediators use “caucusing” as a technique…. and when should they not?

My ex-partner wants to reconcile: is mediation appropriate?

Lawyers play a critical role in successful family mediation.

I am dismayed by something that happened today. A senior, experienced mental health professional asked me whether it was okay for her to screen (for power imbalances or various forms of control) only one of the parties in an arbitration. The answer, of course, is no, but she did not know that, nor did the senior, experienced family lawyer who …
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Our first guest post: Victoria Smith on Collaborative Law. There’s no getting around it-divorce is painful and expensive. But it doesn’t have to be messy and financially ruinous. Collaborative Practice is a revolutionary new way to resolve separation and divorce for a growing number of families in Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.