Collaboration is a client-centered process to educate and empower you to make the decisions that will affect your life, not involving the court in decision-making. In the collaborative process each spouse has a lawyer with whom they can obtain legal advice and who will be with them at all collaborative negotiating sessions. Issues are resolved in the privacy of the lawyers’ offices, not in a public courtroom. You can determine how much or how little of the attorney’s services you need. The attorneys will prepare or help prepare the paperwork needed to initiate and finalize the case. Other professionals can be involved to help resolve issues including financial and parenting experts. The collaborative process can be used to resolve other issues like legal separations, prenuptial agreements, custody or support disputes, parenting issues and post-judgment issues.
The average timeline for a Collaborative Legal Separation or Divorce is 4 to 6 months and entails:
- Clients meet with attorneys to establish working individual and collaborative relationships
- The initial court documents are filed initiating the case (starting the statutory 90-day waiting period which can be waived once you come to an Agreement)
- Negotiation sessions take place (the amount of negotiation sessions are determined by the clients and number of issues needing to be resolved, the ability of clients to speak to each other and the complexity of issues)
- The Financial Affidavits, Settlement Agreement and final hearing documents are prepared
- Final hearing
If you are married or had a civil union, you can obtain a divorce or legal separation in Connecticut. All of the resolution processes are available to you and your spouse to untangle your finances and familial ties (mediation, collaboration, litigation and arbitration). Custody, parenting, asset division and support issues can be resolved and made a court order. I can prepare you for your separation or divorce process, prepare the initial paperwork to start the process, negotiate and create a settlement agreement, prepare the final hearing documents and guide you through your final hearing.