Buyer Beware
Not long ago we received an inquiry from a person seeking information about divorce and collaborative practice in Wisconsin. She had already contacted an attorney and while asking the attorney about her options, the response, among other things, included the statement “sure, we do collaborative.”
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The Role of the Lawyer Revisted
The role of lawyers in collaborative cases is markedly different than the role of lawyers in traditional divorce representation. Traditional divorce process severs a family and imposes adversarial goals on clients: each lawyer is obligated to advocate only his or her own client’s position and the goal is to do whatever it takes to win the biggest piece of the financial pie and maximum control over the children for his or her client
-Diane Mader, JD
Collaborative Divorce or Mediation?
In recent years, some Wisconsin attorneys have expanded their practices to include divorce mediation services. When a lawyer mediates a divorce, the lawyer can give legal information to the couple, but not legal advice. For some couples, legal information is 95% of what they need. Once they understand what the laws say, they feel comfortable working out their issues with the help of a mediator, but without getting legal advice. That’s important, because the mediator has to be neutral between the two of them.
Read more-Rebecca Oettinger, PhD, JD