In our court system, a divorce may take more than a year after a petition is filed to become final. Emotionally drained individuals walk away with no one a victor. Contact our firm today to speak with an attorney about the possibility of using the collaborative approach in your divorce.
Is It Better To Fight It Out, or Work Together?
Lawsuits can be costly, time-consuming and emotionally draining. Taking an important child custody, child support, property division or other divorce matter to court can result in an outcome that disappoints everyone involved. In fact, many lawyers and judges will say that if neither party is happy when the final ruling is made, it was probably the right decision.
There is an alternative to giving control over to the courts. You can work together in a collaborative law setting to resolve disputes and establish agreements that are truly custom tailored to the needs of your family. The team at the Sweeney Law Offices can help.
Our trained collaborative law attorneys serve the legal needs of families in the Pittsburgh area and throughout western Pennsylvania. Contact us today to discuss whether collaborative divorce may be a real option in your case, or continue reading to learn more about some of the general concepts and features of collaborative family law.
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While the traditional adversarial process may be necessary to protect your rights and interests in a divorce or child custody dispute, in most cases you will find that the collaborative process offers a chance to avoid unnecessary expense, delay and stress for everyone involved, especially the children who are looking to you to set an example of how important issues are handled.
Not many attorneys are trained or experienced in the use of collaborative law techniques. The team at the Sweeney Law Offices has received specific training from the Collaborative Law Association of Southwestern Pennsylvania (CLASP) and has extensive experience in the collaborative approach to resolving custody, complex property division, support and other issues in divorce. Contact us today to learn more.
The Comprehensive Law Movement
Collaborative law is often considered to be one component of the comprehensive law movement. The comprehensive law movement views law from an all-inclusive, holistic perspective. Rather than simply looking at what is going on in this particular case, the comprehensive law view attempts to see beyond the short-term outcome to the long-term effects the case may have on the parties involved. For more information, contact an attorney with experience in collaborative law from Sweeney Law Offices in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania today.
Philosophy Rather Than Process
The comprehensive law movement is a philosophy rather than a process. Attorneys and clients who believe in this philosophy, however, are more likely to look for collaborative processes for resolving matters with which they are confronted.
Therapeutic Jurisprudence
One of the philosophies of the comprehensive law movement is therapeutic jurisprudence. This philosophy focuses on the impact of the law on the emotional and psychological well-being of those involved. It looks at all aspects of law as a social force that can produce either therapeutic or non-therapeutic results and focuses on resolutions that will produce the highest level of therapy to the parties involved.
Transformative Law
Transformative law is another element of the comprehensive law movement. According to this perspective, conflict is produced by the imbalance of the parties' relationships with each other and with themselves. Such imbalance causes both parties to feel defenseless and thus more self-involved than before the dispute arose. Since these negative processes feed each other as the parties interact, a vicious cycle develops creating feelings that are even more negative. The transformative law philosophy focuses on party empowerment and recognition as a means of restoring this balance.
Holistic Law
Holistic law attempts to take all of the client's circumstances into account to create a long-term plan to address these issues, rather than focus only on the pending legal matter. This may include helping clients obtain assistance for mental health or substance abuse problems or helping clients secure social services. Holistic practices can take many forms. Attorneys may incorporate collaborative approaches as a means to resolve their client's issues or use other methods to reach the same ends.
Conclusion
While the comprehensive law movement may manifest itself in many forms with somewhat different focal points, those forms always seek ways to improve the lives of all involved in the legal system, whether as practitioners or as consumers. Contact an experienced collaborative law attorney from Sweeney Law Offices in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania to learn more about the available alternatives to litigation.
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