By Stefani Quane

By now you must have heard that you would be a fool not to consider adding collaborative law to your tool kit. Heck, collaborative law has even been featured on the Today Show and the CBS Evening News.

For those of you who are not familiar with collaborative law, it’s a form of dispute resolution where clients and lawyers reach settlements through a series of four-way meetings. The goal is to reach a fair settlement for each party.

A critical distinction from regular representation is that, with collaborative law, the lawyers must withdraw if the process fails. A benefit of the model is that there is no discovery and the parties are under an obligation to fully disclose information. Also, neither party is allowed to take advantage of another party’s mistake or misunderstanding. It offers the potential of saving both parties money compared to a more traditional litigation model.

The process started in the early 1990s by Stu Webb, in Minnesota. It has since spread to Canada, England, central Europe, and Australia. Originally, collaborative law was practiced only in the family law arena. Recently, attorneys have begun to explore its viability in other areas such as business, employment, and probate.

Assuming you are interested in collaborative law, here are some steps to create a practice:

1. Join the group Washington Collaborative Law and meet other interested collaborative professionals. This group offers free lunch-time CLEs, and periodic paid two-day trainings. Their next collaborative law training is in April 2005. You can find the group at www.washcl.org. As a trained member, you are eligible to be listed on their website.
2. Attend a training or CLE on the collaborative law. You can learn more about national trainings at www.collaborativepractice.com. One of the primary tools of a collaborative practice is the successful use of nuanced language. The mediation field has been developing techniques for several decades and many of these skills carry over into collaborative law. If there are no convenient collaborative law trainings for you to attend, mediation trainings are an excellent first step to prepare yourself.
3. Draft your fee agreements for collaborative cases. You can use your regular fee agreement, but then add a section for collaborative law. You will want to include language that tells clients the case will be handled collaboratively and you will withdraw if either party chooses to stop the process. You must also advise clients you must withdraw if you find they are not cooperating in good faith with the process.
4. Obtain and then customize a collaborative participation agreement. This is the key collaborative document: the contract the parties and lawyers sign with the rules of the collaborative process. You might want to sample several groups’ participation agreement to find one that works best for you. Washington Collaborative Law has a sample fee agreement and I am willing to share my participation agreement.
5. Join the international group for collaborative law: the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals. Their website is www.collaborativepractice.com. They have an excellent active listserv. If you join the list serve, you will be in contact with professionals who have been practicing this model for over a decade. You will find the members of this group are exceedingly supportive of newcomers to the process. Once a member, you are eligible to list your contact information on their website targeted to the public. You will also be able to access forms and obtain advice.
6. Find a collaborative law mentor. Washing-ton Collaborative Law will put you in touch with lawyers who are experienced in collaborative law cases. I am willing to host collaborative law practice sessions, or speak to your firm if enough attorneys are interested.
7. Share the collaborative model with lawyers you know and trust. Discuss the possibility of working together as a collaborative partnership, and trading collaborative cases with one another. This is how the movement began. Stu Webb wrote letters to ten of his most amicable and respected peers. Four said yes. The movement has spread across continents. California has hundreds of collaborative “pods” of independent practitioners joining together to share cases and expertise.
8. Suggest the concept to clients. The model really sells itself. A pitch sounds like this: “...Another way you might want to precede is called collaborative law. It’s an approach where both sides agree not to use the court system, and strive for a win/win solution through a series of four-way meetings between the two clients and the two lawyers. If it makes sense, we hire joint experts to serve as a neutral expert for both of you. If the process fails, both attorneys withdraw and you can go to litigation attorneys for a court resolution. Does this solution sound like something you might be interested in? The trick is getting the person on the other side of the conflict to agree. We can talk about the best ways to get the other side on board.”
9. Talk about and promote the model. The concept is just now breaking through to the public’s awareness. The more we promote it, the faster clients will be asking for this particular service and the faster we can transform our practices into more amicable practices.
10. Be nice to your litigator and mediator friends. The model is not meant to replace either style of practice, but is a complementary addition. The model offers clients more options. As Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge said at an event in January 2005 hosted by Washington Collaborative Law, “it’s important that lawyers become more client-focused.”

Collaborative law is about putting the focus back on the client’s wishes and needs, and giving them more control of the process. Some cases require litigation is, sometimes mediation works, and sometimes collaborative law is just right.