Collaborative Divorce
In a Collaborative divorce, couples who have decided to end their marriage work with a team of professionals to achieve a settlement that best meets the specific needs of both spouses and their children. Collaborative divorce avoids the expensive, arbitrary and uncertain outcome of a Tennessee divorce court. The goals of a TN Collaborative divorce are to:
- Help the couple define and implement the divorce settlement that best meets the needs of their family
- Learn new skills for more effective communication, conflict resolution and post-divorce co-parenting
Financial Neutral’s Role – Collaborative Divorce
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Collaborative Divorce
The Collaborative Law Team helps spouses achieve a divorce that minimizes the negative economic, social and emotional consequences that undermine families in the traditional adversarial divorce process. By focusing on the children and the welfare of the family overall, the Collaborative process helps parents provide their children with the emotional support and healthy co-parenting they need. Collaborative practice accomplishes these goals because three independent professional disciplines (attorney, financial professional and divorce coach) work together as a team to integrate the legal, financial and emotional aspects of a divorce.
Arons & Associates serves as the Financial Professional on a Collaborative Divorce team. As the Financial Professional we work with both spouses as a “financial neutral.” Our role is to:
- Provide on-going financial planning, analysis and counseling throughout the divorce process to both spouses and their attorneys.
- Assist with financial “discovery” by gathering and organizing documentation and information relating to the parties’ incomes, expenses, assets and debt.
- Ensure that both spouses and their attorneys have a thorough understanding of their current financial situation.
- Educate the spouses and their attorneys on the short- and long-term economic consequences of settlement options being considered.
- Enable spouses to make fully informed decisions and choose what is most appropriate for their situation.
As the Financial Professional on my Collaborative Law team, Sandy helped us understand our financial reality. This gave me a tremendous peace of mind for the future. The fee I paid to Arons & Associates was money well-spent. Thank you Sandy for all your hard work!
The Collaborative Divorce Process
The Collaborative divorce process is controlled by the attorneys. The spouses retain full decision making authority. This is very different from an adversarial process where ultimately the court and state formulas decide what the divorce settlement and co-parenting arrangement will be.
Our founder and President, Sandy Arons, served as the financial neutral for the first Collaborative divorce in Tennessee. Ms. Arons is a founding member and Treasurer of her local association for collaborative professionals — Middle Tennessee Collaborative Alliance.