The collaborative process keeps a focus on interests rather than on positions. Your Florida collaborative divorce team will encourage you to express and focus on your interests and goals, rather than asserting your rigid positions.
But…what’s the difference? What is interest-based negotiation in a Florida collaborative divorce? The collaborative process centers on understanding interests that underlie positions.
Express Interests, Not Rigid Positions
Ask “Why?”
Interest-based negotiation digs into reasons a spouse or parent wants an outcome. What’s behind a demand to stay in the home or keep a 401(k)? What fear or sense of justice underlies the demand when considering the collaborative divorce process?
By identifying underlying goals—such as feeling safe in a home, having future financial security, or your promoting your child’s well-being—you can explore creative solutions that meet your family’s needs and honor what makes your family special. Positional bargaining often leads to impasse. Focusing on interests during the process fosters flexible solutions.
In collaborative meetings, your team will use this interest-based approach – with the help of a neutral collaborative facilitator, financial neutrals, child specialists, divorce coaches, trust attorneys, or other expert allied professionals – to get to agreements tailored to your family’s unique circumstances.
Focus On Interests that Underlie Positions
By category – parenting, equitable distribution, alimony, child support, and other issues – the table below gives examples of issues that often arise in Florida divorce.
Not Just “What?” But “Why?”
Consider an issue not by a position you or your spouse might take (what you want), but by goals and interests that underlie that position (why you want what you say you do).
Exploring interests can expand options you and your spouse might consider. You might otherwise not consider these options and agreed-on solutions by allowing positions to snuff out creativity.
When Clients Retain Their Power: The Collaborative Law Process
Harness Collaborative Contract Power!
Include Allied Professionals in the Collaborative Process
Collaborative Family Law: Florida Favors Settlement Agreements
FAQs Florida Collaborative Divorce
Collaborative Divorce – Rule 4-1.19
Florida’s Collaborative Law System
Florida Collaborative Law Process Act, §61.55 – 61.58, Florida Statutes