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A collaborative divorce may be considered an oxymoron by many. If the couple could collaborate, why are they divorcing?

Yet this type of divorce is catching fire in Texas and around the world: 43 states and 81 countries have lawyers practicing collaborative law, a concept developed in the 1990s by Stu Webb, a family lawyer in Minnesota.

Texas was the first state to adopt a collaborative law statute in 2001, followed by North Carolina and California.

“All I do now is collaborative cases,” said Scott Clarke, a certified financial planner in Colleyville. “In 2004, I did five divorces. Now I'm doing 50-plus a year.”

Clarke recently co-authored a book with Melinda Eitzen, a Dallas lawyer, and Vicki James, a licensed therapist in Dallas, titled Divorce: The Collaborative Way ($13.95, iUniverse).

Collaborative divorce involves three disciplines — law, therapy and financial planning — in negotiations that provide a faster, often cheaper, alternative to litigation in court. In most cases it leaves both parties more satisfied, Clarke says.

There are 500 members of the Dallas-based Collaborative Law Institute of Texas, which trains the professionals in the collaborative divorce process, said Clarke, a member of the institute’s board of trustees.

“Training is huge when you are asking people from three different professions to shift their thinking as to what they do,” Clarke says. “Attorneys are litigators, but collaborative law asks them to meet both clients’  interests and goals. Mental health professionals move from the therapist role into a facilitating role, and financial planners provide that neutral voice on what happens financially to each party.”

For example, a divorced party can expect an average 30 percent increase in living costs, Clarke said. “It’s almost impossible to not have a 30 percent addition for rent payment.”

But collaborative divorce gives couples a great deal of freedom in how they split up their financial lives, he added.

via SAVVY CONSUMER: How to get a divorce with both sides satisfied | Teresa McUsic | Dallas ….