5 top tips for successful collaborative divorce

Lisa Pepper has a large collaborative practice in London.  She has never had a case that hasn’t settled using this process.  These are her top 5 tips for a really successful outcome for your collaborative case:

1. Be prepared to compromise.  Seems obvious doesn’t it?  But when you are in the thick of the negotiations you can forget.  If you can both come out with your second best scenario, we have all done a fantastic job.
2. Have regular meetings.  A key ingredient.  Otherwise momentum is lost and there are miscommunications.
3. Focus on outcomes.  You are thinking about your lives in the future, your future earning capacities, pension pots, paying for university education for your children, etc.  You need to come up with a solution that works for you both (and the children) “on the ground.”  The beauty of it this process is you can be creative and you are making the decisions about the most important matters in your lives – not passing that control over to a Judge who you have never met before, doesn’t know you, your spouse or your children.
4. Pick lawyers who trust each other. Absolutely imperative.  If we can work together, we can help you in a most constructive way.  This means fewer meetings and less paperwork.
5. Avoid letters.  We are litigators, first and foremost.  Don’t let us revert to our old ways and allow either party to hide behind us to score points/make offers we know you are not going to agree with.

Lisa Pepper is a partner at Osbornes.  She is a Resolution accredited specialist in (i) Collaborative Law; (ii) financial settlements on divorce; and (ii) cases where unmarried couples separate and disagree on the ownership of their property. 

The Legal 500 recommends Lisa and describes her as ‘constructive and smiling whatever the challenges’.  Lisa is a committed member of Resolution, having been elected to its Board of Directors by other family law solicitors, and she sits on a number of Resolution Committees.  Follow Lisa on twitter @LisaPepperLaw