Collaborative Law in Ohio

John Heilbrun has 30 years experience helping clients with family, marital and domestic law problems including divorce, dissolution, property division, alimony/spousal support, parenting/child custody issues, visitation issues, child support and post-decree matters.

Collaborative Law is a method by which spouses who agree they are going to end their marriage also agree they are going to work together with their respective attorneys to peacefully resolve, by agreement, all issues incident to the termination of their marriage. Collaborative Law is an alternative to costly and emotionally stressful and traumatic adversarial courtroom proceedings. It requires a commitment by both spouses to settle all disputes by agreement, and allows the parties to maintain control of the process and resolve all the issues themselves, rather than turning over the control for the resolution of these most important issues to the Court.

To reach a resolution of the issues incident to the termination of the marriage by Collaborative Law, both spouses must retain attorneys who have been specially trained to practice Collaborative Law. I am a member of a select group of family law attorneys in Southwest Ohio who have obtained this special training. A joint agreement is signed by both parties and their attorneys by which everyone agrees to work to resolve all issues incident to the termination of the marriage through the collaborative process, and not to file adversarial proceedings. The spouses and their attorneys work together to resolve all issues in a way that works best for the parties and their children.

The benefits of proceeding by the collaborative process include that the spouses work together to resolve all issues, thereby diminishing the possibility of ongoing conflict between them. This is of critical importance in cases where the parties have children, as the significant stress that results from adversarial Court proceedings often causes increased and long lasting conflict between the parties, which ultimately adversely affects their children.

The collaborative process is generally less expensive and takes less time than adversarial Court proceedings.