Our Downers Grove Collaborative & Cooperative Divorce attorneys want to help you know the differences between the two and have written the following guide on the benefits and downsides of each type of divorce.
Collaborative Divorce and Cooperative Divorce have the potential to prevent in-court litigation of the issues that must be resolved in a divorce case, such as asset division, maintenance awards, allocation of parenting time and responsibility, and child support payments. If successful, this will make your divorce significantly more cost-effective. It will prevent the stress to everyone in the family that can arise from contentious litigation.
Agreements reached out of court through the Collaborative Divorce or Cooperative Divorce process tend to be more comprehensive than those reached as a result of trial. These agreements are also less likely to lead to post-divorce litigation between the parties.
Collaborative Divorces place greater incentives on the parties than Cooperative Divorces to settle their case out of court rather than allowing the process to fail and result in litigation. On the other hand, in a Cooperative Divorce, the original attorneys can continue to represent their clients.
Both Collaborative Divorce and Cooperative Divorce are highly dependent on the actual good faith of the parties. Parties that feel that they cannot trust one another to negotiate and reveal information honestly are not good candidates for Collaborative Divorce or Cooperative Divorce. Couples in which one spouse tends to emotionally dominate the other are also poor candidates for this process, as the adversarial process and the court in a traditional divorce tend to shield the best interests of one spouse from the other's emotional dominance.
Read the full article from our Downers Grove Collaborative & Cooperative Divorce attorneys about the similarities and differences between these two divorce options.