What Is The Process Of A Collaborative Divorce?

There is a website where parties can find attorneys in their area who have been trained to handle a collaborative divorce. The parties will agree that they want to move through the process and then one of them will reach out to a collaborative attorney. They have to have independent representation, so one collaborative attorney cannot represent both of them. We have a joint meeting where they agree to the collaborative principles about how we are not going to engage the court process. They sign a contract that says that we are going to utilize all efforts to resolve the divorce in a conference room instead of the courthouse. Once that contract is signed, then we talk about the issues that we need to resolve. Usually, there is a follow-up meeting to talk about custody, the parenting schedule, child support, and who is going to claim the kids on their taxes. We may set up a final session about dividing the property and maintenance issues.

What Are The Benefits Of Using Collaborative Divorce Versus A Traditional Approach And Is It Right For Everyone?

A collaborative divorce is definitely not right for people who are in a situation where one of the parents has absconded the state with the child, for example. There is probably not an agreement between those parties, and you may have to get the court involved immediately. If there are emergency custody issues or domestic violence, it is not going to be a good option to proceed in the collaborative process. If those things are not present, it is going to be less expensive and less time consuming to move through the collaborative process instead of going through the traditional court process. You can control things on your own timetable, which usually leads to more efficient results.

In a collaborative divorce, you don’t have the same stress associated with going through the court process. In cases that have kids, if the parties don’t learn how to work together to resolve issues now, they are going to be in and out of court until their child is 18. The collaborative process teaches the parties how to deal with issues that they will probably face in the years after their divorce. Divorce is not always the end of the case. If you have a child who is five years old, then you’ve still got over a dozen years to work together with the child’s other parent.

What Rights Do Grandparents Have To Visitation Or Custody?

Grandparents have their own law in Kentucky that sets out that they can ask for visitation rights. Grandparents do not have rights to a child the way a parent does, but the law does allow them to file with a court or even get involved in a party’s divorce. They may actually intervene in the case and, if one or both of the parents are not taking care of the child, ask for their own visitation schedule with the child. This allows the grandparents to monitor the condition of the child. The law is very vague, so we help people break it down. Frequency of contact and how much of a role the grandparent has played in that child’s life is one of the biggest factors the court is going to look at as to whether or not to grant that grandparent visitation rights with the child.

How Do Grandparents File For Any Sort Of Rights?

Kentucky has a family court system that prefers that we do not have multiple cases in front of multiple judges that involve the same family. As an attorney, we would first look to see if there is any existing case, like a divorce, custody, or CPS case. We can file a case for them to ask for grandparents’ rights either through a motion to get involved in an existing case regarding the child or a new petition for grandparents’ rights.

For more information on Collaborative Divorce of grandparent rights, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (812) 302-0539 today.