Frequently Asked Questions

You may have most aspects of your divorce figured out, and just want an attorney to draft the legal papers and make sure you haven’t missed anything. You may only need to get some advice about how to handle a particular aspect of your divorce or separation, but you are comfortable doing the rest. If you are representing yourself in a family law matter, you might want to better understand the law on a particular point, or to get some perspective on whether you are being reasonable in what you are asking for. You might also want someone to do some legal research or writing for you. 

The Law Shop MN (TLSMN) has over 20 years of experience helping families in divorce, separation, paternity, prenuptial agreements, and other family law matters. Through the years, it has become clear that many people do not want to give a blank check for legal services; they want, and deserve, value for their legal fees.  TLSMN has developed a model that helps meet clients where they are and considers how to break down legal services into smaller parts so people can customize work with an attorney to get just what they need. TLSMN focuses on problem-solving and keeping money in your pocket, and providing precisely the services you need.

If you want or need legal representation through the resolution of their family law matter, but do not want to use the court process, you and your spouse can hire attorneys with specialized training who limit the scope of their services to only out-of-court representation and are committed to working towards joint resolution on behalf of the family, including the children. Attorneys hired for Collaborative divorce will not represent you in the court process should negotiations break down, so you know that everyone’s focus is on reaching resolution. Most cases in Collaborative divorce reach full resolution so the risk of going to court is rather low.  Traditional, adversarial litigation can be costly, both financially and emotionally. Collaborative divorce allows people to take a higher-minded, more civilized, and respectful approach to divorce.  TLSMN can help you consider whether a Collaborative divorce is a good fit for you.

A Collaborative lawyer has been specifically trained in the Collaborative process and mediation and agrees to not represent their client in court in a contested matter against their spouse by limiting the scope of their work to only out-of-court. A good Collaborative lawyer understands that even after divorce, people with children are still a family, but in a different configuration.  They work to create win-win outcomes for their client and spouse so they can move forward with a good co-parenting relationship.

Collaborative divorce is a fully out-of-court process in which your attorneys are committed to resolving your issues through listening, problem-solving and creative thinking. You and your spouse are in charge of the decisions, you have advice along the way, and everyone is invested in minimizing conflict and supporting co-parenting and healthy future relationships. Collaborative divorce is based on full disclosure and transparency of information, and the process provides the resources and support you need to reach a joint settlement. The traditional litigated divorce process involves attending hearings and evaluations, is a more formal process, and involves positional thinking that is often less creative and responsive to the family needs.

Divorce is not just a legal process; it is a financial and emotional one as well. Depending on your needs, it can be very cost-effective to use some neutral professionals in your Collaborative process who have expertise in other relevant areas with a focus on mediation, education and problem-solving. Financial Neutrals can help gather, verify financial data and crunch numbers. Their services can help increase people’s confidence in the numbers because their work is done from a place of neutrality. 

A Family or Child Specialist can help parents create child-focused parenting plans, and meet with the children if parents agree so that children feel like their voices are being heard in the divorce. These experts can provide valuable guidance on children and divorce,  from how to tell kids that you are divorcing, to navigating strained parent-child relationships. The Collaborative process tries to use the professional who has the expertise that is most relevant to the issue at hand for the best, most cost-effective service.  All Collaborative professionals have mediation training.

A mediator is someone who has completed at least 30 hours of mediation training and an additional 10 hours of specialized training for family law mediation. A mediator is not a judge, but a neutral facilitator you both hire together  to help you identify and resolve issues in your family law matter. However, someone hired as a mediator cannot provide legal advice to either party; only attorneys can do that. Collaborative attorneys are supportive of mediation and the work of the mediators, whether they are financial, parenting, or more general scope mediators.

Mediators do not draft final legal documents for the court because drafting is part of the attorney’s advocacy role. A mediator could be an attorney, financial professional, mental health professional or anyone who has completed the training so, make sure that your mediator understands family law and what the court needs to have resolved to sign off on your divorce. If an attorney is hired as a mediator, they are only wearing the hat of the mediator and will not act as an attorney in your matter.

Mediation is a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in which you and the other party try to reach a “win-win” resolution of your disputed issues. In mediation, the mediator helps you identify what information you need to gather; organizes it; helps identify issues you need to resolve; helps you have a structured space to talk about the issues, create and consider your options, and reach agreements. The mediator will not provide legal advice to either of you and will provide you with a summary of all agreements that an attorney can use to draft the legal documents to be filed with the court.  If you need legal advice in the mediation process, Collaborative attorneys are supportive of mediation and can be a good resource.