Divorce Rich with Jacki Roessler, CDFA

Collaborative Instead of Combative Divorce with Attorney Randy Pitler

• Season 2 • Episode 6

Share episode

Send us a text

Divorce doesn’t have to be a courtroom sport. We sit down with Michigan family law attorney Randy Pittler to unpack how collaborative divorce reframes the process from “win-lose” to problem solving—replacing subpoenas and shuttle diplomacy with a trained team, full transparency, and solutions built for real life. Randy explains why litigation so often breeds delay, expense, and post‑mediation regret, and how Collaborative Divorce flips the incentives: each spouse has a collaboratively trained attorney, a neutral financial expert gathers documents and models options, and a mental health coach keeps emotions from steering the deal.

Curious whether you’re a fit? If there’s basic good faith, no active hiding of assets, and a desire to avoid scorched earth, Collaborative Divorce can work—even when emotions run high. We share how to find trained professionals in Michigan and beyond, why ongoing training matters, and how this approach sets healthier patterns for future co‑parenting. Ready to trade conflict for clarity? Follow the show, share this episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help others find a better path through divorce.


Visit us at https://www.roesslerdivorce.com/ to learn more about Jacki's practice and to find valuable resources for your case.

The Divorce Rich podcast is proudly sponsored by Center for Financial Planning: Striving to Improve Lives through Financial Planning Done Right! https://www.centerfinplan.com/

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Divorce Rich Podcast. I'm your host, Jackie Ressler. I've been a certified divorce financial analyst for 28 years, helping clients and their attorneys navigate the often complex and confusing financial issues in divorce. If you're in the process of or considering divorce, now is the time for you to take a deep breath and give yourself permission to find clarity on the financial issues you're facing. Rich means many things to many people. I believe the best definition of being rich is someone who has access to many resources. Along with my guests on this podcast, I will be bringing you a wide variety of information so that you can make sound and informed financial decisions for your financial future. And let's be honest, the financial part, it's overwhelming, confusing, and often the last thing you want to deal with. That's why I want to tell you about the independent wealth management team at Center for Financial Planning. Their team of certified financial planners specializes in helping people just like you navigate life changes with confidence, whether it's assessing your new financial circumstances, creating or updating your retirement plan, or helping you adjust to the new normal. They'll work with you to get a clear, customized plan to feel in control and move forward with confidence. So if you're interested in working with a financial planner who you can trust to have your best interests in mind and you're ready to take the next step, visit centerfinplan.com. That's centerfinplan.com and schedule a conversation. Center for Financial Planning, live your plan.

SPEAKER_02:

Disclosure. Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc., member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Center for Financial Planning, Inc. Center for Financial Planning Inc. is not a registered broker dealer and is independent of Raymond James Financial Services. Center for Financial Planning was a sponsor of the Divorce Rich Podcast. The Center for Financial Planning and Raymond James are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Divorce Rich Podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Divorce Rich Podcast. This is Jackie Ressler, and I am so excited because I have a topic that I have wanted to cover since the very beginning of doing podcasting and a divorce arena. And I have a fantastic guest today. So I am joined today by Michigan Family Law attorney Randy Pittler of Pittler Family Law and Mediation. And Randy specializes in amicable divorce. And our topic today is collaborative divorce and what that is. I'm again I'm so excited to be able to even have this as a resource that I can send out to clients when I'm talking to them about the differences between collaborative and traditional adversarial divorce cases. So welcome, Randy.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, thank you, Jackie. I'm very excited to be here as well. And I'm always excited to talk about collaborative divorce. So I'm looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_01:

So can you first tell me a little bit about what inspired you to get involved in amicable divorces? Which I know you said you've been doing that since 2004. You've been an attorney doing family law for 29 years. But what happened in 2004 that encouraged you to make that shift?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I'll go back a couple years before that, which is I actually, you know, practiced law for about five years and then moved to LA to do other things from 98 and 2001. I got married and we decided to be moved back to Detroit. And when I came back, I was thinking about the areas of law that I really enjoyed practicing. And they were areas where I felt like I was helping people, which was divorce, like I did residential real estate and some probate. And but I focused mostly on the divorce. And I just, you know, to me, divorce, and I and I will kind of say that I did very little probate. I did a little, I did a lot of foresale by owners, but in 2008, those pretty much dried up and and went away. But I was I was mostly focused on divorce. And I was always just frustrated with litigation. It just felt like it wasn't, you know, divorces shouldn't be in a courtroom. You know, this is a personal matter. It's it involves a couple, their kids. And my view is if you know, if we didn't have courts, you wouldn't invent a divorce. You wouldn't, you wouldn't go to a you wouldn't invent a court if you wanted to split up. You'd, you know, you'd probably go to someone.

SPEAKER_01:

Really interesting point. I think, yeah, you're right. You're right.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so you might have like a person to help you talk through things. You probably a person would probably go to their pastor, minister, priest, rabbi. They might talk to a financial person. Um, but you wouldn't go into court and have someone else do that for you. And and plus it's personal. I don't like the litigation aspect. I don't like waking up at two in the morning saying, oh crap, you know, I need to send this subpoena, or I forgot to, you know, do this or that, or file, I need to file this motion. So some of it's personal satisfaction, some of it's I just don't think divorces should be in court. And I think doing things amicably is a much better way, or they're really the right way.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that perspective. I you know, I I have not really ever thought about it that way.

SPEAKER_00:

But you're right. Yeah, and I will tell you that in terms of collaborative, I was married and my father-in-law at the time sent me an article in the old days through the mail that he cut out of the Wall Street Journal about collaborative divorce. And so I looked into it and it turned out there was a training coming up for collaborative in Michigan. And I will admit, the first one I believe was 2004, and I ended up having a conflict and had to bump it to 2005. So it's part of I was part of the second class that was trained in Michigan.

SPEAKER_01:

But yes, I was in that class, Randy. I think you are because I was pregnant with my daughter when when I went through that training in Ann Arbor, like at a hotel in Ann Arbor.

SPEAKER_00:

I think probably at the Weber Inn yeah, the Weber Inn.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

So you so and then you immediately started pursuing doing that when you Yeah, and I had even before that, I had taken the mediation training, the 40-hour domestic relations mediation training. And then I'll say then after that, as I built collaborative, which was slow, you know, to develop in this area. I also started doing a lot of uncontested divorces. I do, and I still do, that's kind of my bread and butter. A lot of people who they have an agreement, but they really want an attorney to work with both of them. You know, they want to kind of just get it done through the courts the right way, without the fighting, without having two lawyers fighting. So I handle a lot of cases like that. I always make it clear that I don't represent two people. I can only represent one person in a divorce. But I do work with couples to to just kind of, you know, they already have an agreement and they just want to make sure everything gets processed the right way.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. I think that that's yeah, the the legal aspect of it, even though I I agree with you that you wouldn't, it doesn't seem like a natural fit that it is a legal process to get divorced. But the legal part of it is so I always tell clients, you have to have an attorney because it's so one word wrong in the final settlement agreement can have reverberating negative effects down the road that you wouldn't even think about if you are a lay person.

SPEAKER_00:

So absolutely. Absolutely. And I can tell you, I just had a client. I do a little bit of litigation, it's more for kind of former clients and they come back for something. And I did have a recent case where it's a girlfriend of a former client who they did it themselves, and they literally they didn't, you know, there was a pension. They checked the box that there was no pension. They didn't put a parenting time schedule in in writing. They did a bunch of things. So now we're back in court. They probably spent more money trying to fix it than had they just called, you know, one or two lawyers to do it right exactly the first time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I I think the biggest I I hate that social media trend of that DIY divorce. There are a lot of people putting out information and marketing to like, yes, you can do it yourself. And you might be able to make the decisions yourself, but like you said, you might not know all the information. You might even not realize that you have a pension. Some people don't.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

So and but just like again, it's like not knowing, not knowing the parameters, not knowing the rules makes it so I think really expensive and harmful for people. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

And I tell people all the time, like my view is you know, if you don't have any assets, you don't have any children, fine, go ahead, knock yourself out, use the forums. And if someone's listening and they're gonna go use Michigan Legal Help, which is a state-sponsored website, it's free and county specific. But if you start talking about having children, retirement accounts, a house that you have to be refinanced or sold, you know, investment accounts that have to be like every time you add another layer, it's another reason why you should have an attorney.

SPEAKER_01:

Excellent. Yeah, I agree. I love that. That's perfect soundbite, Randy. I really like it.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm good at the sound bites. So I've been saying all these, I've been saying, I have to say, I've been saying a lot of these things for so long that I feel sometimes it's like all I'm doing is I know.

SPEAKER_01:

I have my soundbite. But you know, when you do something for a long time and you believe in it, you tend to, you know, fall back in the same way. But I I like that. That's a really good way to understand when to bring in a turnion. Let's um let's move back to collaborative. So for people that are listening, we've got listeners, we've a lot of listeners in Michigan, but we have listeners all over the country. And I want people to understand who are listening and maybe have not heard the term collaborative, that it doesn't just mean, yeah, we're gonna all collaborate together, that there's an actual specific collaborative process, capital C, capital P. Can you give us just a brief walkthrough of what is what is different about the collaborative process versus a traditional litigated case?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so, and yeah, and I and you're right. And I do want to point out too that collaborative is worldwide. So if people are listening in other areas, that you should have a local group or attorneys and other professionals who do handle collaborative cases. But the biggest difference between collaborative and litigation is in collaborative, you're you're staying out of court. You're actually committing in writing at the beginning of the process that you're gonna do everything out of court. And we kind of come back to how that works later. But that's the biggest, you're staying out of court. The other is the kind of you each have an attorney, but you have an attorney who's trained in the collaborative process. And it's another big difference because the role of the attorney is different. We're in litigation, you know, an attorney's role is really to be your advocate for you and kind of an adversary to your spouse and your spouse's attorney. Here it's I look at it as it's more of an advisor, you know, that I'm helping my client get through the process, the, you know, the other attorney is helping their partner, but we're also kind of working together as a team to truly try and create a win-win. So the role of the attorney is different. We're not in the room beating each other up. We're not playing games, we're not playing good cop, bad cop, or anything like that. We're just trying to work through, find out what people's interests are, and reach a resolution that works for both of them. And another big part difference between collaborative and litigation is we use neutrals. You know, one is we use divorce coaches, therapists, psychologists. And, you know, they have a couple different roles. One is we understand divorce, it's, you know, at least two-thirds of divorces emotions. You know, when people are fighting about a house, it's never about the actual house and the practical aspects of keeping the house. It's the perception of that person as a winner, or maybe somebody didn't want the house, or this person did this or did that. They don't deserve this, they're the ones leaving. It becomes very emotional of why people are doing things. So a big role in the divorce coach is to work with the two parties to talk through any issues related to the divorce process. It's not marriage counseling, it's not individual therapy, but it's to kind of manage those emotions. So when we're talking about settling and we're talking about the house, we don't have those elephants in the room. We're talking about what makes sense for the two of them. And the divorce coach also, if there are children, are very helpful. Usually we will have those people also uh deal with the cost of parenting time issues. And that way, one is instead of two lawyers, you're saving a little bit of money by having one mental health professional. But the mental health professional has specific training in that area where the lawyers, we've done this for a living, but it's not our specific field of education. Right. So we just have that person help with the parenting time issues and then it makes it a little more efficient. And then this is where you come in. We also use financial neutrals. And, you know, there's a couple different um components or things that the financial neutral can help with. One is just gathering documents. You know, again, instead of having two attorneys, we have one financial and the and and I should also be sure there is, and well, I think we want to talk about this later, but there is a training. Everyone has to be trained to participate in the collaborative process. And all the coaches go through the same training as the lawyers. Everybody who participates go through the same training. So the financial coach, one, to help gather documents. Number two, to help compile it, maybe put together spreadsheets. Most of you have, you know, specific software to help put all the information into to eventually help, you know, show the division of assets, where most attorneys do not have access to that type of software. And what I find financial neutrals are very helpful for is when we're talking about alimony, is instead of kind of using, like in Michigan, we have a non-official calculator, but it's really just kind of a, you know, putting a square peg in a square hole and hoping it fits. Um in collaborative, we try and we want people to put together budgets, you know, realistic post-divorce budgets, and the financial neutral can help people put that together. And then that really informs the discussion for alimony, where now we're looking at, you know, what the parties can afford, what they need, you know, what works for the two of them instead of just some random number. So, and so using these neutrals is uh to me a very big difference in between collaborative and and litigation. So it's a very different process.

SPEAKER_01:

I I would agree. I I do both also. I do collaborative and I do traditional litigated, and I'm probably 50-50 on in my work on that. I what I love about the collaborative process is the transparency. So the part that I really dislike about being an advocate in a traditional litigated case is that I have to dig to get all the financial information. I have to help the attorney that I'm working with. Well, we we got this. I actually had a case yesterday where we asked for the W-2s because we're looking for what the what the spouse had contributed to retirement accounts, and we were given the W-2s with all of that information redacted. And it's like, you know, it's like pulling teeth. And so now there has to be a subpoena that has to go out to the employer. And you know, it's just with the collaborative process, everyone understands up front, we're gonna be transparent, we're gonna disclose all of our information. So to me, that removes a layer of added expense for clients where you know they're not paying their lawyer to track down information, everyone's just giving it the information over. So, and it's funny, you said that you feel like divorce is two-thirds psychological and emotional, and I was thinking it's two-thirds financial from my perspective. But so yeah, so I love thank you for kind of framing that team approach of doing it. Go ahead, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm sorry, and so and just to kind of follow up what you said about you know, you know, about having the financial neutral, you know, it's easier to get the information from people. And that's one of the things I talk about, the benefits of collaborative is I always say I never use the word like it's not inexpensive. You're still paying professionals their hourly rate, but it's more efficient. And like I said before, in for the gathering the financial documents, instead of paying two lawyers to do it, you're paying one financial person to do it. So you're saving some money. But again, you know what you're looking for. You know the follow-up questions, you know, and your hourly rate is probably lower, certainly lower than two combined attorneys, but probably even lower than one attorney. So you're working with the parties to gather this information and it's more efficient for them to do it that way.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. And then I I mean, personally, I love the part where we get to start playing around with the numbers with the whole team present, where we're looking at different at using software, looking at different financial outcomes. Well, this is what this is what it looks like if you keep the house versus you keep the house and being able to come up with creative ideas that we don't necessarily get to in adversarial cases.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And something too with that one, because I also like that part of it as well. And and we add to that because in with the divorce coach, and this is a transparent process, you know, where all the information is shared. So at the beginning of the process, the coach will talk to the parties and you learn some of their history, their personal history, their family history, and you might get a sense of what their interests are and you know what they're what's really motivating them in a settlement, which we don't do in litigation. Litigation is I'm gonna get you as much as possible, what you're entitled to, you know, people want to get what they're entitled to. They want to screw the other person. We're here in collaborative, we're truly trying to satisfy people's interests. And so there's a lot of times in collaborative, like we'll learn. And I'm gonna take a quick tangent here. Like one of my first collaborative cases was this I had a client who came to me, and he he came to me and he said, you know, a few years before his wife had run up like 20 grand on credit cards, and they finally got it paid off, and he learned that she ran it up again. So here he is, the marriage is over, she can't manage money. And he's like, every month he does the bills, he talks, he has a budget. You know, she he asked her if she wants to sit down and talk money. She doesn't want to do it. Well, then she comes in. You know, we learn in collaborative that, you know, the budget hasn't been changed in 10 or 15 years, that, you know, she's going to Miers, she's going to Target. You know, they had, I want to say three or four kids. And, you know, the every penny was going towards legitimate household expenses. She wasn't going to Somerset, you know, she wasn't buying Louis Vuitton stuff. And her view was he he went budge on the money. And he she didn't talk to him because he would yell at her about the budget. And, you know, you have to learn to live within this budget. So I really learned in that case that there's like two sides, there's two legitimate sides. They both had their truth and they're both right from their perspective, and they're both wrong. So it's kind of, but then that helped us through that process because we understood how they each work. And it was so going forward, we could reach a settlement that kind of satisfied the way they operated. Right. And and this is a long way to get to. Like I've had cases, again, I don't really do litigation anymore, but I've had cases of litigation where I've called up attorneys and said, I've got this case figured out. You know, your client really wants this. Your client is really interested, you know, they really want to make sure they can make ends meet every month. And, you know, my client is more concerned about retirement. So maybe we do this way. So your client gets more cash flow. My client has a little more retirement. And every time I've done that, I the other attorney is like, you're you're nuts. Like we're not, you know, there there's one way we do this, and you know, we're not gonna do something like that. And so I agree. I love the creativity in collaborative.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think you hit on another point, which is that we're focused in collaborative more on what's in the best interest of the people or what their interests are versus their position. Correct. Whereas in an adversarial case, you know, we're always we're even I'm I'm a strong advocate for my client when I'm an advocate for them. And I'm looking at what their position is. I try to look at, okay, what's the what's the underlying issue here? Do you really want to keep the house? Or how long do you want to keep it instead of yeah, you want it, but how long? You know, but even in the collaborative realm, it's so much easier to have those kinds of conversations. And I think the team usually gets a close in working with the couple. I mean, you you feel like you've really I always feel like we've really accomplished something in getting the couple through that and also maybe helping them in the future because they're gonna need to communicate in the future if they have children. And hopefully that collaborative process sets them up with the mental health coach involved to communicate in the future.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Yeah. And that's part of what I think we get a more I'd like to think we have a more lasting settlement because we're getting deeper, we're finding out their interests, we're talking through it more at, you know, we're not forcing it at the end of, you know, we're not on the courthouse steps trying to settle a case before trial. You know, people have time to think about it. And and I'd like to think that they're again, it's a it's a longer lasting result.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. And I know that even so most cases that I work on in in Michigan, you know, where I'm primarily in Macomb, Oakland, Wayne, Washina counties, most of them end up, the traditional litigated cases end up in what I would refer to as end stage mediation, where they they're negotiating through the whole process. They went through all they've been filing motions and they have you know the attorney involved all the way through. And then at the very end, before we get to trial, we were going to mediate the case with a neutral third-party mediator, when and usually it's a lawyer. And I have had so many clients that have gone through that process that have said to me, they just felt like they were run over in that process. They didn't understand what was going on. It happened so fast, they weren't even part of it. The attorneys are talking on their own, you know, in a separate room with the mediator, deciding their life. And people don't have good feelings coming out of mediation in and right.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's I refer to it as screw you mediation. And I and I do mediation. I do mediation with couples without attorneys, and I do, you know, those kind of right end stage court mediation. And a lot of what happens there is the mediator, because the parties are in separate rooms. It's it's you know, it's a shuttle diplomacy process. So it's not like you're going back and forth in one room. And a lot of it is the mediator telling the parties, well, you know, you're not going to get this in court, or, you know, maybe you'll get that in court, but it's going to cost you$15,000 to go to trial or more. And so it's kind of, it's almost like through threats and attrition of wearing people down until they just settle just to get it over with or avoid a trial. I mean, it's they're not getting what they want. They're just getting what they think they can walk out of there with. And you know, I've had, you know, a lot of cases where I've, you know, been the attorney for someone in that, and almost always there's a phone call the next day. You know, with, you know, it's, you know, it's various degrees of regret, but there's, you know, almost every case is, oh my God, like what did I do? Or do we have to do this, this, and this?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And I don't I don't hear that from post-collaborative divorce clients that they they don't feel like they they understand the compromises that they've made and and the why. It's not like it just happened to them and they were kind of a bystander in their own case. Right. Um so Randy, let's talk about because people ask me this question all the time. So, what happens if they go collaborative, they choose the collaborative process and they cannot come to an agreement? Can you explain to the audience what happens in that scenario?

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Well, first of all, I have to say it's it doesn't happen very often. It does happen, but we, you know, we the collaborative community is not very big. We kind of all know each other. And so if a case falls apart often, we we know it's it happens. And I say that because if people talk to non-collaborative attorneys, you know, they will say things like, Oh, you know, I have six cases right now that were collaborative that fell apart and now we're in court, which is just complete false. So just kind of so in, and I was mentioning before, like at the beginning of the process, we sign a participation agreement and it's a contract that governs the process. And Michigan has a statute on collaborative divorce and a participation agreement is required. And a key component of the participation agreement and of collaborative, because this kind of keeps people in the process, is we have what's called the disqualification clause. That if anybody in the process um decides, either if the parties decide they want to get out and go to court, or if the attorneys don't think it's working and it's there's a problem with collaborative that it has to end, the collaborative process is terminated and the parties have to start over with new attorneys in court. The attorneys in the collaborative process cannot represent the parties in court and the work product from the financial person and the coach. The coaches and the financial people are not cannot testify in court, they can't participate in the process. And it seems harsh, and it's something that people say, well, if it falls apart, you know, you have to spend all this money, so why take a chance? But again, most cases don't fall apart. But the reason for that is to keep everybody committed to the process, that the parties, you know, it's kind of a big disincentive for them or, you know, to incentive them to stay in the process and work things out, then start over new attorneys. And it's a disincentive for us lawyers. Like we know what we're like, it wouldn't be hard. And divorce lawyers are the worst, and that's another reason to avoid litigation. I think many of divorce lawyers prey on people's emotions and take advantage of the situation, drive up the costs. But it wouldn't be hard for two divorce lawyers to get people pissed off at each other in a collaborative process and get them into court and litigation, where really we could make a lot more money and we could build more time. And so it's kind of another collaborative professional, Danielle Smith, said this years ago. And I I I like it. She calls it a safety net around the process that the collab, the disqualification clause, we all know we're in this together. We all know we're protected to work together. You know, nobody can play games and run into court. You know, we're committed to this, getting this done in this particular process, or we're not going to be part of your team.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. I I think it is a very big disincentive once you are halfway through. And I think it really, like you said, it keeps people motivated to keep trying because the cost is starting all over again with new attorney, new financial people, whether there's a a parenting coordinator, it's it's definitely something that people think about. And and I've had very few cases that have ever fallen apart. And one of them, one of the cases that I did have, the one of the clients tried to subpoena my file, the new attorney on the case. And the other attorney I'm gonna say this wrong, they filed a motion to quash the agreement and the judge ruled in their favor because everything under the collaborative participation agreement says it's confidential. And so none of my um none of my work product could be subpoenaed. So so that was, you know, pluses and minuses for both sides, actually. But that was, you know, good to know. What um what do you think, you know, if people are evaluating, um, am I a good case for collaborative or am I this I'm not the right fit? What what kinds of of things should they evaluate?

SPEAKER_00:

So, and I I do want to go back to one thing and you just said, and I'll come back to is that in terms of we talk about disqualification clause, once a divorce is final, like once we have a signed agreement, only then do we file with the courts to get them divorced. And the collaborative attorneys can represent the parties in court to complete a divorce. Right. But then if there's post-judgment, and we usually have language in the agreement that if there are issues later, they have to come back to the collaborative process. And we can always help with that. But if they end up back in court fighting, the collaborative attorneys can't represent them in court even after. And I should also point out the other professionals are also excluded from working with them. So I think if people went back for couples, help with parenting time, then go back to the divorce coach. But neither party can use the divorce coach for individual therapy. And as you know, that for the financial neutral, neither party can use that person to help manage their assets simply because it would raise the appearance. You know, then the other spouse would be like, huh. You know, were they working with this person before? Was the financial person maybe skewing the assets in a way where they can manage more of them? So nobody could really represent them outside the process.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. That is an important distinction, especially with um that process of well, who's gonna file up a divorce then? So yeah, thank you for bringing it up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so, in terms of how does somebody value, you know, whether they should do collaborative. And I like to say this, and there were those sound bites. If you call a plumber and ask if you need a plumber, of course the plumber is going to say yes. And so if you ask a collaborative attorney if they should do collaborative, the answer is gonna be yes. But my view is almost all cases are are like I said before, I don't think any divorces should really be in court. But there are definitely cases where people are hiding assets. There's domestic violence, you know, there's a, you know, true fear, you know, people need lawyers. There are cases that definitely need to be high, you know, there's some high conflict where the people just, I mean, there has to be a certain amount of good faith to sit in collaborative because we're asking people to voluntarily produce information and negotiate in good faith, et cetera. So my view, if you're evaluating the two, is right, is is there some, is there a specific reason to be in court? You know, is there, is so, you know, I mean, and not obviously you're getting a divorce, so there's a loss of trust in the relationship, but is it a loss of trust that you really feel like they're hiding money, that they're truly trying to screw you, you know, that they're, you know, gonna take the kids and run off, or you know, something where you truly need the protection of a court of a judge and court orders. I do get like people all the time will tell me, well, how do I know if you know my spouse is hiding money overseas? And half the time when I say this, do you really think they even know how to do that? I know with the internet, it's a little easier to open up bank accounts overseas. But the reality is, you know, for someone to truly hide money, it takes some skill. It does.

SPEAKER_01:

And you usually have to be self-employed. And because if you if you're an employee and you get a paycheck, it's it's easy to trace where did the paycheck go? Where was it deposited? Let's look at those statements. I mean, it's I agree. People are, I think, more worried about that than it normally turns out to be.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Absolutely. And so I do think again, it's it's looking as like, is there a real reason to be in court? And if not, I think collaborative works, but it does take, you know, you have to have both spouses agree. And again, you have to trust each other that there's going to be some good faith, that nobody, again, is going to hide or play games, you know, during their process. So I think as long as, and I think a lot of times people do kind of misjudge that. And I know there's so many, you know, myths and fears and you know, out there about divorce and you need to hire, you know, this pit bull litigator. And my understanding, I read a poll years ago that the number one reason people hire pit bulls in a divorce is because they're afraid of what their spouse is going to do. Yeah. You know, they don't want to take advantage, they're afraid that person's going to do that. And I can tell you, I had a personal situation with a family member who went through a divorce, and they thought it was going to be amicable. I mean, the my cousin is, you know, soon-to-be former wife. Like, she came to family events after they filed for divorce. We everything was going to be happy. They thought they were going to work it out the kitchen table. And she ended up hiring an attorney recommended by her father because he was like a college roommate, simply because of that. But this guy was a big firm pit bull litigator. And so my family member felt like they had to get someone of equal stature in every step of the way, where the attorneys, I would have picked up the phone and called someone or sat down, have a full way meeting and try and resolve everything. Every and somebody filed a motion, escalated, and it turned horribly, horribly ugly. So back to the you know questions. Yeah, I do think most cases would be suitable for, you know, for collaborative, again, as long as you think the other person is going to be, you know, participate equally.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. I I feel like the cases that I if I were to look back and say, were there any cases that I had that were collaborative that I thought maybe shouldn't be because I I agree with you. I think almost every case could be especially because we have the benefit of having a mental health professional in the room that helps with some abuse issues, balance of inpower issues. But I there have been a couple of cases where I have seen one party use the collaborative process to delay, delay, delay, delay, delay getting the divorce, almost taking advantage of the fact that the since nothing is filed, there isn't any clock kind of that is ticking like it would be with the court. And that's the only there's one case that I can think of where I felt like one of the parties really would have been better off if it had just been filed, that the person was so unreasonable and not really in a collaborative frame of mind, but using the collaborative process to get what that party wanted.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. And there is, yes, and that does happen. And and you touch on a good point about like if there's a power imbalance or some sort of domestic violence. And and I do think like if there's, you know, even I hate to use the word mild in in talking about domestic violence. And I know this is being recorded for posterity, but I think, you know, there are times because right, there's an attorney on either side, there's a coach, you know, certain things can be overcome, especially with power imbalances. That's and that's part of the coaches' process, you know, parts of, I guess their their mission as well, is if you have somebody who's kind of in the in the the weaker position or they feel like they don't have a voice, is to help them find their voice. And a lot of times the the divorce coach will be in the room when there's a four or five-way meeting when things are being negotiated to help speak for that person or help encourage them to speak for themselves, which is actually a dynamic sometimes we do see in the process where somebody where there's an imbalance and during the process of the person who doesn't feel comfortable speaking up by the end is very confident. They they find their voice and and they're speaking up for themselves.

SPEAKER_01:

That's always exciting to see that. So we could probably talk for hours and hours about this because we're both so excited about this topic. Right. I want to uh try to uh wrap things up with giving people some specific places to go if they need it if they want to find a collaborative attorney. So if you Google collaborative attorney, I'm not sure that they're that's gonna direct them to the correct place.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. So the we do have like there's a couple of places like in Michigan we have the collaborative collaborative practice institute of Michigan.

SPEAKER_01:

And I want to leave that in the show notes, I can link that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I I wanna I I wanna say, and then there's a local group, which I wanna say, so the the state website, which yes, you can put it in the show notes, I think is collaborativepracticemi.org. But then we have a local Southeast Michigan group, which I wanna say is I thought it was. It's because I don't go there, but I know it's there. I thought it was better divorce or better divorce MI. But I think if you Google like Southeast Michigan Collaborate Divorce, okay, you'll come up with that list of local attorneys. Right. Um, but the state website, so people have to to be in the statewide group, you know, people have to attend basic training. Most of the people on there, there's annual advanced trainings. So you want because that's one big in collaborative. You want to make sure there are a lot of professionals who've taken it a basic training years ago. They've never been to an advanced training, they've never been to our one of our monthly local group meetings. I don't even know if they've had cases. And then it turns out to be it takes a while to learn how to do this and unwind. Yeah, it's very different with what we learned in law school. So if you have an attorney who's never really done cases, a lot of times it ends up being almost like litigation in a conference room. They think it's just very important to have you want to talk to attorneys, and we will usually, most attorneys will then recommend like I have a list of six, seven, eight attorneys I will send out if I'm talking to one spouse so the other spouse can talk to them. And it's not me picking their lawyer, but it's people I've worked with who I trust, who are committed to the process and they're gonna do it the right way.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, exactly. I want to give a plug also for the IACP, which is the International Association of Collaborative Professionals. And I'm gonna link that as well in the show notes here. If you're in a different state listening, it like Randy said, if you're in a different country, this is in an international professional group, you can go on their website and look for someone local in for you. But thank you so much, Randy, for coming on and talking about this. I think I have to have you on again to maybe talk about a part two because there's so many things that we didn't get to cover.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, I appreciate thank you so much for having me on. And yeah, I can not only can I talk about all day, but there's a lot of substance to this. So I actually think a part two, part three, yeah, you know, I I agree, I agree. Would be very helpful. Because I think we just kind of scratch the surface.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. Maybe with the mental health coach too, next time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So thank you again. And I'm gonna have all of your contact information also in the show notes. So thank you again, Randy. You have a great day.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, thank you, you too.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to Divorce Rich Podcast. If you like this podcast, please follow us on Apple or anywhere that you download podcasts and share this link with any friends or family that you think might benefit from this information.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Jacki Roessler, CDFA

Host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

HerMoney with Jean Chatzky Artwork

HerMoney with Jean Chatzky

Jean Chatzky Her Money
Motley Fool Money Artwork

Motley Fool Money

The Motley Fool