Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m J U L Y 2 0 1 7 47 unit," he says, adding what collaborative lawyers are trying to do is help couples have difficult conversations by putting everything on the table to talk through. "You're building a team around the couple to come up with their own solution — completely the opposite of court." "Those of us who practise in this area have found how much more we can offer our clients," says Judith Huddart, a family law lawyer at Dranoff & Huddart in Toronto. It's not just the results, it's the process of getting to those results, she says — collaborative practice adds more value despite not necessarily being cheaper than court, depending on indi- vidual circumstances and how many professionals are needed to help settle disputes. "If what you want is to know you can comfortably sit down and you've got your backside covered because you've got your lawyer there to guide you as you make decisions, that's the process you want. You can't necessarily cost that out in ways that make sense." There is a risk collaboration "could backfire in a sense" when a couple fails to reach an agreement and has to pay for court in the end anyway, says Diana Isaac, associate lawyer with Shulman Law Firm in Toronto. Isaac offers her clients represen- tation in court as well as alternative dispute resolution options, including collaborative law. Because of the collaborative agree- ment, that means starting over with new lawyers. "Family law falls a lot on the facts and to have someone relearn it can be expensive," Isaac says. She also notes that collaboration can be "an enticing option" when a spouse or couple have high net worth or sensi- tive information and want to maintain privacy, not have their business in court documents in the public domain. Huddart, one of the leaders in developing Collaborative Practice Canada, says there's been a lot of development pro- vincially across the country, with nine provinces having col- laborative groups and many people offering the service, but "no across-the-board, national perspective on this. "What is it that we're trying to offer? Who are we offering it to? How do we be inclusive, not exclusive because I think that's really important," she says. "We met a year ago in March — a number of us on our own hook went to Calgary and got the benefit of a no-charge facilitator who works a lot with groups and really fleshed out a lot of these questions." The establishment of the national group is happening at an opportune time, as family law lawyers are seeing an uptick in collaborative practice's popularity, and for good reason, they say. "It's more reasonable and makes more sense for the most part — it's a rising trend and I wish it would be more known," says Lazar, noting that despite the Family Law Act in B.C. spe- cifically stating lawyers have to discuss alternatives to court with clients, most referrals are coming from collaborative col- leagues or former clients who had positive experiences. Over the last few years, there's been a shift with clients coming to lawyers with at least the knowledge of the word collaborative and specifically asking about it, he says. Statistically, for Lazar's practice, and for the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, about 90 per cent of cases that start in a formal collaborative setting will settle. "Part of my practice is training lawyers, mental health and financial professionals who want to work in collaborative practice," says Gallant, who entered collaborative practice early while practising on Vancouver Island and started a group when she moved back to P.E.I. in 2002. She says the interdisciplinary approach is gaining ground, with most col- laborative cases now including either a mental health profes- sional or financial professional working on the case. "There have been a lot more teaching opportunities lately, and the number of clients who choose collaborative is going up every year," she says of P.E.I., adding that she stopped doing court hearings a year and a half ago. "The inquiries I get now to teach even just the introduction to this process are four times more than two years ago. I do believe we've hit a bit of a tipping point for families to discover this is a process that is really workable and adaptable to their issues." As for Ontario, Huddart has also seen a rise in people training in the collaborative process, but the "challenge remains bringing in the couples and helping them understand why they might choose this process over a more adversarial type [of ] negotiations, which have been the standard," she says, noting it's a definite shift from the typical adversarial mindset for both practitioners and clients. "I think a lot of professionals have made that paradigm ntitled-7 1 2017-02-09 3:15 PM

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