Avoiding Court by collaborating

Nov 25

Written by Joanna Lofthouse
Chartered Legal Executive

DDI: 01423 724635
M: 07892 792457
E: jo.lofthouse@raworths.co.uk

Separation and divorce is difficult for everybody even when the decision to separate is a mutual one and where a couple are amicable. Thankfully long gone are the days when making an application to the Court to settle a financial or children agreement is the go to option. We now have many different tools at our disposal to assist couples in separating as positively as possible.

This week (10 to 14 November 2025) is Resolution’s ‘Good Divorce Week’. The Family Law team at Raworths will explore some of those tools designed to help separating couples and the advantages of using them to avoid Court proceedings.

Here Joanna Lofthouse explores the Collaborative process. Joanna is collaboratively trained and firmly believes that the collaborative process helps separating couples to reach an agreement more quickly than through Court and in a more holistic way. A couple have a voice and often a common aim and with the help of a multi-discipline team often that aim can be achieved whilst maintaining a positive friendship or co-parenting relationship.

What is the collaborative process?

Each person appoints their own collaboratively trained lawyer and all four meet to discuss priorities and work together to reach an agreement face to face. The couple will have their lawyer by their side throughout the process providing support and legal advice along the way. This ensures that the couple both hear the same advice, together. This avoids miscommunication regarding advice given and the dreaded ‘my lawyer says’ comments that regularly occur in the more traditional process when one-upmanship can be rife.

Besides the lawyer, a couple will have the opportunity to work with an independent financial adviser, a family consultant, a child specialist or an accountant, who will provide specialist help. All the professionals work together to collectively make up a collaborative team.

The couple sign an agreement that commits them to trying to resolve the issues without going to Court. This concentrates everyone’s minds to finding the best solutions by agreement, rather than through court proceedings. It also often is the case that a couple’s priorities are aligned, they just didn’t realise it, and this helps in everybody working towards a common goal.

How does the collaborative process work?

Once the collaborative process has been agreed as being the best way to proceed, the process is:

Both lawyers will speak to each other either face to face or over the phone in order to plan for the first meeting.
The first meeting with both lawyers and the couple (four-way meeting) will take place. At the first four way meeting the lawyers will ensure that the couple understand that they are making a commitment to not going to court and all parties sign an agreement confirming this.
The couple share what they hope to achieve and what they hope their future will look like at the end of the divorce process. This is incorporated into a document called and anchor statement, that can be used if discussions get difficult at any point to remind all uninvolved as to why they are here and what their goals are
A discussion will take place as to how financial information will be shared and agree on who will bring what financial information to the next meeting.
Subsequent meetings will deal with particular priorities and concerns to work towards resolving specific financial matters, to address issues associated with children or to help a couple manage the transition. The meetings will enable an agreement to be reached on how the finances will be shared or what arrangements need to be made for any children.
In the final meeting documents detailing the agreement reached will be signed and a plan finalised for implementing those agreements.

How long does the collaborative process take?

One of the benefits of the collaborative process is that it’s not driven by a timetable imposed by the court. The court process can often take on average a year and delays are increasing. The collaborative process can be structured around a family’s individual timetable, needs and priorities, as these meetings will follow an agendas set by the couple.

Sometimes only a couple of meetings are needed, in other cases four or five. Joanna would say on average where an agreement is reached in the collaborative process this will take between 4 and 6 months.

How we can help

Joanna Lofthouse is a Family Law specialist at Raworths based in Harrogate.

The Family Law team at Raworths is ranked in both Chambers UK and the Legal 500 UK, independent guides to the legal profession.

Raworths is proud to support Resolution’s work promoting non-confrontational approaches to family separation. Resolution’s Good Divorce Week runs from 10 to 14 November 2025.

Published on 11 November 2025

The information and any commentary contained in this briefing is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal or any other type of professional advice.