Home | Profile | Areas of Practice | Accidental Injury Law Building Business Family Law News | Newsletters Press Releases Seminars Links | Contacts           May Day Proclamation: No More War of the Roses! By: Malcolm McCollam www.MalcolmLaw.com     Three thousand seven hundred forty-one divorce and custody cases were filed in Tulsa last year. That's on top of over 2,200 cases that were still pending at the end of 2003. That means five judges were available to handle 6,000 cases. You can do the math.  Fortunately, the vast majority of these cases are resolved without a trial. Estimates are that 90% of these cases settle. Oftentimes, however, many months have passed, thousands of dollars have been spent on legal fees and bitter conflicts have erupted between the parties. These are but some of the side effects of an adversarial system for family law cases. And although many well-intended lawyers and judges in Tulsa and around the nation are attempting to reform this system, old habits die hard. These are some of the factors which led to my May Day Proclamation.  May Day Proclamation Effective May 1, 2004, I will no longer accept divorce and custody cases for trial. As the first lawyer in Oklahoma to make this declaration, I join a growing number of attorneys nation wide who have pledged to resolve divorce and custody cases without litigation through a process known as collaborative law. What is Collaborative Law? In 1990, Minnesota divorce lawyer, Stuart Webb, was sick of practicing family law. Webb was convinced he wasn't really helping his clients. Litigation forced both parties to take extreme positions and dig in their heels. Months or years later - and after a fortune in legal fees - the husband and wife hated each other as never before, and the kids were caught in the middle. The adversarial system was tearing them apart, and Webb hated being a part of it.  Webb was convinced there had to be a better way, so he declared unilateral disarmament. No longer would he fight the other side. If he and his client couldn't work out an agreement with the ex-spouse without going to court, he would withdraw as the lawyer. The client could still go on to court, but he or she would have to find another lawyer to play the litigation game. This was the birth of Collaborative Law, a new model for handling cases that is revolutionizing family law in the United States and Canada. The concept is simple and effective. Both parties and their lawyers agree in writing that they will negotiate a settlement without taking the matter to court during the negotiations. If they can't reach an agreement, and the matter heads to court, the lawyers for both sides must withdraw and the parties must hire new lawyers in order to litigate. As a result, the entire adversarial process is diffused. With the black cloud of litigation removed, everyone, including the lawyers, has an incentive to settle the case.  Collaborative Law Saves Time and Expense Collaborative law cases are resolved much faster, typically within four to five meetings, over a period of one to three months. And they cost clients much less. Legal fees are typically one-tenth to one-third what they would be in a litigated divorce. Most importantly, families are not destroyed in the process.  Lawyers are specially trained in the collaborative process and generally associate with a local collaborative law group. Collaborative law groups exist in more than half the states in the U.S. For additional information log on to www.collabgroup.com. Although most lawyers continue to offer traditional litigation services as a part of their practice, many, including Stuart Webb and I, are limiting their divorce and custody practices to collaborative law.  Collaborative Law in Oklahoma In 2002, a group of Tulsa lawyers organized the first collaborative law group in Oklahoma, Collaborative Lawyers of Oklahoma. To date, twenty-two lawyers have received specialized training and become members of Collaborative Lawyers of Oklahoma. Collaborative Lawyers of Oklahoma is a group of independent, experienced family law attorneys trained to resolve divorce and custody cases without litigation. For a complete list of members, go to www.okcollaborativelaw.org. Divorce is an unfortunate fact of life in our society. Although we, as lawyers, may not be able to change the fact that people are going to get divorced, we can have an impact on the way it happens.   MalcolmLaw - The Legal Specialist 1640 S. Boston Ave. Tulsa, OK 74119 Ph. 918-582-5880 Fax 918-582-5758 The material on this website is provided for informational purposes only.  It is not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship.