Tennessee Adopts Collaborative Family Law Rule 53
Collaborative family law continues to gain popularity as another method of alternative dispute resolution. With the Supreme Court of Tennessee’s recent adoption of Collaborative Family Law Rule 53, we now have the clarity, guidance, and acceptance that many lawyers and judges have been asking for.
While Rule 53 went into effect on April 4, 2019, in the past decade a number of states have either adopted court rules or passed legislation making collaborative law practice another arrow in the ADR quiver – Arizona, Florida, Michigan, and Texas, to name a few. For a voluntary settlement process introduced in the 1980s, results are mixed. Although the focus of Rule 53 is family law and divorce, collaborative law has been implemented in other areas of civil practice as well, such as contract and employment dispute resolution.
Covering essentially every proceeding in family law, Rule 53 allows for voluntary collaborative agreements in marriage and divorce, parenting time and child support, alimony and maintenance, adoption and parentage, premarital and post-marital agreements, and the like. Visit the following for more information about collaborative law:
- East Tennessee Collaborative Alliance
- Middle Tennessee Collaborative Alliance
- Memphis Collaborative Alliance.
There are international organizations guiding this practice as well, including the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals and Global Collaborative Law Council.
Promoted as a reasonable, cost-effective settlement process, not everyone is enamored with collaborative law in domestic relations. Take a look at Collaborative Divorce and Collaborative Agreements in Tennessee.
Like people, no settlement process is perfect.
Pros and Cons of Collaborative Family Law
On the pro side, organizations like those mentioned above connect spouses and parents with lawyers and other professionals, including coaches and facilitators, child specialists, and financial professionals. Growing memberships with expanded alliances illustrate how prevalent collaborative law practice in divorce and child custody has become. In an effort to be inclusive, organizations offer numerous options for those willing to give the collaborative process a shot.
On the con side, because the process is entirely voluntary, collaborative attorneys cannot guarantee a final solution to the parties’ issues. Results matter. For many participating couples, reduced legal costs with less conflict may be pie in the sky. Nor will the need to hire private mediators, forensic accountants, child custody evaluators, and other experts be diminished.
As with any unsuccessful attempt at full settlement of the issues, litigation may be necessary with the judge ruling for one spouse or the other. In that event, a complete change-over of legal representation must occur for the case to proceed in court. (That’s assuming spouses do not opt to represent themselves.) If either party believes his or her interests are better served by exiting the collaborative process and terminating the attorney-client relationship, then the other party must find new counsel, too. Having to start over and search for replacement counsel is likely to increase the pressure on both spouses, emotionally and financially.
One Last Thought
Negotiation and settlement are integral steps in family law proceedings with clear rules and requirements. Only in very limited circumstances is an attorney permitted to withdraw on a client mid-divorce, and certainly not because the other party refuses to cooperate in the settlement process. Tread carefully with collaborative family law and do your homework.
