On this episode, host Phil Tower welcomes Kimberly M. Large, an estate and family law attorney with Mika Meyers.
Kim joined us to talk about a growing type of divorce. A collaborative divorce is a process designed as an alternative to traditional litigation to end a marriage. It is sometimes referred to as “divorce with dignity,” “peaceful divorce,” or the “gentler divorce. It is intended to offer you and your spouse the support, guidance, and resources of each having a collaboratively trained attorney, working as a team, to allow you to avoid going to court.
There are many differences between the collaborative process and litigation.
https://www.mikameyers.com/how-does-collaborative-divorce-differ-from-litigated-divorce/
Topics Addressed: marriage and divorce, divorce as a contributor to health and emotional issues, collaborative divorce, family law, estate planning, Michigan divorce law.
Online: https://www.mikameyers.com/attorneys/kimberly-m-large/
Collaborative divorce is a method of dissolving a marriage where both parties commit to reaching a settlement outside of court, with the support of legal and other professionals. It emphasizes cooperation and communication to resolve issues like child custody, property division, and financial arrangements, aiming to minimize conflict and promote a more amicable separation
Kim joined us to talk about a growing type of divorce. A collaborative divorce is a process designed as an alternative to traditional litigation to end a marriage. It is sometimes referred to as “divorce with dignity,” “peaceful divorce,” or the “gentler divorce. It is intended to offer you and your spouse the support, guidance, and resources of each having a collaboratively trained attorney, working as a team, to allow you to avoid going to court.
There are many differences between the collaborative process and litigation.
https://www.mikameyers.com/how-does-collaborative-divorce-differ-from-litigated-divorce/
Topics Addressed: marriage and divorce, divorce as a contributor to health and emotional issues, collaborative divorce, family law, estate planning, Michigan divorce law.
Online: https://www.mikameyers.com/attorneys/kimberly-m-large/
Collaborative divorce is a method of dissolving a marriage where both parties commit to reaching a settlement outside of court, with the support of legal and other professionals. It emphasizes cooperation and communication to resolve issues like child custody, property division, and financial arrangements, aiming to minimize conflict and promote a more amicable separation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly program designed to inform and enlightened on a
wide range of public policy issues, as well as news
and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
We're going to talk about divorce in this segment. Yes,
we occasionally need to touch on the less pleasant things
in life, but there's good news regarding divorce, a thing
called collaborative divorce. We're going to talk about that in
this segment. By the way, twenty twenty three statistics, there
were a little over two million marriages in the United
States in twenty twenty three, twenty million, forty one, nine
(00:40):
hundred and twenty six. The marriage rate six point one
per one thousand. There were about six hundred and seventy
two thousand, five hundred divorces in twenty twenty three, So
that works out to just a little bit under thirty
three percent of all marriages that year ending in divorce
or divorces that year. We should say divorce rate is
(01:02):
two point four per one thousand. If you look at
the latest twenty twenty three statistics, not everybody is getting
divorced in spite of it divorce, as you have heard,
can be a little bit messy at times, a little
bit contentious at times, and often very expensive and very
emotionally distressful. Here to help us talk about a new
(01:22):
form of divorce which is gaining in popularity, is kimberly Large.
Kim is an attorney with Micah Myers, and her legal
practice areas comprise family law and estate planning. Kim, I'm
so glad you could join us. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Thank you so much, and thanks for having me on.
And that was nice that you gave a somewhat hopeful
statistic about divorce. Yeah, I did.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I did google collaborative divorce because I was curious is
this gaining?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
And it is. It is gaining.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
There are a lot of law firms talking about that.
And I'm glad that you, with Micah Myers here in
West Michigan, are an advocate for this because when a
client comes to you and says, Kim, I'm done with
my husband, I want to leave him. I think a
lot of people don't understand the weight of a divorce
and how emotionally, physically and otherwise drainful. And I just
(02:16):
made a word up on the radio draining. That process
can be. It can be stressful, draining and really expensive
as well. So collaborative divorce, how does it differ from
a litigated divorce where each party has an attorney. It
can be pretty nasty or pretty contentious. Let's talk about
the process.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, I think you've touched on some of
the reasons that divorce can be a terrible process, and
that you know, as a practitioner who does both types
of divorce, we've seen lots and lots of horror cases
right particularly for cases where there are children involved. It
can be just incredibly difficult and the parents are stressed
out and there's a lot going on. So collaborative although
(02:58):
it isn't a new process, it's been around for well
over fifteen years. It is slowly gaining in popularity and
one of the issues is we're trying to educate people
about it and let them know that it's an alternative,
because the idea is it's a gentler divorce, or sometimes
we call it a divorce with dignity. It really from
the perspective of having representation. Each party still has their
(03:22):
own attorney, but the difference is the attorneys are trained
to do this collaborative process, and it's a whole different mindset.
We meet as a team. We have a mental health
professional that we call a divorce coach. It's usually a psychologist.
We have a couple that are social workers that have
also been trained to do this. They lead the process
and so we actually do ninety five percent of the
(03:44):
work outside of the courtroom. We meet around a conference
room table, sometimes by zoom if there's logistical issues and
so we are not going to court. We are doing
things on the party's timeframe and under the direction of
a mental health professional who is helping us work through
the issues and navigate this in a very organized and
clear way. And the parties are doing a lot of
(04:05):
the talking as opposed to the attorneys. We're there to guide,
provide resources and help, and of course facilitate the flow
of information and the decision making. But the whole idea
is that the parties are actually in control and have
a lot of opportunity to talk.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
And you need to have a collaborative spouse to make
a collaborative divorce.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Work, right. That is true, Although I've heard someone say recently,
and this is true, you really need to have a
collaborative team even if the parties themselves do not go
into this being collaborative, because the professionals are there to
help guide people to do this process successfully, even if
the parties are having communication problems and aren't getting along
(04:47):
well at all. I mean, clearly, nobody starts out a
collaborative case because they have great love for each other
and want to remain married at that point. So we
can work with difficult situations where people are getting along
well at all. I've even had situations where there's substance
abuse going on. I've had one that started out with
a personal protection order where there people could not even
(05:09):
be in the same room. You know, there are tough
cases that can still be a fit for collaborative But
one of the things that we have to make sure
is that both parties are opting in and doing it voluntarily.
If one person will not participate in this process, then
obviously it isn't going to work. Kim.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The other thing that I think goes without saying, but
I'm going to say it for the sake of this
conversation that we're having on iHeartRadio. A lot of people
think if they have a spouse who's willing, they can
just do the divorce themselves. We don't need to get
attorneys involved. And I want to just say, as someone
who's always used professionals, whether it's buying a home or
(05:45):
any legal decision, you're better off using a professional because
even if you think you know how to do a
divorce without attorneys and just do the paperwork and just
you know, pay somebody a couple hundred dollars to sign
off on the divorce degree, you really can miss a
lot of things that you would otherwise have an attorney
and professional catch. And I want to say that because
(06:08):
you don't have that outside perspective that an attorney even
in a collaborative, collaborative divorce versus a litigated divorce. And
I think it's important to share that because a lot
of people are in the do it yourself stage these days,
and it's really important to understand that, Yeah, maybe I can,
but I'm better off using an attorney. So in the
(06:29):
collaborative divorce process, Kim Large, do you use the same attorney.
Let's say my wife and are getting divorced. We're going
to use Kim from Micah Myers. Do we both work
with you? How does that process work?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, that's a really good question, and first of all,
I do want to completely echo your sentiments that it
is almost always a better idea to have a professional
on your team. Honestly, though, there are some options where
you can work with an attorney in what we call
a limited capacity where perhaps your issues are fairly screet.
This is outside of the collaborative world, but you know,
if your issues are fairly discreet and you just need
(07:05):
some legal advice and help drafting things, there are options
to do that for less expense, and so I always
throw that out to people. It's worth talking to an
attorney to find out what your choices are. But absolutely
you can get in a lot of trouble without having
an attorney. In terms of the collaborative world, each party
has their own attorney, but so you still have an advocate,
(07:25):
and our job as your attorney is to educate you
in the team setting on the law, so that people
are making knowledgeable choices if they decide to do something
that's right for their family and their circumstances that is
a little bit different than what the law would automatically dictate.
There is even within the divorce world, there is freedom
to contract and reach agreements that perhaps are not necessarily
(07:47):
what would be the automatic result if you went to court?
And so, yes, both attorneys are there, so both parties
are fully advised, know they're right, and then we talk
about does that make sense for you? Here's your goals,
how do we meet those? And are there creative ways
to brainstorm? You know, for instance, in the current economy,
a lot of people are struggling with the issue of
(08:07):
how do we deal with our house? Right because the
interest rates are so high, maybe it doesn't make sense
that we that we sell because neither of us can
afford to buy new housing at this point in time,
you know. But also you've got the issue that then
how do we figure out perhaps one spouse can't refinance
to put the house in their name with the high
interest rates, So how do we figure out that situation?
(08:29):
So collaborative, that's the type of issue that we tackle
and we figure out, Okay, maybe there's ways that we
can be kind to each other, and perhaps the spouse
who's the primary wage owner can stay on the mortgage
even if they're not residing there anymore, and we can
come up with some creative solutions to make this equitable
and fair for them. Financially in other ways and work
through that. So, yes that it's absolutely a good means
(08:53):
of putting a couple of legal brains together plus your
mental health professional and figuring out things. But perhaps they're
not just the cookie cutter, one size fit all approach, KIM.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Divorce can be incredibly expensive. Beyond emotionally draining, it could
range in the tens of thousands of dollars hundreds of
thousands of dollars depending on the assets involved in a
dissolving marriage generally speaking, and I've got about a couple
of minutes left just that, generally speaking. Is collaborative divorce
(09:26):
a less expensive way to go?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It certainly can be. It really depends on the complexity
of the issues. But yes, it can be less expensive.
And one way that it is is even though you
have a divorce coach, the mental health professional that's being
added to the team, we can really save on experts.
For instance, we have financial neutrals, very skilled people that
(09:48):
are trained to do this work too. And so one
of the ways that you can save costs is we
have one person working as a financial neutral instead of
dueling experts in the courtroom where each side is paying
for all that if we need somebody to get involved
because there's sophisticated issues that we need the psychologist to
work with the children specifically. You have one professional, so
(10:10):
you are channeling your resources in a very cost effective
kind of way instead of paying tons of money for
two people to fight in a public setting. And that's
another issue. This is all confidential, so if there are
sensitive issues, we're keeping it behind closed doors. We are
not airing dirty laundry publicly. But yes, it can really
save a lot of money. I had a great divorce
(10:32):
a handful of years ago where there were a lot
of sophisticated assets inherited wealth and so there was you know,
multi generational trusts that had been set up, and you know,
this is a situation where we would have had tons
of expense in the courtroom if we had to get
dueling experts to fight about the assets. We were able
to save so much money by having one professional who
(10:52):
worked through this that we were able to be very
clear and transparent, share information and documents without having to
have all of the cost of the legal discovery process.
And so yeah, it really did save a lot of
money in the long run.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Oh, I can imagine I'm sorry, we ran out of time,
but I am so glad you could join us for this.
Kim large as an attorney with Michah Myers. Her legal
practice area is family law and estate planning, and of
course she's an expert in collaborative divorce. The website is
micah Myers dot com. Kim, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Thank you so much for having me and letting me
provide a little education.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Absolutely appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan
Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeartRadio.
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly program designed to inform and enlightened on a
wide range of public policy issues, as well as news
and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
We're going to talk about divorce in this segment. Yes,
we occasionally need to touch on the less pleasant things
in life, but there's good news regarding divorce, a thing
called collaborative divorce. We're going to talk about that in
this segment. By the way, twenty twenty three statistics, there
were a little over two million marriages in the United
States in twenty twenty three, twenty million, forty one, nine
(00:40):
hundred and twenty six. The marriage rate six point one
per one thousand. There were about six hundred and seventy
two thousand, five hundred divorces in twenty twenty three, So
that works out to just a little bit under thirty
three percent of all marriages that year ending in divorce
or divorces that year. We should say divorce rate is
(01:02):
two point four per one thousand. If you look at
the latest twenty twenty three statistics, not everybody is getting
divorced in spite of it divorce, as you have heard,
can be a little bit messy at times, a little
bit contentious at times, and often very expensive and very
emotionally distressful. Here to help us talk about a new
(01:22):
form of divorce which is gaining in popularity, is kimberly Large.
Kim is an attorney with Micah Myers, and her legal
practice areas comprise family law and estate planning. Kim, I'm
so glad you could join us. Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Thank you so much, and thanks for having me on.
And that was nice that you gave a somewhat hopeful
statistic about divorce. Yeah, I did.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I did google collaborative divorce because I was curious is
this gaining?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
And it is. It is gaining.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
There are a lot of law firms talking about that.
And I'm glad that you, with Micah Myers here in
West Michigan, are an advocate for this because when a
client comes to you and says, Kim, I'm done with
my husband, I want to leave him. I think a
lot of people don't understand the weight of a divorce
and how emotionally, physically and otherwise drainful. And I just
(02:16):
made a word up on the radio draining. That process
can be. It can be stressful, draining and really expensive
as well. So collaborative divorce, how does it differ from
a litigated divorce where each party has an attorney. It
can be pretty nasty or pretty contentious. Let's talk about
the process.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, I think you've touched on some of
the reasons that divorce can be a terrible process, and
that you know, as a practitioner who does both types
of divorce, we've seen lots and lots of horror cases
right particularly for cases where there are children involved. It
can be just incredibly difficult and the parents are stressed
out and there's a lot going on. So collaborative although
(02:58):
it isn't a new process, it's been around for well
over fifteen years. It is slowly gaining in popularity and
one of the issues is we're trying to educate people
about it and let them know that it's an alternative,
because the idea is it's a gentler divorce, or sometimes
we call it a divorce with dignity. It really from
the perspective of having representation. Each party still has their
(03:22):
own attorney, but the difference is the attorneys are trained
to do this collaborative process, and it's a whole different mindset.
We meet as a team. We have a mental health
professional that we call a divorce coach. It's usually a psychologist.
We have a couple that are social workers that have
also been trained to do this. They lead the process
and so we actually do ninety five percent of the
(03:44):
work outside of the courtroom. We meet around a conference
room table, sometimes by zoom if there's logistical issues and
so we are not going to court. We are doing
things on the party's timeframe and under the direction of
a mental health professional who is helping us work through
the issues and navigate this in a very organized and
clear way. And the parties are doing a lot of
(04:05):
the talking as opposed to the attorneys. We're there to guide,
provide resources and help, and of course facilitate the flow
of information and the decision making. But the whole idea
is that the parties are actually in control and have
a lot of opportunity to talk.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
And you need to have a collaborative spouse to make
a collaborative divorce.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Work, right. That is true, Although I've heard someone say recently,
and this is true, you really need to have a
collaborative team even if the parties themselves do not go
into this being collaborative, because the professionals are there to
help guide people to do this process successfully, even if
the parties are having communication problems and aren't getting along
(04:47):
well at all. I mean, clearly, nobody starts out a
collaborative case because they have great love for each other
and want to remain married at that point. So we
can work with difficult situations where people are getting along
well at all. I've even had situations where there's substance
abuse going on. I've had one that started out with
a personal protection order where there people could not even
(05:09):
be in the same room. You know, there are tough
cases that can still be a fit for collaborative But
one of the things that we have to make sure
is that both parties are opting in and doing it voluntarily.
If one person will not participate in this process, then
obviously it isn't going to work. Kim.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
The other thing that I think goes without saying, but
I'm going to say it for the sake of this
conversation that we're having on iHeartRadio. A lot of people
think if they have a spouse who's willing, they can
just do the divorce themselves. We don't need to get
attorneys involved. And I want to just say, as someone
who's always used professionals, whether it's buying a home or
(05:45):
any legal decision, you're better off using a professional because
even if you think you know how to do a
divorce without attorneys and just do the paperwork and just
you know, pay somebody a couple hundred dollars to sign
off on the divorce degree, you really can miss a
lot of things that you would otherwise have an attorney
and professional catch. And I want to say that because
(06:08):
you don't have that outside perspective that an attorney even
in a collaborative, collaborative divorce versus a litigated divorce. And
I think it's important to share that because a lot
of people are in the do it yourself stage these days,
and it's really important to understand that, Yeah, maybe I can,
but I'm better off using an attorney. So in the
(06:29):
collaborative divorce process, Kim Large, do you use the same attorney.
Let's say my wife and are getting divorced. We're going
to use Kim from Micah Myers. Do we both work
with you? How does that process work?
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, that's a really good question, and first of all,
I do want to completely echo your sentiments that it
is almost always a better idea to have a professional
on your team. Honestly, though, there are some options where
you can work with an attorney in what we call
a limited capacity where perhaps your issues are fairly screet.
This is outside of the collaborative world, but you know,
if your issues are fairly discreet and you just need
(07:05):
some legal advice and help drafting things, there are options
to do that for less expense, and so I always
throw that out to people. It's worth talking to an
attorney to find out what your choices are. But absolutely
you can get in a lot of trouble without having
an attorney. In terms of the collaborative world, each party
has their own attorney, but so you still have an advocate,
(07:25):
and our job as your attorney is to educate you
in the team setting on the law, so that people
are making knowledgeable choices if they decide to do something
that's right for their family and their circumstances that is
a little bit different than what the law would automatically dictate.
There is even within the divorce world, there is freedom
to contract and reach agreements that perhaps are not necessarily
(07:47):
what would be the automatic result if you went to court?
And so, yes, both attorneys are there, so both parties
are fully advised, know they're right, and then we talk
about does that make sense for you? Here's your goals,
how do we meet those? And are there creative ways
to brainstorm? You know, for instance, in the current economy,
a lot of people are struggling with the issue of
(08:07):
how do we deal with our house? Right because the
interest rates are so high, maybe it doesn't make sense
that we that we sell because neither of us can
afford to buy new housing at this point in time,
you know. But also you've got the issue that then
how do we figure out perhaps one spouse can't refinance
to put the house in their name with the high
interest rates, So how do we figure out that situation?
(08:29):
So collaborative, that's the type of issue that we tackle
and we figure out, Okay, maybe there's ways that we
can be kind to each other, and perhaps the spouse
who's the primary wage owner can stay on the mortgage
even if they're not residing there anymore, and we can
come up with some creative solutions to make this equitable
and fair for them. Financially in other ways and work
through that. So, yes that it's absolutely a good means
(08:53):
of putting a couple of legal brains together plus your
mental health professional and figuring out things. But perhaps they're
not just the cookie cutter, one size fit all approach, KIM.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Divorce can be incredibly expensive. Beyond emotionally draining, it could
range in the tens of thousands of dollars hundreds of
thousands of dollars depending on the assets involved in a
dissolving marriage generally speaking, and I've got about a couple
of minutes left just that, generally speaking. Is collaborative divorce
(09:26):
a less expensive way to go?
Speaker 3 (09:27):
It certainly can be. It really depends on the complexity
of the issues. But yes, it can be less expensive.
And one way that it is is even though you
have a divorce coach, the mental health professional that's being
added to the team, we can really save on experts.
For instance, we have financial neutrals, very skilled people that
(09:48):
are trained to do this work too. And so one
of the ways that you can save costs is we
have one person working as a financial neutral instead of
dueling experts in the courtroom where each side is paying
for all that if we need somebody to get involved
because there's sophisticated issues that we need the psychologist to
work with the children specifically. You have one professional, so
(10:10):
you are channeling your resources in a very cost effective
kind of way instead of paying tons of money for
two people to fight in a public setting. And that's
another issue. This is all confidential, so if there are
sensitive issues, we're keeping it behind closed doors. We are
not airing dirty laundry publicly. But yes, it can really
save a lot of money. I had a great divorce
(10:32):
a handful of years ago where there were a lot
of sophisticated assets inherited wealth and so there was you know,
multi generational trusts that had been set up, and you know,
this is a situation where we would have had tons
of expense in the courtroom if we had to get
dueling experts to fight about the assets. We were able
to save so much money by having one professional who
(10:52):
worked through this that we were able to be very
clear and transparent, share information and documents without having to
have all of the cost of the legal discovery process.
And so yeah, it really did save a lot of
money in the long run.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Oh, I can imagine I'm sorry, we ran out of time,
but I am so glad you could join us for this.
Kim large as an attorney with Michah Myers. Her legal
practice area is family law and estate planning, and of
course she's an expert in collaborative divorce. The website is
micah Myers dot com. Kim, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Thank you so much for having me and letting me
provide a little education.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Absolutely appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan
Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeartRadio.
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