Why Moshier Law offers Collaborative Process (Family Court Rule 67.1) where your rights are the number 1 priority the entire way through your family’s legal problems.
You are here because you have a legal problem. You are in the right place. We have your solution. What drives Moshier Law to offer a low-cost, high value legal option to the popular, attorney-fee generating litigated divorce that most lawyers offer? We believe that the right to happiness through the basic access to justice is a fundamental, foundational right. Parents should have the right to parent their children, and children need their parents during the crucial time of family reorganization.
We offer Collaborative Process because it is your basic right to pursue family legal matters with dignity. Dignity has this ripple effect. When you choose the dignified, white glove approach of collaborative process, you will choose a ripple effect of financial prosperity, peace, and clarity. You will be free to focus on what is important. You will be able to take opportunities.
You may be facing your first family court legal case, but we have been through thousands of them. We know every horror story possible. You may benefit from knowing what happens outside of collaborative process. Litigation is like a waterslide. You heave yourself onto the platform for a push that will send you into a tube with rushing water and you cannot reverse. You cannot stop. Others are waiting behind you. You are not getting off the slide. Your attorney cannot stop the slide. No one can stop your court case unless you and the other party – the person opposing you – agree in writing. But, by the time you agree in writing, the two of you may have really fought about a few things. To convince your opposition to become your ally? Entire books are written devoted to this rare yet effective strategy.
The Court system is a system. Individuals don’t have control in a system. The system is actually owned by an unknown private party. Judges don’t even have all the control – the Court of Appeals actually could set aside trial court decisions when an appeal is filed.
When you sign a collaborative commitment agreement, something changes. What’s important to you becomes important to the opposition. A conversation starts and the pushing between you pauses.
In the typical litigation that most lawyers will offer, your wish to hop off the slide is unrealistic and in fact, to even express the feelings you have about the slide may be harmful to your case. You could pay a huge chunk of the other person’s lawyers’ fees if you bring a case you didn’t want to finish. The fees they spent to paint you as a monster who should be denied access to even keeping a fish as a pet are now yours to pay, for doubling back temporarily.
Collaborative Process, by comparison, is where you can express your feelings consistently with what more resembles reality for most people.
We believe Collaborative Process is the only way your children really have access to justice, because for them, the people who would give an arm to save that child’s life are the people making decisions for that child. If a parent is marginalized because they are scrubbed out of the picture, the child is left to trust no one. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child is recognized in multiple countries across Europe, but never ratified by the United States. Collaborative Process ratifies those rights.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….”
My ideal legal bill of rights would include the basic right to justice within the pursuit of happiness. The legal fees for collaborative process are so incredibly affordable and overwhelmingly accessible as compared with litigation. Below, we include the ten rights that accompany Collaborative Process Rule 67.1 in the Arizona Rules of Court for Family Law.
Every attorney in Arizona can offer a Rule 67.1 Collaborative Divorce. I know this because I was one of the lawyers who helped get this rule passed and formalized. I purposely included the provision that allows any lawyer in Arizona to use Collaborative Process. It used to be that attorneys had to be trained to use Collaborative Process. No lawyer should be able to claim as their excuse for denying you a right to be happy that they need to complete a 24 hour training. While I am trained to use Collaborative Process, I’ve done Collaborative Process cases with lawyers who are not trained. It takes extra time and effort to help them understand the protocol. They are still giving legal advice, and still advocating. Collaborative Process is just a different medium. Also known as collaborative law or collaborative divorce, this is a legal process that allows a couple who have made the decision to terminate their marriage in a collaborative manner with a team of family law professionals with the purpose of achieving a settlements that meet the needs of both parties and their children with the need or the threat of litigation.
When two people in a dispute sign a voluntary contract called a “Collaborative Commitment Agreement” binding each other to the process and disqualifying their respective lawyers tight to represent either party in any future family-related litigation should either one of the parties ever to decide to go back to court.
$5,000-15,000 in 95% of cases (subject to disclaimer and qualifier immediately below, so you must keep reading to understand the context for these numbers)
Disclaimer and qualifier: Collaborative Divorce can be reasonably capped at $5,000-15,000 per lawyer in most cases, about 1/3 to 1/10 of the typical non-collaborative law divorce. Now, your case may not be one of those, so until we talk to you, we can’t confirm this $5000-15,000 applies to you. We can confirm that it applies to about 95% of the collaborative law cases we handle. The most expensive Collaborative Divorce I’ve ever handled was $80,000 but I did that divorce for people who could afford the trip to the moon I talk about below. Chances are you’re not at all in this income bracket, because 99.9% of people are below the income bracket that allows them to buy a trip to the moon. But if you are, chances are you still want to keep your money protected from lawyers who need to pay private college tuition at a college your kids will never be able to attend – because you spent all your money on lawyers. No matter who you are, no matter how much you may not like your ex, you probably really love your kids and you cherish what you’ve been able to accomplish financially. You didn’t get there by writing blank checks. A blank check is what non-collaborative divorce is going to be.
If you landed at our website, something drew you. Maybe we’re alike. We like to know what the cost of a thing before we learn more. I don’t want to “learn more” about about the chance to fly to the moon if that is going to cost me everything I own and drive me into debt, with a 30% chance I could never return to Earth, then I am content to see the moon through a telescope.
If you are not in collaborative process, you are in litigation. Sure, lawyers may say “we’ll resolve this out of court” but that’s like standing in your hallway because you agreed to “go outside.” When lawyers tell me “we’ll resolve this out of court” that usually means one of two things: 1. They need me to negotiate against my client to keep their empty promise and/or 2. They have no clue what Collaborative Process is and they know I am not a fun opposing litigator, so they assume due to lack of experience that I will be as dominant in Collaborative Process. Neither are sustainable assumptions, and I do not need to be dominant in Collaborative Process. In the hallway example above, there is no guarantee you’re going to go outside. Any lawyer can assure you that you’ll go outside of court, but the lawyer cannot assure you’ll stay out of court.
If an attorney tells you “Collaborative Process isn’t right for your case,” you owe it to yourself to ask the same questions you’d ask a doctor who tells you to avoid a medical treatment for a serious condition. Divorce is serious. This is your life, your children, and your finances. You’d ask a doctor whether he ever performed the surgery on anyone else, right? Attorneys bill by the hour. Litigation requires more hours. Divorce is an industry. Ask any lawyer who turns you away from using Rule 67.1, however subtly, whether they have ever undertaken a collaborative case.
Saving money for your future is, in many cases, a better option than spending the tens of thousands of dollars you could spend to have someone else decide your life in a courtroom. Having peace should not only be for the wealthy.
Experiencing a divorce is near easy. It usually involves a myriad of legal actions and plenty of involvement from an attorney as well as the large fees that come with divorces. In Arizona Collaborative Law is codified as Rule 67.1 to help parties settle marital disagreements out of court. The best part: Any attorney in the state of Arizona can use collaborative law in a family law case. Attorneys who want to use collaborative process are usually those with some experience.
You can decide your divorce and your future in a conference room instead of a courtroom. If you have ever been up against an opposing attorney who you didn’t relish, imagine the paradigm shift of that lawyer being part of your legal team. All attorneys and professionals in a collaborative team unite for the common good of the clients. Collaborative divorces in Phoenix & Scottsdale can be completed two to three times faster than conventional litigation in a courthouse, meaning you could be divorced in as little as 60 to 90 days, and you could each save thousands of litigation dollars. People do leave the collaborative process, and sometimes they sit in court for two or three years. Collaborative divorces generally cost 50% to 75% less than traditionally litigated divorces in court.
In a collaborative divorce, couples engage in a form of mediation that is very structured, fully disclosing and on a set pace. They mutually negotiate to come to an agreement with the assistance of collaboratively trained professionals. For this to work, both parties need to be willing to mutually agree to engage the case to the collaborative process. When can you do this? Before you file for a family case – or after – or even before you go to marriage counseling.
Imagine being so unhappy that you decide to engage collaborative lawyers before you even go to counseling. If things don’t go well in counseling, you have a team waiting to avoid any knee jerk reactions that send one of you to a litigation attorney. If things go well in counseling? You have a team waiting for you to draft your settlement agreement – maybe a post-nuptial agreement or a dismissal, depending on what you decide. That’s the point: It’s all about your decisions. It’s your world. Unlike the court system, which you cater to – we work for you.
Collaborative divorce allows you to save time/money and come to an agreement that works for both parties. If you need a collaborative divorce lawyer in Scottsdale or Phoenix? Look no further than Moshier Law and our colleagues at Best Legal Choices.
Here are the benefits of choosing collaborative divorce vs. conventional litigated divorce including:
Here are the benefits of choosing collaborative divorce vs. conventional litigated divorce, because giving informed consent is about knowing your options after knowing all options. If no one tells you about an option, you may not be fully informed.
As per Best Legal Choices, “When you want to be fair and to end your marriage with respect, this provides perhaps the best way to do so. A collaborative divorce can help you move forward on a good note and work out your differences together. Even though the marriage did not work, you don’t have to fight at the end.” [5] The professionals at Best Legal Choices are all at different firms, or businesses, and many of us never even talk much unless we have a collaborative law case together. When we share a case, we are 100% professional, trained to do the best job we can for you, and you’ll experience a positive, supportive environment to carry you through this difficult time.
Saving money for your future is, in many cases, a better option than spending the tens of thousands of dollars you could spend to have someone else decide your life in a courtroom.
Collaborative Process is not some weird, “never tried before, shouldn’t try now” process. Collaborative Process has existed for 40+ years. It is not the attorney favored option, I’ll be honest. Lawyers make more money when they bill more hours in divorces in Arizona. It is easiest to bill a lot of hours with a lot of conflict. Collaborative Process literally has the opposite mission: To create peace. To cause clients to engage in conflict, I would need to use tactics like this:
Isolation: “Don’t listen to….” or “That’s the wrong information…” or “forget what you heard…”
When I am isolated, and only one person (the expert) seems to know the answers, what else can I trust?
Confusion: “You need to [insert drastic steps]” or “We will [high conflict strategy]”
I am receiving information I want to trust from people I should be able to trust, even experts, but the information isn’t consistent.
Afraid: “If you don’t follow my advice, ____”
When I take a step, I do not know if I am taking the right step.
When the stakes are high, these feelings can take over and cause us to go with the tried and true, the War of the Roses. Divorce attorneys who try cases in court are mainstream. Collaborative Process is something you may have never heard of. And if you heard of Collaborative Process, you may not have heard of it as we are describing it now.
But a lot of things are mainstream. Doritos. Red dye no. 3. Eating food that derives from animals that have never seen sunlight. Sulphates in shampoos. Scrolling social media. Four hours of television per day. Child labor to produce mardi gras beads. That butter substitute that goes on movie popcorn is mainstream.
We are the anti-red dye no. 3. We believe that every family has the right to a peaceful and provisional outcome that allows for an abundance of resources. No one should win a zero sum game, because that’s not how a family works. In Collaborative Process, no one gets kicked off the island. We know that reality, we get to acceptance of that reality quickly and we start to strategize not only how to make the island habitable, but how to make it most profitable and possible for you and your family.
1. “Collaborative Law.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Jan. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative law.
2. Equitable Mediation. “Collaborative Divorce vs Mediation.” Fair, Thorough, Compassionate Divorce Mediation Services, www.equitablemediation.com/blog/collaborative-divorce-vs-mediation.
3. Finnigan, Annie. “The Benefits of a Collaborative Divorce.” Family Circle, Family Circle, 5 Feb. 2010, www.familycircle.com/family-fun/relationships/collaborative-divorce-benefits/.
4. Karen Covy, and Karen CovyKaren Covy. “Pros and Cons of the Collaborative Divorce Process: Is It Right for You?” Karen Covy, 5 Oct. 2017, karencovy.com/pros-and-cons-chicago-collaborative-divorce-process/.
5. Michelle Ogborne. “Collaborative Divorce Disadvantages.” Best Legal Choices, 24 Feb. 2018, bestlegalchoices.com/collaborative-divorce-disadvantages/.
Moshier Law should be your first choice for when you need one of the best lawyers in Arizona. An experienced family law attorney will work with you to obtain the best possible outcome in your situation. We advocate for our clients, so they have the brightest future possible. Text me today about collaborative process at 602-345-0455.
We can protect and advise you regarding: Divorce and property division, child custody, child support, legal guardianship, child visitation, marital home and real estate matters, allocation and valuation of investments, businesses, practices, retirement savings, pensions, personal possessions, valuables, vehicles, closely held businesses, alimony and spousal maintenance, and debt division. To find out how our divorce attorneys can help your matter, schedule your initial case evaluation today.
My wife and I needed help against an unreasonable person and Jenn was there for us. She was so awesome to work with. She has the right heart for this. Family focused and perfect perspective. Fair, reasonable, great strategy and in the end, delivered the best possible outcome one could ever hope for.
A lawyer that fights for you while also doing what is right.
Jennifer is a laAwyer for a dad like me. I am a law enforcement officer (SGT) and doing the right thing no matter how difficult it is, is most important to me. I have a difficult case which she is doing the right thing and getting results. Jennifer is just that. No smoke and mirrors, just the truth. If you are looking for an experienced lawyer in family law with common sense and strong fight, she’s it.
Moshier fought for me…
Jennifer was incredible. She worked so hard and knew my case so thoroughly that she was as fluent in the details of my life as I was. I ended up getting what was fair as a father, which was a lot more than my ex wife’s atty was telling me I deserved. It was nice to have Jennifer as my shield. I would recommend her to anybody with a difficult case. She will not disappoint.
Jennifer Moshier is an incredible lawyer and a gift to the field of law. I am grateful we were able to find a strong woman to help represent us through this nightmare of a mess.
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