FORREST MOSTEN'S COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE HANDBOOK: EFFECTIVELY HELPING DIVORCING FAMILIES WITHOUT GOING TO COURT—THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE OF COLLABORATIVE LAW

• Author: Julie Macfarlane
• Date: 01 July 2010
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-1617.2010.01330.x
• Published date: 01 July 2010

REVIEW ESSAY

FORREST MOSTEN’S COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE HANDBOOK:

EFFECTIVELY HELPING DIVORCING FAMILIESWITHOUT

GOING TO COURT—THE PAST, PRESENT,AND FUTURE OF

COLLABORATIVE LAW

Julie Macfarlane

Keywords: collaborative law;Forset Mosten;conflict dynamics

Long time and widely respected practitioner Woody Mosten has expanded his own dispute reso-

lution practice into collaborative divorce1. In this new book Mosten explains why this is such an

important extension to his vision of how to support and assist clients working through family

conflict.fcre_1330566..570

Mosten has been an outstanding advocate over many decades for family mediation, unbundled

legal services (where lawyers offerdiscrete advice and assistance to clients, rather than taking car riage

of their entire file) and now collaborative divorce.His experience has made him an effective advocate

and trainer in these and other innovative areas of dispute resolution practice, and here he brings that

wide and deep experience to the relatively new practice area of collaborative divorce. Mosten is clear

about his goals for this book, just as he encourages others to be clear about their practice goals and

vision. He wishes to share his personal experience of the power of collaborative divorce in order to

inspire those already working in this area—as well as to motivate those who are considering whether

to expand their practice to include collaborative divorce.

The book is designed—and works best—as a comprehensive manual which walks a legal prac-

titioner through the process of collaborative divorce. Each chapter is devoted to a different phase of

the process and includes valuable checklists and “how to” information which only an experienced

practitioner can provide. Mosten draws on his accumulated wisdom of many years of working

through conflicts with clients both inside and outside a court setting—and it shows. For example, he

suggests the ”court field trip” for a prospective divorce client—sending them down to the local

family court to see for themselves how things work at the courthouse. Mosten’s experience as a

practitioner is also evident in his description of especially challenging aspects of the collaborative

process—for example, when the parties appear to be at impasse (Mosten suggests a “joint proposal

process”), or where there is a dispute over the disclosure of necessary information (which is under-

taken voluntarily in a collaborative model)—and suggests how to face these situations with effective

tools and techniques.

Mosten first places this practical coaching within a conceptual context. The first chapter of the book

is devoted to what he describes as the “paradigm shift” that collaborative divorce implies for lawyers.

Mosten’s focus here is on the ways in which the approach of collaborative practice changes the

underlying power dynamic between lawyer and client, with the client taking more responsibility for

Correspondence: juliem@uwindsor.ca

FAMILY COURT REVIEW,Vol. 48 No. 3, July 2010 566–570

© 2010 Association of Familyand Conciliation Cour ts