In
collaborative divorce, “the lawyer is not a partisan, as in traditional
negotiation, and is not a neutral, as a mediator is required to be. S/he is
something else, a role that is ill-defined and difficult to determine.”1
However, the facts are that all lawyers are trained into an adversarial system
and many collaborative lawyers spent years as ardent trial attorneys. Can (or
should) clients trust that both attorneys have the ability and self-awareness
to overcome the role confusion inherent in the collaborative divorce process?
One
might also ask and be concerned about whether the role confusion intrinsic to
collaborative divorce may actually leave a client feeling less, rather than
more, empowered. Say, for example, a client chose collaborative divorce so as
to have an attorney negotiate for him or her. It seems unlikely that that same
client will have the ability to speak up should he or she believe that his or
her attorney has slipped into an adversarial role.