Agreeing to disagree: Collaboration can be an option to settling business disputes - Business Courier of Cincinnati:

http://foodandfermentations.com/PortlandMaine.html
"I heard these terrible stories about it takingf two orthree years," Blackburn "I thought this would never be and I'd be an old man before I'm divorced." But instead of a court Blackburn's attorney suggested a new model to solvwe legal disputes, called collaboration. Collaboration keepas parties out of the courtroom and at the bargaining tabl until they reacha settlement. The model has been so successful with domestic cases in Cincinnati that lawyers and judges are now suggestingb it for legal disputes in the business as well. At first, Blackburjn was skeptical.
Then he saw the prices tag — a court-settled divorce would cost $40,000 in attorneys' fees. Collaboration cost about $4,500. So he and his ex-wifer and both sets of lawyers workeds out their differences in a conferenced room instead of a Afterseven months, they had an "I was pretty depressed the first time we met because I 'She's going to take me to the cleaners,'" Blackburnn said. "But she didn't take me to the It was very equitableand … And the kids did not get caugh t in the middle. They didn't have to choos e sides.
" Both sides and their lawyers agree in writing that they will negotiatde a settlement in the Neither side will go to courg or threaten to sue durintthe negotiations. If the parties can't agrees and the matter goes to court, lawyers for both sidese must withdraw and the parties find new lawyers to litigate the The financial and emotional costs of startingf over with a new lawyetr is a strong incentive to try to settlethe matter, lawyers said. "The collaborativ law process removes the adversaria laspect altogether," said Robert Rack, chie mediator at the U.S.
Sixth Circuitr Court of Appeals anda co-founder of the Collaborative Law Center in "It's very hard to negotiate a good solutiomn to a problem when you'rde putting people on the defensive," Rack said. Sinces its introduction here in 1997, collaborative law has caughtf on quickly with family So far 66 domestic lawyers have been trained in collaborativd law and resolved more than200 "In family law, very rarely are two peoplew in the same place at the same time," said Sherri Goren Slovin, a family law attorney in Cincinnati. "By taking away the bat of litigation, it reallyt does change the temperature ofthe room.
" Impasses are In fact, after one of Slovin's recen collaboration cases ended, both sideds went out for coffee together. Two cases even endedr in a reconciliation. But while collaboration is popular withdomestic lawyers, it has been slow to catcgh on in the businesxs community. The Collaborative Law Center in Cincinnati has trainedd more than 250lawyersa — more than any othee major city in the country. More than 30 are employmentr lawyers, although only a handful of theser cases have been resolvedwith collaboration. The law center is hopingv to change that.
"What a business wants is to resolvse a dispute as efficiently and economically as Collaboration is more saidMike Cioffi, an employment and litigatio n attorney and a member of the law center'z board of trustees. There have been obstacles. Sometimes lawyers never mention collaboration as an option to clients becauser they are reluctant to lose big fees or relinquisy clients if acase can't be Hamilton County Court of Commohn Pleas Judge Mark Schweikerg often sees cases in his courtroom that could be candidates for He suggests the alternative and offers to put theirf court case on hold, but so far there have been no takers.