Scott Levin, Patricia Van Heren, and Glenn Crawford introduce collaborative divorce, where both spouses keep their own lawyers but all professionals work together to settle assets and custody. The process happens entirely online, costs less than litigation, and keeps families out of court.
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Hey everybody, this is Scott Levin, Chief Peacekeeper, and I'm here with 2 very good friends and colleagues, Patricia Van Heren and Glenn Crawford. How you guys doing?
Great, great. Thanks, Scott.
So we're here to announce and talk about divorce without stress. Not, not always easily accomplishable, but Glenn, Patricia, and I are the founders Of a new collaborative law group called SoCal Online Collaborative. And we want to talk to you guys about the practice of collaborative law, how it can benefit you through the divorce process and get you to the other side in a way that's, you know, with less stress, more information, being more well-informed, all these really great benefits that That our group in particular is going to bestow. So maybe, Patricia, can you talk to us a little bit about collaborative law and kind of introduce the topic?
Yes, thank you, Scott. I also want to point out one of the advantages of our group is we can give you a way to get divorced without ever leaving your house. And right now, in today's era, staying at home is, is the new thing to do. So collaborative divorce, what that is, is a way that you and your spouse can uncouple in the least damaging way to your children. While each of you would have your own attorneys, Scott would represent one spouse, I would represent the other spouse, but instead of being in war, Scott and I would work together with Glenn, who is our financial professional. To come up with solutions so that we can help you divide your property, come to agreements on custody. And when we start a collaborative divorce, we build our team. We work together really as a team, and all of the professionals are working for you and your family. I'm going to have Glenn talk a little bit about how the financial professional can help in this collaborative divorce.
Sure, thank you very much, Patricia. And I think, you know, the key word here is collaborative. So, you know, when it comes to a divorce, and, you know, we're not espousing or encouraging people to get divorced, but the fact that they do, and the bottom line there is that you're negotiating a settlement. You know, you're simply, you know, dividing a personal corporation that you put together with your spouse. And the more you are able to be amiable or have communication in this process, generally the much better outcome it'll be, rather than being antagonistic, which, you know, we believe the market today is largely broken in that it's costly, it's combative, and it's confusing. And so what I do as a CDFA, I'm a financial neutral that works on behalf of both parties in a collaborative space. Helping them understand the unique financial aspects of asset division when it comes to divorce. So it's just simply important when you are dividing assets that you understand the value of those assets. What are they? What are the tax impacts of those assets? How do we calculate, say for instance, a pension? Perhaps one spouse worked for a company for 25 years and they were married for 15 years. Well, how much is the spouse that didn't earn the pension, how much are they entitled to and how do you calculate that? So we take a look at all these different assets, which generally lawyers are not uniformly well-versed on financial concepts. No offense to my 2 lawyer colleagues here. And generally they don't communicate in a way that is conducive to the participants understand what they're negotiating. So what I do as a neutral CDFA, I simply provide them clarity so they really understand the value of all those assets, and then we line up different scenarios for them as well so they can make a decision on what does it look like if I keep the house and I give away, for instance, say, my entitlement and a part of the pension. How does that line up? We just make it easy to understand, and also that helps the lawyers in the job that they do representing the clients.
Yeah, so I mean, it's— that was great, Glenn, and thank you. So I mean, it's all about the 3 of us and our other colleagues that are in the collaborative group in the mortgage, real estate, you know, other spaces that we fill in, that we have filled in with really great professionals. But it's really the 3 of us and all of those professionals putting our heads together while you're being represented by Patricia and I. individually, but we are working together to formulate, you know, a path forward that everyone can live with, that's fair, that's good for you and your family. And, and as opposed to like in litigation where I would have my own version of Glenn and Patricia and her client would have their own version of Glenn putting together this financial picture, and then we would go to war to figure out who's picture who wins right now. We're working with one Glen together and putting our heads together to try to help you guys move forward while still being represented by really great attorneys. So we really appreciate it. Patricia, is there— you want to add anything else?
So I want to add about costs.
Oh, yeah.
Yes. Looking at— a lot of people will come into my office and say, well, if I'm hiring this team, isn't that going to cost me a lot of money? And when we compare the cost of a collaborative divorce as opposed to a litigated divorce, like you were saying, Scott, we'd each have our own Glenns. We might each have our own therapist seeing the parties. And here, when we're— and we're paid for sitting around waiting for the judge to call our case, maybe I'm being paid for 2, 3 hours. of just sitting next to my client waiting for that name to be called. Whereas in collaborative, all the time is spent working on that client's case. And so the cost savings of collaborative divorce, not just talking about the emotional cost of litigation, but the financial cost to the family. I'd much rather have clients putting money into their college education for their kids Rather than paying for my kids' college education.
Yeah, I love that. And especially because we're— we were born online, there is no travel costs really unless our clients really want to meet in person. Of course we will meet in person, but being, you know, an online-focused created group just for that space makes it even more affordable. So But we're really stoked. We're happy. We're excited. We've been working on this for a long time, and this is— this group that we put together is really great, and you just are gonna— we're gonna be doing a lot of good for a lot of people. So, Glenn, Patricia, myself, we're excited to introduce SoCal Online Collaborative Law Group, socalonlinecollaborative.com. And of course, we'll be pushing out more information about this, but It's a really great option for a lot of people. So thanks guys for joining me and, uh, looking forward to working with you on these cases soon.
