Collaborative Practice

Collaborative Practice, including Collaborative Law and interdisciplinary Collaborative Divorce, is a new way for you to resolve disputes respectfully — without going to court — while working with trained professionals who are important to all areas of your life. The term incorporates all of the models developed since IACP’s Minnesota lawyer Stu Webb created Collaborative Law ideas in the 1980s.

The heart of Collaborative Practice or Collaborative Divorce (also called “no-court divorce,” “divorce with dignity,” “peaceful divorce”) is to offer you and your spouse or partner the support, protection, and guidance of your own lawyers without going to court. Additionally, Collaborative Divorce allows you the benefit of child and financial specialists, divorce coaches and other professionals all working together on your team.

In Collaborative Practice, core elements form your contractual commitments, which are to:

• Negotiate a mutually acceptable settlement without having courts decide issues.

• Maintain open communication and information sharing.

• Create shared solutions acknowledging the highest priorities of all.

About the Author

Carolann Mazza

Florida Family Law Attorney (The Florida Bar, admitted 2001) · Florida Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator (certified 2011, No. 25475F) · Super Lawyers, Family Law, 2022–2026

Carolann Mazza is the founder of Carolann Mazza, P.A., a non-litigation family law firm she opened in Fort Lauderdale in 2003. Practicing family law in Florida since 2001 and admitted to the State Bar of Texas in 1997, she resolves divorce and family conflicts exclusively through Collaborative Divorce, mediation, and out-of-court settlement — keeping families out of court while preserving relationships, dignity, and children’s wellbeing. She serves Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade counties.