Family

  

 

Couple G & T, who have two teenage children, run a successful business as a partnership.   While both ultimately wanted to hand over the business to their children the allegations and counter  allegations  were making their divorce increasingly bitter, with any agreement on continuing to maintain an amicable business partnership looking  increasingly remote.  This would be to the detriment of their children.

  

 

We succeeded in achieving an agreement that the best way forward was a ‘cooling off’ period of six weeks when our client, the wife, did not go into the business at all.   At the end of the six weeks the husband admitted that much of the tension had gone and he now appreciated some of the pressures his wife had been under.   Both sides agreed on rules enabling husband and wife, once divorced, to continue working in the business, allowing it to go forward for the benefit of their children, while putting in place a financial agreement giving both parties independence.    Had this divorce gone down the traditional route it would have been a bloodbath; collaborative law not only saved the business (and both parties significant sums of money) but also hopefully maintain a good relationship for the sake of the children.

  

 

Divorced man reads of the benefits of collaborative law as outlined by Berwins having faced some 17 court appearances in front of various district judges culminating in two days of ‘tit for tat’ financial hearings.  He writes: “What I find most disturbing is the amount of people who have had similar situations.  My ex-wife incidentally received 5 per cent less in her settlement than I had offered her some 16 months previously and went ballistic.  We have a young son who now has parents who don’t even want to be in the same room together, let alone be on speaking terms.  I hope collaborative law will eventually replace the present and very archaic court system.”

  

 

Nobody in this instance stood back and looked at the real cost to the family.   Our solution would clearly have been for both clients, and the initiative has to come from the clients, to use collaborative law where it would have been possible for a positive outcome to have been arrived at,  not only in the interests of both parties but also those of their son.   Ends

 

  

 

Couple going through a divorce where father wanted day-to-day control of his six-year-old son rather than the boy living with his alcoholic mother and partner, also a alcoholic.  This is against a background where courts usually award custody of young children to the mother.

  

 

We made it clear to solicitors acting for the wife that if they litigated and she maintained her stance of seeking custody then we would bring her medical history to the fore and would seek disclosure of medical records.   The matter did not go to court after the mother accepted she would have regular contact with her son but his main home would be with his father.

  

 

A mother who had remarried seeks to move to New Zealand and start a new life and take eight-year-old son with her and seeks a court order in her favour after the boy’s father refused to give his consent.  When removing a child from one jurisdiction to another there has to be either written permission from the relevant parent, in this case the father, or a court order overturning that refusal.

  

 

All too often such cases involve much heartbreak for those involved but in acting for the mother we prepared a coherent and comprehensive portfolio of just how the boy would benefit from living in New Zealand.  This included computerised images of where he would be living, along with location maps and a prospectus of the school he would be attending.  We also put in a detailed proposal for contact with his father, incorporating visits once or twice a year and regular skype contact.  The result was the father relented and settlement was reached at the doors of the court.  Had it gone to a hearing he would have lost.