How often do Collaborative Divorces Succeed?

One of the downsides of Collaborative Law, as with any alternative dispute resolution process, is that if you do not settle your case outside of court, there is still the risk that you will end up in court litigating your dispute.  Many people still choose to give amicable settlement a fair chance, but a common question when trying to make this choice is "how often do these cases succeed in settling outside of court?"  While every case is different and will present unique issues, there is now some available data to answer this question.

The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) has collected data on Collaborative cases from the professionals involved in those cases through the use of an IACP Professional Practice Survey and reported some of their findings in The Collaborative Review Spring 2012 issue.

Based on a a total of nine hundred and thirty–three cases, which were reported from October 16, 2006 through July 6, 2010, they found that:

 "86% of all reported Collaborative cases settled with an agreement on all issues."  

In addition, 14% of the cases that terminated without a full agreement had reached a partial agreement.

These percentages confirm that most Collaborative cases will settle, and that is no surprise when clients are well informed beforehand about the process and choose to enter a process aimed at working together.  Hopefully, this information will lead to more people choosing to utilize the Collaborative process.  Especially given the amount of control over your own life that the Collaborative process provides, and the positive feedback we typically receive from our collaborative clients.