Collaborative divorce is a voluntary process where divorcing couples work together with their own lawyers to negotiate and resolve their differences in an out-of-court non-adversarial forum.

Collaborative divorce is a middle ground between mediation and litigation. Each party has his or her own lawyer, but all participating pledge to resolve matters fairly and peacefully. They also pledge not to go to court or threaten to go to court. Becuase there are two lawyers involved, collaborative divorce tends to be more expensive and time consuming than mediation, but is far less expensive and emotionally less trying than going to court.