Divorce is not simply navigating a legal process. It is very likely the biggest financial event in your life to date. Emotions often run high and impact your ability to make good, well-considered financial decisions in your divorce.
The Collaborative Divorce process acknowledges that there are legal, financial, and emotional elements to every divorce. Rather than arming for battle, the process helps clients take a problem-solving approach to settling their divorce. We focus on giving both spouses the tools they need to make good decisions for themselves and their family. Each spouse works with a collaboratively-trained attorney, and they are joined by a mental health professional (called a divorce coach) and a neutral financial professional, both also collaboratively-trained to help the couple find a mutually acceptable, durable agreement in an otherwise disagreeable situation.
Instead of placing blame, both spouses choose to use the collaborative process to settle their divorce outside of the court system. Rather than a judge making decisions for you and your family, you meet together, with the support of your professional team, to gather and utilize information to make positive decisions concerning your children, property, and post-divorce lives. Ultimately, the meetings will culminate with both of you signing a settlement agreement that allows you to move forward with an uncontested divorce on the ground of irreconcilable differences.
Having the right experts to support you with legal, emotional, and financial information and advice make the divorce process more efficient, cost-effective, and timely than traditional litigation. Instead of two attorneys asking for and reviewing volumes of financial recordsin a litigated setting, the financial neutral works on behalf of both spouses to collect and analyze only the information necessary to fully address the financial aspects of your divorce and help you both understand the economic realities of post-divorce living. As a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Ms. Panther provides relevant tax information and advice regarding the settlement you are considering so that neither spouse encounters unintended financial consequences post-divorce.
Cheryl Panther is trained by the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals as a neutral financial professional in Collaborative Divorce matters and is affiliated with the Middle Tennessee Collaborative Alliance. She is also a Collaborative Divorce trainer through the Institute for Family Conflict Resolution.
As a collaborative financial neutral, Ms. Panther can help you find amicable solutions to tax issues, investments, debts, spousal support (alimony), and other financial considerations.