The decision to divorce creates great uncertainty.

Family, friends, books on divorce, and divorce lawyers often increase anxiety by suggesting in various subtle or not so subtle ways that one’s well-being could be devastated by a poor divorce settlement. Out of this fear comes the decision to hire a divorce lawyer, even though it’s too expensive and even though few people ever want to be involved in a judicial process.

For years, Mr. Springfield resisted handling family matters as part of his trial practice, precisely because people going through divorce have good reason to never want to be involved in a judicial process. Attorneys frequently refer to litigation as “war.”

In 2001 Mr. Springfield, weary of court battles and searching for an alternative, heard about a non-court approach to legal divorce used in many parts of the country called collaborative family law. Mr. Springfield traveled to Ohio to receive training in collaborative family law and ultimately decided to restrict his law practice to working solely with clients going through divorce who wanted to stay out of court. He realized that in the collaborative divorce process, he was able to help clients deal effectively with the uncertainty, hurt, and fear surrounding divorce in ways that avoided the violence of the adversarial judicial process and led to more satisfactory divorce settlements.

Mr. Springfield has become one of the most experienced collaborative law attorneys in North Carolina, and is one of a very few family law attorneys who restricts his practice to only non-adversarial divorce. He is President of the Separating Together Collaborative Practice Group, a group of collaborative attorneys in Raleigh, North Carolina who restrict their law practices to non-adversarial divorce.

Mr. Springfield now spends his time:

• Helping his clients move beyond uncertainty to workable and just divorce settlements
• Providing support and direction when guilt, anger or hurt threaten to generate sub-optimal settlements
• Helping to ensure that children are protected from conflict between the parents during the divorce process
• Spreading awareness of the collaborative divorce process as a less violent way to ensure one’s well-being after divorce