A Kinder and Gentler Marriage Contract by Philip Epstein

Have a look at this article by prominent Toronto family lawyer Philip Epstein:

http://canada.lawyers.com/lawyers/A~1038924~/A+KINDER+AND+GENTLER+MARRIAGE+CONTRACT.html

The article talks about how lawyers and clients should negotiate cohabitation and marriage contracts in order to avoid misunderstanding and upset during the process. In the same vain that collaborative practice advocates that clients and lawyers do all negotiation in the context of four-way meetings, Mr. Epstein suggests that marriage contracts should also be arrived at in the same manner. The traditional process is to have a client's lawyer simply draft up an agreement and then send it to the client's spouse and his/her lawyer for review. The difficulty here is that the spouse's lawyer's instinctive reaction is to make changes to the agreement. (How else do lawyers justify their existence??) As Mr. Epstein writes, it is "far better to meet and exchange ideas and exchange concerns. Then, at the end of that meeting, someone can undertake to circulate a draft that reflects the concerns raised at the meeting."