The Mississippi Supreme Court has approved new rules allowing family law disputes to be resolved without adversarial court proceedings. The Rules for Collaborative Law were adopted on July 26 and will go into effect on Aug. 26.

These new rules provide an alternative way to address family law disputes, including:

• Marriage, divorce, dissolution, annulment, and property distribution;
• Child custody, visitation, and parenting time;
• Alimony, maintenance, and child support;
• Adoption;
• Parentage;
• Premarital, marital, and post-marital agreements;
• Modifications, enforcements, and contempts.

Under the new rules, parties can sign a Collaborative Law Participation Agreement, which requires them to forgo court intervention while using collaborative family law processes to resolve their dispute. If these efforts fail, new lawyers must be retained for the traditional adversarial process in Chancery Court.

The Mississippi Bar, through its Board of Bar Commissioners, petitioned the Supreme Court to establish the Rules for Collaborative Law. Mississippi Bar General Counsel Adam Kilgore explained in the August 2022 petition that collaborative law is a voluntary, contractually based alternative dispute resolution process for parties who prefer negotiation over a court or arbitrator ruling. In this process, lawyers’ representation is limited to negotiation purposes, and if the matter is not settled, new lawyers are retained for litigation or arbitration.

An ad hoc committee, appointed in 2020 by then-Mississippi Bar President Jennifer Ingram Johnson and chaired by divorce and family law attorney Mark Chinn, studied rules governing alternatives to litigation in domestic relations and other civil matters in other states. The committee modeled its proposal on the nationally recognized Uniform Collaborative Law, an American Bar Association-approved model. More than 20 states, including Alabama, Louisiana, and Tennessee, have adopted the Uniform Collaborative Law. The Louisiana Legislature approved its Uniform Collaborative Family Law Act earlier this year, which goes into effect on Aug. 1.

Bar leaders have expressed support for the new rules, citing benefits for families, lawyers, and the courts. The Collaborative Law Participation Agreements could help relieve crowded court dockets.

Johnson emphasized the importance of this alternative in a Sept. 21, 2023, letter to the Supreme Court, stating, “Issues of divorce and custody touch upon the most intimate and emotionally driven relationships in our lives, and as such, it makes sense to implement an alternative to the adversarial litigation process.”

Former Mississippi Bar President Blake Teller added in a Sept. 20, 2023, letter, “Of all legal matters before our Courts, these matters should be handled with great care to preserve relationships to the greatest extent possible. Amicable, respectful proceedings promote good co-parenting.”