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→The out-of-court options
One of the criticisms that people often make about lawyers is that we are greedy and provoke conflict to make money. While that may be true of some lawyers, and certainly the advertising you see from lawyers in the United States tends to support this impression, the majority of Canadian family law lawyers would rather resolve family law disputes in any way other than court. In 2017, the Canadian Research Institute for Law and the Family published the results of a [https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/107586/Cost_of_Dispute_Resolution_-_Mar_2018.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y study] of family law lawyers and their views of the different dispute resolution options. The research institute found that:
*Mediation and collaborative negotiation are viewed as the most useful dispute resolution processes for low-conflict disputes, and as well as disputes about the care of children and parenting, child support or spousal support, and the division of property and debt.
*Mediation and collaborative negotiation tend to result in longer-lasting resolutions than litigation.
*Cases resolved through mediation, collaborative negotiation, and arbitration take the least amount of time to conclude, while cases that are litigated take the most amount of time to resolve.