Judicial support of Collaborative Family procedure is such that a senior High Court Judge has proposed that Collaborative cases should be given preferential treatment at Court.

In Collaborative procedure, whilst the parties have committed to resolving issues out of Court, they will usually make a joint application to Court (without actually attending Court) to make an order in the terms of the financial settlement agreed.

Depending on the work load of the particular Court, this relatively straight forward process can take weeks.

In the, as yet, unpublished case of S v P giving Judgement, Mr Justice Coleridge said about Collaborative agreements:

“I have permitted the application for approval to be dealt with in the urgent, without notice applications list, as this considerably shortcuts the normal rather lengthier process of lodging Consent Orders through the Principal Registry and waiting for them to be approved and sent back. Whilst I cannot bind the Court always to follow this shortcut process to be available, I have discussed this suggestion with the President [of the Family Division] and he has given his approval to this shortcut process being used by those who achieve Collaborative Law agreements in this way. He has approved this in order to provide as much encouragement as possible to resolve their difficulties in this civilised and sensible way”.