Collaborative Law is growing form of alternative dispute resolution in the area of estate and trust litigation.  Both Brian Deutsch and Millie Baumbush have been certified by the Collaborative Law Institute of Georgia (CLIG) in the civil collaborative process.  Collaborative practice has its roots in family law.  It began as a spin-off of mediation in Minnesota in 1990, as an effort to come up with a better way to resolve divorce and custody cases while minimizing the emotional damage to the parties and to their relationships with minor children.  Soon, the collaborative approach spread both geographically and by practice area.  The core idea of the practice is that at the outset the parties, lawyers, and other professionals agree to resolve the matter without resorting to litigation.  The parties, along with attorneys who are trained in collaborative practice, initially enter into a contract in which everyone agrees to fully disclose information and to focus on devising a mutually agreeable settlement.  As part of the contract, the attorneys agree that the scope of their representation is limited to the collaborative process, and that if the parties are unable to resolve the matter, then both attorneys are to withdraw from representation.  The collaborative process is a growing area of dispute resolution in estate and probate litigation.