I just read that movie director Cameron Crowe and his wife, Nancy Wilson recently divorced using the collaborative law process. Cameron and Wilson, a member of the rock band Heart, must have been attracted by the prospect of working out the terms of their divorce in private and away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. They agreed on joint custody of their twin sons, who were also shielded from the prospect of their parent’s differences being public fodder.

I have found it to be true that, for my clients who are public figures, privacy is one of the main features that attracted them to collaborative law. All collaborative law meetings are held in the privacy of the attorneys’ offices, at times that are convenient for everyone, and the final agreements are not filed in the public records of the court but maintained as private contracts between the parties. The only losers in this arrangement may be the readers of USA Today and People magazine — certainly not the divorcing couples.