The Emerging Phenomenon of Collaborative Family Law (CFL): A Qualitative Study of CFL Cases

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND THANKS

In the course of this three-year study, I have received support and assistance from innumerable sources and individuals. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided me with the core funding for the travel and attendant expenditures for the extensive field work element of this project, as well as funding my excellent research assistants (Tanya Farkouh and Meighan Ferris) and redoubtable project manager (Ursula Miletic), all law students at the University of Windsor. Beth Beattie (Osgoode Hall Law School) and Professor Michaela Keet (College of Law, University of Saskatchewan) also assisted with interviews in the field. The Department of Justice Canada provided additional financial support and, perhaps more important, intellectual support and encouragement (thanks especially to Jim Sturrock and Cherami Wichmann).

I received unstinting cooperation and professional support from numerous collaborative lawyers and other professionals working in the collaborative movement. I met some very special and inspiring people in the course of this study and am grateful for the opportunity to learn from their work. Above all, I must record here my debt of gratitude to the clients of collaborative processes who let me into their lives at a difficult and stressful time. I learned so much from them and I hope that they will feel satisfied that the future clients and practitioners of collaborative family law can now learn from their experiences and insights.

Julie Macfarlane
Kingsville, November 2004