Rule 5 Emergency Order

If someone in a collaborative law case needs urgent protection, a court can still step in and issue an emergency order. This applies to a party in the case, as well as family members or others who live with them or used to live with them. The point is to make sure someone's health, safety, or well-being can be protected right away, even in the middle of the collaborative process.

There's an important catch, though. If the court grants this emergency order and not everyone in the case agreed to it, the collaborative process automatically ends. In other words, going around the normal agreement process to get emergency help comes with a cost: it shuts down the collaborative approach the parties were using to work things out together.