As family lawyer Diana Skaggs recently alerted readers, the nation’s leading divorce lawyers are finding more cases settled before trial. This trend in favor of negotiation over litigation in divorce may in part be attributable to the growing popularity of alternatives such as mediation and collaborative law which emphasize mutual gains, joint problem solving, and better communication between disputants.
In “Lawyers who mediate, not litigate: Collaborative law doesn’t have to be an oxymoron“, a column in today’s Christian Science Monitor, Boston-based collaborative lawyer David Hoffman traces the roots of collaborative law, describes its benefits, and assesses its risks. Its benefits are two-fold: for the clients themselves, who can achieve creative resolutions, as well as for the legal profession itself, since Hoffman sees collaborative law as a way to regain ebbing public confidence. Hoffman does so in the context of the ethics opinion recently issued by the American Bar Association upholding the use of collaborative law agreements by lawyers–an opinion which put to rest concerns among collaborative lawyers raised by a controversial advisory opinion by the Colorado Bar Association which declared collaborative law unethical per se earlier this year.
Although collaborative law — and other nonadversarial processes like mediation — may not be for everyone, many divorcing couples are electing these as a way to avoid the costs — monetary and otherwise — that litigation can produce.
This article was originally published by the Tennessee Journal of Law & Policy.Many commentators and courts suggest that cooperative approaches to e-discovery planning hold the key to lower-cost, higher-quality e-discovery...
By Steven BennettFrom the blog of Nancy HudginsFisher and Shapiro in Beyond Reason advise negotiators to turn an adversary into a colleague. One way to do this is to seek out ties...
By Nancy HudginsWhat does the word community mean to you? There are many definitions out there…some of them referring to geographical location, some common values or goals, a common identity, intent, or...
By Jason Dykstra
With the purchase of a Featured Membership, you will be shown on the front page of Mediate.com to web site visitors from your city and region (“state” if you are in the USA). You may appear in more than one city/region by purchasing additional locations.
