Alternative Dispute Resolution: Collaborative Law

Recent years have witnessed a spate of both new and renewed approaches to the practice of law. Disaffected by the adversarial model, many practitioners have engaged in a quiet revolution, a marriage of theory and practice designed to maximize the healing potential of the law. The result has been a variety of approaches such as Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Collaborative Law, and Creative Problem-Solving. Lawyers are cultivating Emotional Intelligence, Multicultural Competence, and Mindfulness. They are developing ways of working consistent with their spiritual and religious beliefs. New pedagogy is informing old courses, and new courses are evolving and taking their places in the curriculums of increasing numbers of law schools. This book bears the fruit of many of these efforts.

This book serves both as a broad, comprehensive introduction to collaborative legal practice for lawyers new to the area as well as a current reference for more experienced practitioners. The book explains how the Collaborative Law approach engages the unique problem-solving skills of lawyers to achieve settlements that customize outcomes in the way that few courts are able to achieve. In the collaborative process, fees and costs are minimized, high-quality legal counsel and negotiating assistance are built in, and the ability of divorcing spouses to cooperate and co-parent is maximized to a dramatic extent.

Collaborative Law: A New Model for Dispute Resolution includes an overview of the development and current status of collaborative law; the necessary skills, knowledge, and attitude required of the lawyers and the parties; the components of an interdisciplinary collaborative law team; the steps in the collaborative process intended to result in a final settlement of the case; training and skills required and/or useful for attorneys looking to start a collaborative law practice; ethical issues, including malpractice concerns, duties, and confidentiality; case-processing issues and coordination with the courts; resources and methods of practice in Colorado; and appendices of forms. The entire text of the book is available on the accompanying CD in searchable PDF format.

Since about 1990, disciplines have emerged in every substantive area of the law to transform law into a positive force in the lives of those it touches. These disciplines converge in the “comprehensive law movement.” Comprehensive Law Practice overviews the entire movement and provides training materials for lawyers, judges, mediators, and law students who want to be at the forefront of practicing law in these new forms.

This text offers attorneys a more holistic, humanistic, solution-based approach to resolving legal problems. It provides an overview of approaches such as: collaborative law, restorative justice, problem-solving courts, therapeutic jurisprudence, community lawyering, humanizing legal education, transformative mediation, and preventive law.