Collaborative Law Practice: An Unbundled Approach to Informed Client Decision Making

This article is intended to explore the commonality of the development of informed decision making/consent for unbundled legal services and Collaborative Law utilizing the unbundled approach of bifurcating the attorney role between advisor and provider to give clients a full and balanced education of the process of Collaborative Law, the various models of Collaborative Practice available, and to help the client make an informed decision prior to commencing a Collaborative Law engagement

The Uniform Collaborative Law Act\u27s Contribution to Informed Client Decision Making in Choosing a Dispute Resolution Process

This Article describes how lawyers can implement the requirements of the Uniform Collaborative Law Act to obtain clients’ informed consent. The Act requires lawyers to obtain clients’ informed consent before undertaking a Collaborative representation but does not specify the information that lawyers must discuss with prospective Collaborative parties. To flesh out the Act’s requirements, this Article describes how lawyers should analyze the facts and parties’ interests, screen the appropriateness of dispute resolution processes, analyze the reasonably available dispute resolution options, and discuss the Collaborative process with clients. It specifically addresses privacy issues including privilege, confidentiality, and full disclosure requirements. This Article also suggests ways that lawyers may educate clients generally to make good decisions about dispute resolution options generally, and the Collaborative process in particular

Family Lawyering: Past, Present, and Future

In the past fifty years, divorce law has turned upside down. Marriage is not assumed to be a lifelong commitment. Fault generally is not legally relevant. Gender equality is a fundamental principle. Today, courts regularly handle a much broader range of issues, including disputes about issues such as domestic violence; parental relocation; religious upbringing; payment for children\u27s college education; grandparent and stepparent visitation rights; rights of same-sex and unmarried couples; alienation of parents and children; and the role of e-mail, the Internet, and cybersex in divorce. Family law practice inevitably evolved in response to these social and legal changes. This article briefly sketches some of the changes in family law practice in the past fifty years. Part II describes some of the factors contributing to these changes, including changes in family law, social norms, dispute resolution processes, and the nature of legal practice. Based on these trends, Part III recommends approaches that family lawyers should use in their practice

Collaborative Lawyers' Duties to Screen the Appropriateness of Collaborative Law and Obtain Clients' Informed Consent to Use Collaborative Law

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Collaborative Lawyers\u27 Duties to Screen the Appropriateness of Collaborative Law and Obtain Clients\u27 Informed Consent to Use Collaborative Law

Collaborative Law (CL) is an innovative dispute resolution process that offers significant benefits but also poses significant non-obvious risks. This Article provides a systematic analysis of these possible risks as identified in books written by CL experts, CL practice group websites, social science research, and bar association ethics opinions. In CL, the lawyers and clients sign a participation agreement promising to use an interest-based approach to negotiation and fully disclose all relevant information. A key element of CL is the disqualification agreement signed by parties (and sometimes by attorneys) which provides that both CL lawyers would be disqualified from representing the clients if the parties engage in contested litigation. CL is designed to encourage parties to stay in the process which can be good, though sometimes parties feel stuck there, having invested thousands of dollars and being at risk of losing their lawyer if the process terminates. Ethical rules require lawyers to inform participants about the risks of the process and screen cases for appropriateness under Rules 1.2 and 1.7 of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Empirical studies raise concerns about CL lawyers\u27 compliance with these duties. This article is intended to help prepare CL lawyers and practice groups so that they can better educate potential clients and comply with their obligations to screen cases and help clients make informed decisions about use of CL. It is also intended to help policymakers in promulgating and applying relevant rules. Bar association ethics committees may find this analysis useful in writing ethics opinions and adjudicating possible complaints against CL lawyers. Similarly, courts may find this useful in adjudicating possible malpractice complaints

Educating the New Lawyer: Teaching Lawyers to Offer Unbundled and Other Client-Centric Services

In this article, Forrest Mosten and Julie Macfarlane build a new bridge in their 30-year professional relationship by linking their separate but complementary work in access to legal services, helping the self-represented litigant (“SRL”), transforming the lawyer from gladiator to problem-solver and conflict resolver, and using interdisciplinary team triage in Collaborative Law and preventive conflict wellness to better serve the public. The New Lawyer and Unbundled Legal Services are independent concepts that the three co-authors link in proposing new topics (including the concept of Legal Coaching, which is evolving from the unbundled model) and pedagogical approaches to teaching law students and practicing lawyers

Business-friendly contracting : how simplification and visualization can help bring it to practice

One thesis of this book is that the legal function within businesses will shift from a paradigm of security to one of opportunity. This chapter embraces that likelihood in the context of business contracting, where voices calling for a major shift are starting to surface. It explores how contracts can be used to reach better outcomes and relationships, not just safer ones. It introduces the concept of business-friendly contracting, highlighting the need for contracts to be seen as business tools rather than exclusively as legal tools, and working as business enablers rather than obstacles. By changing the design of contracts and the ways in which those contracts are communicated—through simplification and visualization, for example—legal and business operations can be better integrated. Contracts can then be more useful to business, and contract provisions can actually become more secure by becoming easier to negotiate and implement.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed