Family Businesses and the Business of Families: A Consideration of the Role of the Lawyer

The principal theme of this article explores the impact to the family and the business when the family structure is shattered, and devises an analytical process for lawyers to work with family business owners and/or managers to minimize the impact on the business. The article draws on family systems theory as used in family therapy and as relied upon by many family business consultants. Part One considers the economic and social significance of small and family-owned businesses to our society. Part Two borrows from the theoretical literature of family therapy to describe a framework and context for working with clients who own family businesses. This literature provides insight on how families function and suggests a frame of reference for assessing problems presented by a family owning a business. Part Three furthers the inquiry by focusing on how issues facing a family business are often interrelated with issues facing the family itself. Part Four proposes an analytical model based on a family systems perspective which could aid lawyers in solving legal problems of the client involved in a family business. The process considers how to gather social, emotional, legal, and financial information useful for structuring a solution to the problem. Part Five presents a hypothetical problem to which the family systems approach is applied

Family Matters: Nonwaivable Conflicts of Interest in Family Law

The hypotheticals prepared for this special symposium issue ask if a lawyer can provide legal services to a family when one family member yields major decision-making authority to another family member. At stake is the disposition of significant individual and family assets. The traditional model of legal representation would require each family member to have an advocate protecting and promoting his or her individual interests while negotiating a reasonable accommodation of the other family members\u27 interests. The challenge presented by the hypotheticals is whether an attorney can simultaneously represent apparent multiple interests without violating ethical provisions

Facilitative Ethics in Divorce Mediation: A Law and Process Approach

Mediation is becoming a vital part of family legal problem solving and is creating new challenges for the lawyer practicing in the family law setting. The American Bar Association, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and others recently have proposed standards of behavior for mediators where none have existed before. States also have attempted to define the appropriate realm of ethical practice for family mediation