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Careers in Alternate Dispute Resolution

Careers in Alternate Dispute Resolution. Presented by The Lawyers Assistance Program Facilitated by Robert Bircher, Nancy Cameron and Deborah Zutter. Careers in ADR. Most lawyers go to law school because of a deep desire to help people and to make the world a better place

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Careers in Alternate Dispute Resolution

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  1. Careers in Alternate Dispute Resolution Presented by The Lawyers Assistance Program Facilitated by Robert Bircher, Nancy Cameron and Deborah Zutter

  2. Careers in ADR • Most lawyers go to law school because of a deep desire to help people and to make the world a better place • Most lawyers are intelligent, good hearted people who can make a difference • Most lawyers find it difficult or impossible to match their highest ideals in an adversarial environment

  3. Careers in ADR • The traditional adversarial paradigm with a “combat based” mentality has been implicated in studies investigating the poor mental health of lawyers • One way around this dilemma is to change to a different paradigm • The general area is known as “Transformational Lawyering” also known as Renaissance Law • This includes a number of models-the best known being mediation and collaborative law

  4. Careers in ADR • These models have some common characteristics; • Sensitivity to the needs, values, and highest good of the client, society , and legal professionals • Focus on resolution and healing • Rather than looking to the past and punishing past transgressions, the focus is on the future and reconciling relationships, apology, forgiveness listening, completion & moving on

  5. Careers in ADR • Legal issues are seen in the context of the relationships with the parties or in the community, there is an element of interconnectedness, wholeness • The solutions are Win/Win/Win-not just the parties win but the community as well • Is this just a pipe-dream? In my experience these are achievable in ADR and often are

  6. Training and Credentials for ADR • Law society Family Law Mediator • 3 years as a family lawyer+40 hour course • C. Med - 80 hours of theory+100 of training+ interview • Many colleges and universities now have diplomas and degrees in mediation • Justice Institute and CLE have many excellent courses • Front line experience (mentoring) is difficult to find

  7. From Learning to Earning • Many lawyers do a small mediation practice along with a regular practice • Full time ADR lawyers are still rare • Practice building requires marketing and time-mediation and collaborative law are quite competitive • Mediators Paradox-the better and more experienced you are, the less you make per file since you get faster

  8. The Dark Side of ADR • Mediation is very hard work, especially emotionally • It is hard to do more than about ½ a day of mediation due to emotional exhaustion • Litigation is much more lucrative • ADR is overcrowded (in some areas) and thus hard to build a practice • You turn $10,000 files into $800 files-great for clients-bad for billings (see mediators paradox)

  9. The Dark Side of ADR-2 • ADR does not work for every client and sometimes it is hard to predict • There are some situations which can traumatize the clients (although it is hard to cause a client more trauma than a court process!) • Poorly trained mediators can produce unjust agreements if ILA is ignored • Some clients may use ADR when they really want to inflict punishment and revenge (the perfect milieu for that is, of course, litigation) • It should be pointed out the above situations are uncommon

  10. The Bright Side of ADR • Using a win/win/win system feels good • Clients are satisfied and are appreciative • It is great value for the clients • If done well compliance rates can be 95%(vs. 60% for court orders) • Mediation is very well researched (the adversarial system is not, it tends to be supported by dogma and long discarded psychology)

  11. The Bright Side of ADR-2 • It tends to be fast, you can get together quickly • Clients are accountable for their own conflict resolution • It tends to have therapeutic value to the clients (even though for lawyers this is an artifact) if done well • It tends to reduce future conflict and emphasize the future not the past • It benefits children in many ways

  12. The Bright Side of ADR-3 • ADR is the future in many areas of law • The public intolerance of the expense and delay of traditional litigation will help “turn the ship” • Research and training is advancing daily in this field-the amount of knowledge (of the psychology of conflict) doubles every 3 years • Most ADR processes are much less traumatic than court processes and do much less psychological damage • Relapses or relitigation are rare in ADR processes

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