Archive for the ‘Preventive Law’ Category
Have you checked your assumptions, lately?
May 18th, 2011 | 
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Have you ever thought negatively about a person or a situation based on information you thought was accurate but which turned out to be wrong? I remember thinking certain things about another guy I went to school with and for over two years, I didn’t talk much with him except to be polite and civil. Something triggered an opportunity for him and me to go out for beers or coffee and just talk about things that bothered us about each other. It turned out both of our beliefs about each other were misconceptions, based on perceptions and assumptions we had never checked out until then. We became the closest of friends and still are today.
This kind of thing happened over the weekend in my church. There was some missed communications between people and some of the parishioners started to run with that, believing that what they perceived as a change in plans was orchestrated by what they believed to be a small but controlling group of parishioners. Not being a big fan of small controlling groups in any organization, let alone in a church, I could relate to this view. But then I learned that one group perceived that I was a part of the small controlling group. It dawned on me at that moment that the person or persons carrying that perception didn’t really know me very well.
Posted in Case Evaluation, Collaborative Processes, Preventive Law | 
Tags: Preserving Relationships, Respect and civility | 
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We are looking for one good town (legally speaking)
What if your entire town made an official commitment to practicing legal wellness, for one year? Or for that matter, your entire company? Or your mission-based organization? Or your family?
A couple of years ago I read an article in AARP Magazine about how Albert Lea, a small town of 18,000 in Minnesota, launched the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project. The town made a commitment for one year to making changes in the way their residents ate, exercised, worked and played. The guiding principle for the Blue Zones Project is to commit to four traits: healthier diet, active lifestyle, clear sense of purpose and strong social networks. A year later, when they went back to Albert Lea to see how things went, they saw that people wanted to keep it going and did just that. The residents had logged 42,000 miles of walking, up from 37,558 logged a year earlier. One resident noted that in one year, he increased his life expectancy from 52 years to 78 years. He noted that the project improved both his habits and his happiness. Five months into the project, participating residents had lost an average of 3 pounds each and had added three years each to their life spans.
Now, take that same concept – a commitment of an entire town to practicing health wellness – but apply it to legal wellness. For one year, what if town officials agreed that if there were any kind of municipal disputes, neither side would sue or go to court. Instead, participants committed to a pilot project in which they would act differently when they found themselves in disputes. They agreed to first work together toward resolving it utilizing only non-adversarial dispute resolution processes. The residents agreed also to commit to take any dispute they had to a designated center in the town or at the worksite, where, working with people trained in non-adversarial and interest-based dispute resolution, the parties worked through their issues together, through a series of negotiation sessions, guided by those trained to facilitate this kind of problem solving. They also hired an ombudsperson to work discreetly, neutrally and confidentially with people having conflicts or problems in the workplace, in community organizations or in their families to diffuse them. They utilized several preventive steps, training and educating. They put policies and procedures in place to prevent certain disputes from occurring. They put into their contracts dispute resolution clauses by which the parties agreed to try non-adversarial dispute resolution processes first, processes in which they controlled the outcome. Read the rest of this entry »
Compliance more likely if cases are mediated
Does the way a dispute gets resolved – either through a negotiated out of court settlement process or through a verdict or finding of a court — impact the level of compliance with the terms of the resolution? Put differently, are people more or less likely to carry out the terms of the final resolution when it is the result of a process like mediation or collaborative law or other non-adversarial processes?
One answer was recently provided in an article by Lorig Charkoudian in the Winter, 2010 issue of the Conflict Resolution Quarterly, addressing the issue of what happens after negotiated settlements. We know from studies, literature and statistics that there is a high rate of successful resolution in mediated cases, just as there is a high rate of satisfaction with the mediation process. But Charkoudian’s articles focuses on the rate of compliance with the terms of a negotiated agreement, compared with court resolved cases.
Why be proactive in our treatment of employees?
(second in a series and dialogue on the workplace)
Workplace bullying and harassment are emerging issues to be addressed by employers. Add the potentially larger problem of increased stress, decreased morale and diminished productivity of those employees who remain after layoffs, who are expected to carry the same load with less people, less experiential knowledge and less resources. Factor in a still sluggish economy and high unemployment, and we have a workplace perfect storm and a cresting wave of workplace discontent.
I think employers need to be proactive and act ahead of the law. Ignoring this rising crisis may result in a layer of liability and non-compliance resulting from new laws. Their efforts to run a business may be stymied by a mobilized work force or they may have to close down because they failed to navigate this storm effectively. This storm will stay in the workplace and be also strengthened by the changes in the workplace brought by information technology and Generation Y. This is not your father’s work environment anymore.
Who’s going to pay for my Primary Care Lawyer?
In our last blog post, I suggested the good sense idea of having a primary care lawyer in one’s team of trusted advisors, as one would have a primary care physician, an accountant, a business or personal coach, and for some, a financial advisor. There are, as we discussed, many advantages to having trusted legal counsel on board, someone who knows your business and family circumstances well, knows your priorities and goals, your disposition and who can give you good preventive and proactive advice, before you decide which legal path to travel.
Some readers pointed out that while that would be practical and helpful, unlike a primary care physician, which is most often covered and included in one’s medical benefits and health insurance, legal counsel is not usually included among the benefits offered by companies. It’s an out of pocket cost to the user/client, one that many just can’t afford to include in their budgets.
That good point got me to thinking two thoughts:
1. Yes, it is a costly service to add trusted legal counsel to a person or family or small business budget, but in the long run, it will most likely save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. It’s similar to paying a little more for organic food or fresh produce from small family farms as part of our preventive health approach to our bodies. My grandfather, one of the wisest men I ever knew, used to teach us that there were two places you should never cut costs: Food and shoes.
2. Maybe companies and employers should consider offering this benefit to employees, something small that the company may not need to buy insurance to cover. They should do it not only because it’s a good benefit to offer to their employees in trying to do right by them, but also because it’s probably going to be a cost savings to the company, for the very same, preventive, proactive reasons as it saves a person money. When people utilize preventive law and avoid litigation, they not only save money, but also save time, time that would be taken off from work to attend to the demands of litigation or bigger legal problems. People also avoid the stress and emotional drain, the sense of being worn down by a legal dispute, especially one that goes into litigation. These factors directly impact a person’s mental and emotional well-being and one’s productivity, energy level, focus and concentration in the workplace. The combined cost of time off and unproductive, distracted work from an employee who is preoccupied and consumed by litigation is significant and detrimental to the workplace.
Do you have a Primary Care Lawyer?
Have you thought about having a primary care lawyer (PCL) among your team of trusted advisors, the way you have a primary care physician, or financial advisor or accountant?
Most of us have a primary care physician (PCP), a trusted medical advisor, the first person we turn to when we have a medical situation, illness or injury. Before you decide what approach to take, what kind of medical specialist you’ll need to see, you begin by going to your PCP and asking him/her to assess your situation. Your PCP has the advantage of knowing you well, knowing your medical history and as a result, he/she is in a better position to assess your situation and give you tailored advice. You also have the extra security of knowing and trusting your PCP.
If you are a small business or a family business, a non-profit organization, a social enterprise or entrepreneurial business, why not have the same kind of trusted advisor in your legal world? There is great value to having a lawyer that knows your business well, that understands the goals and interest of your organization, knows how you think and approaches situations in a preventive, proactive way.
Let’s take that analogy to medicine one step further? If you had a back problem, would your first call be to the orthopedic surgeon to start preparing for surgery? Of course not. Orthopedic surgeons, like trial lawyers, are masters at their craft. I have the utmost respect for mine. But he is my last call; not my first one. There’s a time and a place for surgery and that is only when you have tried every other less-invasive, less risky, less life-altering approach or when nothing else will work. Only when those efforts fail do you turn to the surgeon as a last resort. Litigation should be looked at through the same lens: only as a last resort, when the other less damaging, less risky, and less intrusive procedures have been tried first. You can always turn to the courts or an arbitrator if your non-adversarial, solutions-based efforts don’t succeed, or when your primary care lawyer advises you that in your circumstances, you need to litigate. But it’s very difficult and very ineffective to try to switch to a non-adversarial, solutions-based approach after you have been embroiled in litigation for a couple of years and spend thousands of dollars. Read the rest of this entry »
Dispute Resolution begins with Preventive Law
Most people involved in a dispute think the first step to resolving it is filing a complaint in court and commencing litigation. Then, you basically turn the case over to your lawyers and wait to hear good news from them about the results. Those unschooled in litigation think that very shortly after that, the case will settle, because “all cases settle”, and they will get a nice chunk of money without much time, cost or trauma.
Others think that within a time about as quick as you can pick up your remote, turn on one of many weekly series’ involving trials, and watch the show, your case will be tried, your lawyer will stand up and make some charismatic closing argument like the ones on TV, and your “slam dunk” case will be won.
