Dispute Settlement Counsel

Posts Tagged ‘Cutting litigation costs’

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 »

It’s great that there are now two new shows which focus on mediation as an alternative to the court process.  One is Fairly Legal (Thursday at 10 pm EST on USA Network); the other is Harry’s Law (Mondays at 10 pm EST on NBC).

Fairly Legal’s premise is the use of mediation to resolve disputes rather than going to court and fighting through a litigation process.  The lead character, Kate Reed, is a lawyer who walked away from the litigation side of the profession to become a mediator.

Episodes I’ve watched have portrayed employment, intellectual property, divorce and criminal cases resolved by the creative intervention of the mediator.  At the end of the February 24 episode, Kate gave a presentation to a room full of lawyers on the advantages of mediation over court-based litigation, making the case we have been making -  it saves time, saves money, saves relationships, can be more creative in coming up with good solutions and is confidential.

Harry’s Law is a law show with a twist.  The lead lawyer, played by Kathy Bates, runs her law practice out of a shoe store.  This resonates with me because I can envision combining a dispute resolution practice with a breakfast and lunch restaurant – my ultimate goal.

The February 21 episode was on point for two reasons:  It presented two cases, one showing in a compelling way how mediation can be used effectively to resolve a neighborhood gang dispute and the other showing in an equally compelling way how a court-determined verdict fell so short of solving the problem in an employment dispute.

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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.

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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 »

Business owners, managers and entrepreneurs have confirmed some core beliefs of the Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution. They are telling us that the most important element in resolving disputes is preserving important business relationships! They are also telling us that the notion of “winning at all costs” is among the least important considerations in dispute resolution. That is encouraging news and helps to confirm our beliefs about what is critical in dispute resolution and that non-adversarial processes are more responsive and better suited to meet the needs of those involved in disputes. Read the rest of this entry »

Tough Economic Times Call for More Efficient Dispute Resolution

I’m often reminded and amazed by how sensible and logical it is to opt for using certain forms of alternative dispute resolution.  But even moreso in these kinds of tough economic times, where people are searching for ways to cut costs and not sacrifice quality or efficiency, the good sense and logic of alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) screams out to be recognized and understood.  Here are seven very compelling reasons why using ADR methods have serious advantages:

1.  Costs savings; 2.  Time efficiency;  3. Preservation of important business and personal relationships  4. Ability to design solutions tailored to the specific circumstances and situation; 5. Maintaining confidentiality; 6.  Sovereignty of the Client; 7.  Civility, Respect and doing it right.   Read the rest of this entry »