{"id":1904,"date":"2017-04-20T15:34:18","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T19:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/?p=1904"},"modified":"2017-04-20T15:34:18","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T19:34:18","slug":"lawyers-as-peacemakers-and-changemakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/lawyers-as-peacemakers-and-changemakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyers as Peacemakers and Changemakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lincoln famously wrote: \u201cAs a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man.\u201d\u00a0 Without challenging this proposition, I have often wondered to what extent lawyers are uniquely positioned to achieve \u201cgoodness,\u201d or to do \u201cgood\u201d for others.\u00a0 Don\u2019t teachers also have a \u201csuperior opportunity\u201d to do good?\u00a0 Landscapers?\u00a0 Artists?\u00a0 Butchers?<\/p>\n

Kim Wright, Eileen Barker and Ann Marie Puente conducted a panel at the 2017 ABA Dispute Resolution Section Meeting investigating \u201cexpanding what is possible for lawyers.\u201d The panel sought to show \u201chow we can lead as peacemakers and changemakers in the current social and political environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Kim Wright<\/a>\u2019s most recent book is \u201cLawyers as Changemakers.\u201d\u00a0 She described the \u201cIntegrative Law Movement\u201d as part of rapid change in a broad swath of professional society, including shifting corporate governance paradigms and re-emergence of holistic medical practice.\u00a0 She cited factors such as public disrespect for lawyers, lawyers\u2019 disrespect for each other, and lawyers\u2019 frequently reported personal distress and dissatisfaction, as incentives for professionals to self-reflect and critically assess.\u00a0 One outcome, she proposes, is a re-adoption of ancient and fundamental values of individual purpose and worth \u2013 unfashionable though those terms may be to some.\u00a0 She cited a trust and estate lawyer who stated that his firm\u2019s mission was \u201chelping clients to express their love for those most important to them.\u201d\u00a0 She seeks to \u201creunite law and love,\u201d in recognition that all of law deals, in one way or the other, with relationships. \u00a0And the incorporation of these fundamental values into the individual legal practice may render one\u2019s self a \u201cchangemaker\u201d \u2013 in principle movingly illustrated by a remarkable 4-minute film on the consequence of the re-introduction of wolves<\/a> to the Yellowstone National Park.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Eileen Barker<\/a> described the process whereby she left litigation and opened a mediation practice as an intentional choice to conform her professional life with her personal desire to foster relationships and wrestle with the challenges of forgiveness. \u00a0She wanted to use her legal training to \u201chelp people to heal, and be at peace.\u201d\u00a0 She found, moreover, that helping people resolve a particular conflict was frequently only the tip of the iceberg, merely the first step of transforming and liberating people away from other-directed blame and towards self-directed nurturing and growth.\u00a0 She noted Ken Cloke\u2019s observation that, \u201cin every conflict, forgiveness, like revenge, is always possible.\u201d She insists that there is a fundamental human impulse to forgive, an impulse towards empathy, that can either be encouraged or dissuaded by facilitation.\u00a0 She made it seem obvious: \u201cMost people want peace.\u201d\u00a0 Pressed on the fact that most people also want moral vindication, she noted that forgiveness can also include acknowledgement of harm, accountability, restitution and other elements of moral suasion.<\/p>\n

Ann Marie Puente<\/a> urged a design analysis to problems that lawyer often address.\u00a0 Regulation is a sign of design failure, she suggested \u2013 pollution is a flaw of systems design, as is injustice.\u00a0 Thus, design is admittedly intentional, value-laden and outcome-oriented. Were lawyers to follow a design of numerous informal face-to-face interactions, she argues, outcomes would be more attractive to those effected by them.\u00a0 She termed it a \u201cculture of informality,\u201d allowing porous and humane interactions that would yield progressive and enjoyable outcomes.\u00a0 This principle is particularly urgent in times that are violent, uncertain and insecure, as she suggests we find ourselves now.\u00a0 Humanity, not technology, will drive change.<\/p>\n

To some degree, the concepts conveyed in this program are applicable to landscapers, butchers, and anyone who serves clients.\u00a0 Our job is to fix our client\u2019s problems \u2013 the dripping faucet, the tasty portion of beef, the elegant outcome of a conflict. \u00a0All of us who serve others express our caring for them, and are required therefore to bring our integrity and values \u2013 one of which is to refrain from saying \u201cThis is what you want\u201d in favor of asking \u201cWhat do you want?\u201d\u00a0 Those who are uncomfortable doing so when practicing law may find themselves rightly confused.<\/p>\n

At the same time, if the desire to be at peace and the desire to morally vanquish are both intuitive, one can still ask whether the lawyer the professional agent best qualified to respond to both needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Dispute Resolution Section meeting, an inquiry into the intersection of lawyering, peace, and culture shifts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14,24],"tags":[10,12,38,15,23],"class_list":["post-1904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conflict-resolution","category-mediation","category-systems-design","tag-conflict-management","tag-culture","tag-lawyers","tag-mediation","tag-systems-design"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1905,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904\/revisions\/1905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}