Hi Folks:
As a Californian (again), I understand Duane's point. Last I heard, we have
approximately 85% of family law litigants acting pro se. This has reached a
sort of crisis state for the family courts (and for families).
Much of my passion in trying to bring Collaborative Law into civil cases is
that the civil litigation system has become a luxury for only the rich and
those with such a unique combination of liability and general damages that
an attorney can afford to take the case on contingency. And as a result,
for a lot of lawyers of my generation (15 years practice/less), we have
very, very few ways of practicing law in a meaningful way that pays the
bills. Mediation has drawn thousands in search of a meaningful practice,
but very few outside of the family law arena actually make any money off it.
In many ways in the legal system, California leads the way (not always in a
good way). My experience as primarily a civil attorney is that the justice
system here has become so incredibly expensive to access that huge numbers
of people have no access to attorneys.
The result is most litigants see little benefit in hiring attorneys at all,
collaborative or otherwise.
There's such a profusion of law & cases, and the procedure has become so
convoluted, that simply doing a "competent" job requires a huge expenditure
of hours that often don't benefit the litigants.
Yes, we need to educate the public more about the benefits of collaborative
practice and having a better settlement (versus just "a" settlement). But,
I think established attorneys also need to become more flexible and possibly
less competitive, and work creatively with, for example, younger and less
experienced attorneys to help provide a range of services to clients.
Rather than just competing for the few "prime" clients, we could actually
open up the market to atleast some of that 85%.
I have very much enjoyed the family attorneys I've met in the local practice
groups here, and there is a lovely generosity of spirit.
But, I have found that my attempt to move into family law from civil has
been very difficult because there seems to be only two business models for
this practice area - hang out a shingle at considerable personal expense, or
work as an overworked associate for one of the few larger firms in order to
"get experience"
I've also noticed that collaborative law seems to primarily be the province
of attorneys with a lot of experience, and as a practical matter it has not
brought in a lot of younger attorneys.
However, there's lots of ways to work together to provide more clients with
more legal representation by incorporating more younger attorneys to our
cause and by working creatively to "expand the pie." For example: including
developing referral relationships with younger attorneys with lower
overhead, or who are willing to provide legal services at a lower total
cost, including collaborative and unbundled representation. (Explicitly
recognized as legal here in California.) I'm not sure if you can ethically
have referral fees in family (we do them all the time in civil). But, this
could be a win/win.
We also frequently work in "contract attorney" or other informal
associations in civil, which give clients the benefit of the guidance of the
more experienced (and expensive) attorney along with the benefit of some
lower fees. (And, this provides a passive income stream to the more
experienced attorney, since generally the contract attorney charges a
fraction of the billed hourly rate - usually $70-100.) This may make
conflicts issues a little more difficult, but in doing this sort of work for
over 7 years with many attorneys and firms, I have yet to have a conflicts
issue come up.
I'm always stumping for a little flexibility in the Collaboartive
infrastructure in order to encourage civil, and younger, attorneys to join
us. (Meaning finding ways to lower the costs of training & practice group
memberships for these types, or thinking of innovative ways to foster
community, like inexpensive "working groups" rather than full-fledged
membership fees). We civil folks, especially, will probably not make any
'return on investment' in the form of legal fees for years. We need to
bring more people into the fold to help us build our internet
infrastructure, but as a practical matter, until we have a viable way to
"get cases," only a very small portion of folks will pay $500 or so for
training, $300 or so for practice group membership, and/or $1000 or so to
attend the Forum.
Alright - that's a long post. Thanks to anyone who made it through.
Thanks for the original post, Tom. It inspired me!
- Jeanne
-----Original Message-----
From: CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Tom H. Nagel
Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 3:32 PM
To: CollabLaw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [CollabLaw] Re: Critical Mass
Duane Ruth-Heffelbower writes:
: Critical Mass
> Here's the deal: 85% of all divorces have no attorney involved. In
> some areas the number approaches 100%. Collaborative law works with
> those of the 15% who have the desire and resources to do it.
That isn't my impression here in central Ohio. There are some pro-se
cases,
usually folks with no kids, little property and a short term marriage.
Most
of the docket is filled with cases with one or two lawyers involved. The
really bad cases have three or four lawyers involved.
Hmmmmmm. Is there a pattern here?
But I digress. My original point was that we need as many people
practicing collaborative family law as possible.
Tom H. Nagel
Judicium Procurator
Recuperatio
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