Folks, this is something I wrote for my local collaborative law group a few
years ago. I submit it as this Friday's contribution toward Honey Hasting's
Collaborative Law Cookbook
CRITICAL MASS
Tom H. Nagel
August 2004
Imagine that you and one other lawyer were the only ones in town practicing
collaborative family law. Every new client might be a potential collaborative
law case, but you would face the difficult challenge of convincing the other
spouse (the non-client) to go see the only other collaborative law attorney in
town. The odds are heavily against the non-client going to see your
collaborative colleague You and your colleague would not get many collaborative
law cases.
Now imagine the situation if every other domestic relations lawyer in town
practiced collaborative family law. How many more collaborative law cases could
you expect to have? Wouldnt just about every case that came in the door be a
new collaborative law case? And what would you do during those long winter
nights in Medicine Hat, Alberta? But I digress.
Third example: imagine your and your buddy have the only two computers in
town. You link them up with a phone line. What have you got? An expensive
teletype, and maybe somebody to play Pong with. Link up a few million PCs
though and you have something new: the Internet. How many computers had to be
connected with modems to make the internet bloom?
The point is that we must remember that we are changing the game with
collaborative law.
More collaborative law practitioners does not mean fewer cases for each of
us. More members in the collaborative family law council means MORE
collaborative family law cases for each of us. And more collaborative law cases
will give birth to a new and different kind of family law practice.
We need to reach critical mass. We need more of us in the game. Recruit all
the best family lawyers you knowthe folks who can look at a case and make
sense out of it and help their clients toward resolution without needless
bloodshed. The more of us there are, the better job we can do at getting the
word out. The more of us there are, the better chance you have of seeing the
non-client select a collaborative colleague as your opposing counsel.
I dont know what the magic number is. However, I am convinced that somewhere
between zero and 100% there is a threshold at which collaborative family law
will reach critical mass and take off, so we can all become "recovering
litigators." There is enough work. There are enough cases. There just are not
yet enough members of the collaborative law counsel. Recruit. We need to reach
critical mass.
Tom H. Nagel
Recovering Litigator
Columbus, OH
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