Gini Nelson’s Engaging Conflicts

This is one of Guest Blogger Law Professor John Lande’s posts in his series “Adding Cooperative Practice to the ADR Toolkit”. His Introduction is posted here. [Earlier Parts to the series are posted here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five]

Part Six: How Practitioners Can Add Cooperative Practice into the Services They Offer. Mediators may also be interested because they may be used in Cooperative cases.

Lawyers who want to do Cooperative Practice may use or adapt DCI’s procedures. For examples of other forms of Cooperative negotiation agreements, see the Boston Law Collaborative and the Mid-Missouri Collaborative and Cooperative Law Association’s website.

Lawyers can start using a Cooperative process an ad hoc basis, which may be particularly appropriate when the lawyers in a case have previously worked well together and trust each other. If appropriate, the lawyers might convene a four-way meeting with the parties early in the case to jointly identify issues, exchange information, and plan how to handle the case in the future. At that point, they might sign a Cooperative participation agreement if they think it would be helpful.

Lawyers may also organize practice groups to promote Cooperative Practice. Such groups can help develop practice norms and procedures and help lawyers develop reputations for cooperation.

I have been giving talks to encourage lawyers to incorporate Cooperative Practice into the “portfolio” of services that they offer. I recently gave a talk in Seattle and a CLE conference call in Colorado and Cooperative groups may develop there — in addition to the ones in Wisconsin, Missouri, and Boston.

I would be happy to talk with others interested in developing Cooperative Practice for your cases. Feel free to e-mail me at landej@missouri.edu or call me at 573-882-3914.

You can go to my website to see the other articles I have written on the subject.

This concludes John’s series. Thank you, John, for sharing this with Engaging Conflicts!