COURT-BASED solutions to family law problems will not be regarded as mainstream in the future, but will be replaced by non-adversarial forms of dispute resolution, according to the president of the Association of Collaborative Practitioners in Ireland.
Patricia Mallon was opening the second European conference of collaborative lawyers, which brought together delegates and speakers from the US, Canada and the UK and a number of European countries, as well as from Ireland.
Among the speakers were the founders of the collaborative law movement, Stu Webb and Ronald Ousky. The conference continues today, when it will be addressed by Minister for Justice, Brian Lenihan.
Ms Mallon said that there was still scepticism among certain practitioners about collaborative law, an innovative way of resolving disputes, which differed so much from traditional legal methods.
"It challenges the conventional wisdom that the courts offer the best dispute resolution option," she said. "It questions why the resolution of often deeply personal issues must rely on weapons wielded by lawyers to sometimes terrible and destructive effect. It asks why conflict and confrontation must be part of a dispute resolution in family law." The traditional adversarial system, "in which distributive bargaining is king and where victory is the sole mission", had been the only system available to date, and it was the one which many practitioners were comfortable with, she said.
However, benchmarked against it in terms of out-turns and value for clients, as well as speed of delivery and cost effectiveness, collaborative law scored highly, she said. "But it offers more. The considerations of 'law' can be joined, without any loss of right or entitlement, by other considerations - equity, fairness, justice, compromise, respect." It offered client-centred and family-oriented solutions. Collaborative practitioners, because of their training, could bring forward solutions that are grounded in law, but which are also predicated on values that do not often find expression in the daily routine of court because of the nature of the adversarial system.
She said that this form of dispute resolution was now being applied internationally to other areas of dispute, such as those in the commercial and civil arenas.
Other professionals, such as mental health professionals, financial experts and mediators, who were also pivotal to the collaborative process, where now showing an interest in this area, she said.