Lawyers as Peacemakers: Practicing Holistic, Problem-Solving Law
Jul 06, 2010
J. Kim Wright is an ambitious woman. In this comprehensive resource manual, she describes dozens of ways in which lawyers, judges and legal workers across the country (and around the world) are attempting to change their profession for the better. The terms sound hopeful – Holistic Law, Renaissance Law, Transformative Law, Law with a Meditative Perspective. Spiritual Law, Law as a Healing Profession, Restorative Justice, Therapeutic Jurisprudence. Most profoundly, as the title reflects, “Lawyers as Peacemakers.”
Lawyers as Peacemakers, published by the American Bar Association, clocks in at over 500 pages including appendixes, resources and information about its many contributors. The book includes essays, quotes, interview snippets, profiles and articles written by both Wright and leaders in the various alternative legal processes she explores.
Hopefully portions of the book will be excerpted in publications for the legal profession. Lawyers and legal workers who have never heard the umbrella terms “comprehensive law” and “integrative law” but know something is missing from their day-to-day experiences will no doubt breathe a sigh of relief that alternatives exist. People who have had frustrating experiences with the legal system – as a client, witness, offender or victim, may find an explanation, on a systems level, about how and why their experience fell short.
....If this book is correct, Holistic Justice could provide a space for Gulf Coast residents to speak directly to BP wrongdoers about how the disaster has affected family life, inner life, and relationships with nature. “Creative Problem Solving”, another interdisciplinary approach to lawyering, can potentially help figure out how to address the pain experienced by workers who have lost not just a livelihood, but a way of life passed down for generations. The “problem-solving court movement” could birth an Environmental Court to truly address the root causes of this national disaster.
Lawyers as Peacemakers provides resources to fuel the possibility of a multi-disciplinary approach to the multi-faceted harm caused by BP and its partners.
