Collaborative Law began with a family lawyer who was disenchanted with the negative effects of litigation on clients and their lawyers. Out of his frustration, a new dispute resolution process was born. Lawyers soon realized that there are many reasons that the benefits of the collaborative process should be extended beyond family cases. Collaborative lawyers discovered that disputes could be settled quickly at a fraction of the cost of ordinary litigation due to a completely different approach to negotiations. In addition, the process offers a confidential forum away from the courthouse, and scheduling is at the discretion of the parties rather than court dockets. Knowing that the majority of classes in law schools emphasize an adversarial approach to dispute resolution, this author set out to compile materials to teach law and business students about this new non-adversarial form of dispute resolution which focuses on the clients and their interests and concerns rather than the lawyers and the legal system. Beginning with a history of the law and continuing through a review of several forms of dispute resolution, the text then addresses the collaborative process and provides questions and exercises for readers to use in developing collaborative skills of their own.

What place, if any, ought cultural considerations have when we blame and punish in the criminal law? Bringing together political and legal theorists Criminal Law and Cultural Diversity offers original and diverse discussions that go to the heart of both legal and political debates about multiculturalism, human agency, and responsibility.

This text gives a critical socio-legal discussion, which sets out two sport and leisure disasters (Hillsborough and the Marchioness disasters) and their broader legal/political/economic and policy contexts. It includes a wide range of contemporary legal critiques in the foundation chapters.

How can you settle your dispute for ten cents on the dollar and never set foot in a courtroom? Litigation can't accomplish that for you, but Collaborative Law can.

This illuminating Research Handbook analyses the role that emotions play and ought to play in legal reasoning and practice, rejecting the simplistic distinction between reason and emotion.

American family law makes two key assumptions: first, that the civil state possesses sole authority over marriage and divorce; and second, that the civil law may contain only one regulatory regime for such matters. These assumptions run counter to the multicultural and religiously plural nature of our society. This book elaborates how those assumptions are descriptively incorrect, and it begins an important conversation about whether more pluralism in family law is normatively desirable. For example, may couples rely upon religious tribunals (Jewish, Muslim, or otherwise) to decide family law disputes? May couples opt into stricter divorce rules, either through premarital contracts or 'covenant marriages'? How should the state respond? Intentionally interdisciplinary and international in scope, this volume contains contributions from fourteen leading scholars. The authors address the provocative question of whether the state must consider sharing its jurisdictional authority with other groups in family law.