Law Commons^™

The Immorality Of Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article is the first of a two-part series critically examining the role of lawyers in assisting clients in denying responsibility for harms they have caused. If a person injures another, the moral response is for the injurer actively to take responsibility for what he has done. In contrast, the common practice within our legal culture is for injurers to deny responsibility for harms they commit. The immoral, in other words, has become the legally normal. In this Article, Professor Cohen analyzes the moral foundations of responsibility-taking. He also explores the moral, psychological, and spiritual risks to injurers who knowingly …

To Sue Is Human; To Settle Divine: Intercultural Collaborations To Expand The Use Of Mediation In Costa Rica, Donald C. Peters

UF Law Faculty Publications

Virtually all societies have developed non-adjudicative methods to resolve disputes. Third party intervention to help resolve disputes consensually, typically called mediation or conciliation, occurs in all cultures throughout the world. It now occurs in Costa Rica only voluntarily and primarily in family, community, labor, agricultural, and trade contexts.

Connecting mediation or conciliation to court systems provides a comparatively new use of third party interventions not involving adjudication through arbitration or litigation. This typically occurs by referring matters for mediation services provided by state-funded programs, private centers, and private mediators. Florida, the first American state to authorize courts to order mediation …

The Culture Of Legal Denial, Jonathan R. Cohen

UF Law Faculty Publications

The goals of this essay are twofold. The first is to examine critically the practice of lawyers assisting clients in denying harms they commit and suggest some ways of changing that practice. Lawyers commonly presume that their clients' interests are best served by denial. Yet such a presumption is not warranted. Given the moral, psychological, relational, and sometimes even economic risks of denial to the injurer, lawyers should consider discussing responsibility taking more often with clients. The second is to explore several structural or systemic factors that may reinforce the practice of denial seen day in and day out within …