Law Commons^™

First, Do No Harm: The Consequences Of Advising Clients About Litigation Alternatives In Medical Malpractice Cases., Katerina P. Lewinbuk

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

This Article addresses whether a lawyer's possible duty to inform and advise his client of potential alternative dispute resolution (ADR) options actually leads to better results for doctors in medical malpractice cases. This Article first explains different theories supporting a potential duty and then argues that all such theories praising ADR rely on the assumption that "valuable" alternatives to litigation always exist and are available to all litigants. That notion is arguably not always true for a physician defending against malpractice complaints; thus, the duty becomes almost meaningless in such cases. With the adoption of the National Practitioner Data Bank …

Slides: Collaborative Planning And Lessons Learned, Matt Sura

Best Management Practices (BMPs): What? How? And Why? (May 26)

Presenter: Matt Sura, University of Colorado Law School

48 slides

Probing The Legitimacy Of Mandatory Mediation: New Roles For Judges, Mediators, And Lawyers., Tracy Walters Mccormack, Susan Schultz, James Mccormack

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

This Article probes the fundamental assumptions behind the use of mandatory or court-ordered mediation. The authors question the predominant use of standing rules or judicial practices referring cases to mediation. These referrals are inconsistent with the traditional roles of judges and courts, exclude the public from the justice system, and allow repeat players to develop a private justice system with little to no oversight. The Article questions why judges allow and encourage mandatory mediation and calls for all participants to take a more active role in the process. Based on surveys of judges, mediators, and lawyers, the Article exposes troublesome …

The Ethics Of Collaborative Law, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

The practice of Collaborative Law - in which both parties agree that should their case fail to settle, both lawyers will be disqualified from proceeding to court - has grown rapidly in the family bar over the last decade. At the same time, the ethics of this practice have been called into question. Competing ethics opinions in 2007 - from the Colorado Bar Association and the American Bar Association - alternately ban and permit the practice. This Article tries to clarify the underlying ethical issues in Collaborative Law, arguing that much confusion has resulted from imprecise understandings of what the …

A Pragmatic Look At Mediation And Collaborative Law As Alternatives To Family Law Litigation Comment., Elizabeth F. Beyer

St. Mary's Law Journal

Since close to half the country’s marriages end in divorce, marriage dissolution is quite a lucrative business for attorneys. Also, fewer people are entering marriage in the first place. Fewer marriages combined with more children born out of wedlock create multitudinous legal problems and family disputes centering around those children. In addition to initial divorce filings and suits affecting the parent-child relationship, dissolution of marriage cases often creates additional litigation down the road. As a solution to the problems caused by the expense and toil of this litigation, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) offers several options for family disputants. Two popular …

Colorado Ethics Opinion 115: Next Steps For Colorado's Collaborative Lawyers, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

No abstract provided.

Unlicensed To Drill: Proposed Renovations To The Texas Residential Construction Commission Act., Justin M. Jackson

St. Mary's Law Journal

Construction is the largest industry in the United States, and some regard the industry as the engine of the nation’s economy. Only the unavailability of unskilled labor can slow the growth of the construction industry in Texas. As such, Texas has welcomed the construction boom and has enacted statutes to accommodate further industry growth. Texas’ first legislative response came in the form of the Residential Construction Liability Act (RCLA). The RCLA alleviated liability for builders incurred under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA). In 2003, the Texas Legislature continued to legislate in favor of builders by passing the Texas Residential …

Agenda: Water Negotiation Workshop, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

Water Negotiation Workshop (June 4-5)

"Sponsored by: The Natural Resources law Center of the University of Colorado Law School; Funding provided by: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation."

"Facilitators: Lucy Moore and Steve Snyder."

"June 4 and 5, 2003, Community House, Chautauqua Park, Boulder, Colorado."

Contents:

Agenda -- Roster of workshop participants -- Biographies of workshop participants -- Maps of Klamath basin -- Key water-related events in the upper Klamath basin -- Federal-state decisionmaking on water : applying lessons learned / David J. Hayes -- Turbulence in the Klamath River basin / Sharon Levy