J. Kim Wright: Collaborator
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It started out as a two-month road trip. Now, more than a year and a half later, Asheville, N.C., attorney J. Kim Wright is finally resting (temporarily) from crisscrossing the country and producing hundreds of video clips while she chronicles the collaborative law and restorative justice movements in the United States.
Wright, 51, is the creator of Cutting Edge Law, a documentary website that features video interview segments, blog entries, podcasts and articles from legal professionals committed to a holistic approach to the practice of law.
“It’s an evolution of the legal profession so that lawyers are peacemakers, problem-solvers and healers of conflict,” explains Wright, a family-law solo practitioner.
The arguments, analyses and precedents of the adversarial legal system civilized the jousts and duels of earlier times. Now, Wright says, is the moment for lawyers to enter the next stage of legal problem-solving.
“The adversarial system is about polarizing people,” she says. “There’s been a lot of work done psychologically and socially showing that the adversarial system isn’t healthy for anybody.”
Wright doesn’t think lawyers should completely abandon the current system: “I’m glad Rosa Parks wasn’t collaborating,” she jokes—but more than 110 judges, law professors and practicing lawyers are featured on the website to discuss collaborative paradigms of law practice and problem-solving innovation in the courts.
“This [collaborative] movement is expressed in a lot of different ways depending on what area of law it’s being applied to,” Wright says.
For Wright, traditional legal practice appeared to be a miserable existence, one she put off for nearly three years after graduating from law school. “I decided I didn’t want to be one of those jerks who was doing the adversarial thing,” Wright says. “Not only was I not a lawyer, I was adamantly not a lawyer.”
Wright performed a variety of nonlegal jobs for the next couple years, including operating a domestic violence program and recruiting volunteers for the American Heart Association. While in Atlanta for a program, she met the late Forrest Bayard, who described a different way of practicing family law. The Chicago-based lawyer told her that his divorce clients were friendly at the end of proceedings, and that he practiced law with dignity.
“It was like what you see on TV,” Wright laughs. “The sky opens, birds fly and butterflies appear. I thought, ‘I could do that.’ ”
Wright immediately took the bar and hung out her shingle. She soon realized, however, that while she could control her relationship with her client, the system wasn’t designed to work that way with the other side.
“I did my first custody case: I won and my client was miserable,” Wright says. “I said, ‘There’s got to be something better than this. I did everything they taught me in law school. I won, but she’s miserable.’ ”
When another client who’d won custody told Wright she’d rather give up her children than endure another court battle, Wright reached out to Bayard and began to research other lawyers, including collaborative law pioneer Stuart Webb of Minneapolis, who had successfully incorporated these models into their practice.
As she continued her practice and research, Wright discovered even more alternatives, including ways to transform juvenile justice into a more balanced and restorative justice system. (In addition to raising her own two children, Wright was mother to 14 other kids—stepchildren, foster children and runaways—from 1977 to 2003.)
One year after attending an International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers conference in 1999, Wright launched her first website, Renaissance Lawyer, to serve as a placeholder for a 400-page online book she had written on transforming the practice of law.
“I was so painfully shy that I didn’t want anybody to look at it,” Wright says. “But it actually went off like a rocket. A lot of people started calling me, and the site had 100,000 unique visitors each for the first couple of years.” She held a Renaissance Lawyer teleconference in January 2001 that led to formation of an organization under the same name later that year.
The rapid growth of the Web finally caught up to Wright’s ambitions. In 2008 she taught herself Drupal, an open-source content management system, and in March of this year she launched the online platform described on one page as “Cutting Edge Law: A movement. A magazine. A community. A documentary.”
And she did this while on the road. Inspired by the stories of lawyers she’d met at a 2007 restorative justice conference, Wright began to capture her interviews on film.
“I knew we were reaching a tipping point,” Wright says of the growth and support she witnessed at different alternative-practice conferences that year, “and I was ready to do something different.”
Wright closed her law office in early 2008 and, together with freelance videographer and photographer Michael Matthews, traveled to the IAHL conference in Florida as a trial filmmaking run. Matthews edited the hourlong interviews into 10-minute segments, and Wright posted them to the Web.
As the duo collected more and more footage, they quickly realized the interviews not only honored people changing the legal profession but also provided valuable insight and role models for other attorneys.
“Each couple of weeks, we would say: ‘Let’s go to the next place,’ ” Wright says of the project, which has taken them to 27 states from Texas to Wisconsin and on both coasts. “There was never a plan; it evolved as we went along.”
Today, Matthews is in New Mexico steadfastly editing clips for the website, which receives 20,000 to 30,000 unique visitors each month, and compiling tape for several planned documentaries as well as 3-minute mini-versions of each interview.
Wright is back in North Carolina as she completes a new book for ABA Publishing on lawyers as peacemakers. Then she will be off to Key West, Fla., to prepare the next stage of her business plan, which includes harnessing the estimated $1 million worth of content she and Matthews have created.
“My life’s work is about transforming how law is practiced in any way I can,” she says. “Lawyers need to know that they are not alone, that there is a movement in the law that is healthier for them and society—and they can participate in it.”
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J. Kim Wright writes that the time for transformation of the legal profession is now.
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Posted by Donna Murray - 4 months, 1 week, 1 day, 5 hours, 36 minutes ago
This is fantastic. The legal field has become too cut throat and the clients suffer because of it.
Posted by Joe Hampton - 4 months, 1 week, 1 day, 5 hours, 19 minutes ago
Thanks Kim for your unstoppable mission of transforming the legal system. You provide many others the evidence ofthe possibility to make a difference in other areas of life.
Joe Hampton
Posted by Gay G. Cox - 4 months, 1 week, 1 day, 2 hours, 42 minutes ago
Kim, what you are doing is heroic and transformative. My son’s practice of law will be in a better legal world than my practice has been because of your efforts. The next generation will look back on the gamesmanship of the adversarial system with the horror we do when we contemplate dueling and jousting. Psychic injuries resulting from litigation are often just as wounding. You are documenting the transition to a more peaceful way of resolving differences.
Posted by Betty Daugherty - 4 months, 1 week, 1 day, 37 minutes ago
Congratulations Kim! I am glad you are being recognized as well as your work. You have been at it a while. I appreciate your tenacity. Betty Daugherty
Posted by Linda MacDonald Glenn - 4 months, 1 week, 21 hours, 15 minutes ago
Congratulations, Kim! I was a trial attorney for 20 years, and shut down my practice to go back to school and get a degree in Biomedical Ethics. I’m much better off, in terms of health and peace of mind and I commend you for your efforts to restore and improve the legal profession and the legal system! And Kudos to the ABA for recognizing the trend and for recognizing you as a leader in the field!
Posted by B. McLeod - 4 months, 1 week, 20 hours, 55 minutes ago
Contrary to the beliefs and practices of some, the “adversarial” system does not require that the opposing attorneys litigate every single discovery issue and collateral point simply because it is possible. Even within the “adversarial” context of ordinary litigation, the focus should be on narrowing the case to the issues that actually need to be in dispute. To the extent procedural agreements and even substantive stipulations can be reached without either party having to sacrifice any of the substance of its case, it makes sense for the attorneys to cooperate in that regard. Focusing on what really needs to be litigated will save time and money for everyone in the dispute.
Posted by Ken - 4 months, 1 week, 16 hours, 57 minutes ago
Its good that you get the recognition you deserve for the hard work you are doing. I have always been a believer in your ability to assist the field of law move to the collaborative approach. Keep it up!
Posted by Douglas Chermak - 4 months, 1 week, 12 hours, 17 minutes ago
Yay Kim! Very glad to see you on this list. I hope everyone who sees that has a chance to visit Cutting Edge Law.
Posted by Scott Rogers - 4 months, 1 week, 8 hours, 56 minutes ago
Kim:
Your good work, insightful mind, and perseverance are an inspiration!
Posted by Barbara A.B. Cain - 4 months, 1 week, 8 hours, 37 minutes ago
Excellent! I am very proud of you, and happy for you that you are receiving the recognition you so rightly deserve, and for transforming your dream into a reality that serves humankind!!!
Posted by Paula Young - 4 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 25 minutes ago
Come visit our law school, the Appalachian School of Law, located in Grundy, VA. Only law school founded with a focus on ADR. We also offer a Lawyer as Problem-Solver certifiacte program.
Posted by Debra L Bruce - 4 months, 6 days, 2 hours, 28 minutes ago
I was wondering why you weren’t in the first batch of ABA Legal Rebels announced! Your tireless work in promoting a revolutionary “kinder gentler” way to resolve legal disputes provides hope to both lawyers and clients. You have been instrumental in helping little islands of change to connect with each other.
And yet there is still much work left to do. I frequently receive requests for family lawyer referrals. 98% of those clients have never heard of Collaborative Law. 90% of them choose to go that once they learn about it. So thank you, Kim, and please keep up the good work!
Posted by Bob Krafka - 4 months, 6 days, 22 minutes ago
Any good lawyer soon realizes that the way to practice law is to treat others with dignity and to try to resolve disputes inexpensively. I have observed over 38 years of practicing law that it is determined by the young lawyer’s personality as to how long it takes to understand the practice of law. Trying to settle lawsuits in a manner that is suitable to all parties by compromise is nothing that was invented in the last few years by the holyistic legal movement. Unfortunately, the practice of law is taught by acedemics by the casebook method stressing appealate work. Law students need to spend time with lawyers after a year or two in law school. The real world is a lot different than law school. There is a reason why 95 % of all cases are settled without trial. A student will not learn the human side of the law practice in law school. There is absolutely nothing new about trying to resolve conflict outside of the courtroom.
Posted by Arie Freiberg - 4 months, 5 days, 23 hours, 46 minutes ago
For those interested in holistic law, collaborative law and non-adversarial justice generally, as well as visiting Australia, the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration and the Faculty of Law at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia are holding a conference entitled ‘Non-Adversarial Justice: Implications for the Legal System and Society’ on the 4-7 May 2010. More details can be found at http://www.aija.org.au/index.php
Posted by Aida H. - 4 months, 4 days, 19 hours, 57 minutes ago
Kim, what a wonderful article! I am so glad to have made contact with you in Minneapolis, and I look forward supporting you and working with you in the future. Thanks for all you are doing.
Posted by Linda Warren Seely - 4 months, 4 days, 8 hours, 49 minutes ago
Writer Bob Krafka is correct. Working to settle a case is really the job of the lawyer and litigating every little issue does nothing to help the litigant. What is new, what is different, is the commitment at the beginning to avoid destructive litigation. I also agree that the law school curricula that focuses on appellate work is ridiculous. Not a single client has ever worried about some brief I wrote, but they sure do care about saving money and resolving conflict.
Thanks and Congratulations to Kim for her great work and I hope she comes back to Tennessee ASAP!
Linda Warren Seely
Posted by Dan Simon - 4 months, 2 days, 41 minutes ago
You go, Kim!
Posted by Dolly M. Garlo - 2 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 23 hours, 56 minutes ago
Yea Kim! I am proud to know this perspective, this movement within the law, is gaining steam. And I am happy to be a part of it, in my own way, having left the active practice of law due to my dissatisfaction with an emphasis on the adversarial approach - particularly as inequitably employed as it can be. I salute you for shining light on the creative, developmental and positive ways in which lawyers can be of service! What a great compilation of wisdom for new lawyers entering the profession especially - as well as some reinforcement for those of us who have already invested ourselves in being part of the law.