Applying Preventive Law to Family Issues

The media often protray attorneys as fighters. Turn into any episode of Boston Legal, Law and Order, or Shark and you see attorneys going into court each day to "duke" it out. While this role can at times, be absolutely necessary and appropriate, more and more we see clients seeking more creative solutions. It is this desire to provide creative solutions that has been behind the rise in Preventive Law. California Western School of Law in home to the National Center for Preventive Law. The Center prides itself on its dedication to preventing legal risks from becoming legal problems. One should not however assume that practicing preventive law is easy. Predicting (and preventing) future problems requires risk assesment, anticipating obstacles, and assesing goals. It requires far more skill to be proactive rather than reactive. Hawaii Circuit Court Judge Michael A Town describes the application of Preventive Law to the Family Court in his article The Unified Family Court: Preventive, Therapeutic and Restorative Justice for America's Families in which he states: "In thinking about preventive law, analogies from medicine and public health come immediately to mind. While much has been written about preventive medicine, including early screening, detection, and intervention for disease, only recently have judges, lawyers, academicians and the public begun to address preventive law and its philosophical cousins, therapeutic justice and restorative justice. It is my view that by thinking about and sharpening these concepts, then applying them to a unified family court system, we will help save lives, reduce injury, and provide needed services to the many children and families who appear daily in our nation's courts." Read more of his article by clicking on this link.