As you may have already seen, the blawgs have been discussing this recent order by United States District Court Judge Eric Melgren. Judge Melgren issued the order granting a motion for a continuance of a trial scheduled for June 14, 2011, in Kansas, after the defendant, a Dallas attorney, sought the continuance on the grounds that his first-born son was due to be born on July 3, 2011. The judge expresses his dismay at the plaintiff’s attorneys’ decision to oppose the motion:
I hated the silence. In law school classes where the professor relied solely on volunteers, I hated the silence and ended up raising my hand more often than not. I found I was most interested and engaged in class not when there was lecture but when there was some sort of dialogue, and there needs to be more than one voice to dialogue. I didn’t really want to hear my own voice all the time (and I’m certain my classmates didn’t want to hear it all the time, either), but I would offer it if no one else spoke up.
Maybe I’m remembering myself speaking more than I actually did. Or maybe I was an anomaly. A female law student quoted in a recent National Jurist postsaid that “it feels like men do most of the talking during class discussions.” And indeed they might. Data from the 2010 Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) suggest that women do not speak up as much as men in law school classes. The National Jurist reports that according to the LSSSE, which for 2010 surveyed 25,000 law students at 77 law schools, 47% of women students frequently ask questions in class, while 56% of male students do. This, LSSSE notes, is an area “that needs attention.”
Note: This is the third installment in a four-part series of blog posts; you’ll find part one here, part two here, and part three here.
The notion that lawyers are in a unique position to restore peace is far from new. Abraham Lincoln urged lawyers, “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”
As practitioners we are called to tap our creativity and compassion to see beyond, around, and within the limited solutions offered by the law. Peacemaking is more restorative, more involved, and infinitely more work than ending a lawsuit with a dollar figure, or a criminal case with a period of years.
About two years ago, Rachel Monaco-Wilcox took a bold step outside of the traditional estate-planning realm in which she had gained expertise and respect. She had become increasingly frustrated with “the failure to implement appropriate legal solutions because humanness was being shoved into corners.” Underlying relational conflict would be ignored, then it would surface; the legal work would be stymied. She came to a place where she needed, in her words, to find a way to work in the law that was compatible with her gifts, or leave it altogether. Rachel needed to rekindle the passion that led her to law school in the first place.
This kind of self-examination is, incidentally, foundational to peacemaking.