Introduction to Integrative Law
https://youtu.be/odKcUrK2ajo This was a presentation sponsored by Law Essentials, a group of law students and mentors in India.
Conscious Contracts(R) in Portuguese (Parallel Translation)
Kim as the guest of Simon Tupman
Upcoming Online training
As most of you now know, I have had to cancel my travels for the foreseeable future. To replace the missed trainings, I am developing online versions, the first of which is starting on March 28. This is the flyer: http://jkimwright.com/wp-content/uploads/Conscious-Contracts.pdf And for more information, see this: http://jkimwright.com/wp-content/uploads/More-details-about-the-Conscious-Contracts.pdf
Reinventing Contracts
This was originally published in the June edition of Law Practice Today. What and who are contracts for? Recently I conducted a very unscientific survey on social media, asking non-lawyers about what a contract is for and asking for comments about their experiences with contracts. For most people, a contract is a long, written document with a lot of information no one understands. They’re afraid to sign them because they don’t understand them. They do want something that spells out an agreement, something to help everyone remember what they agreed to, and they want to be able to count on each other to perform. Almost all of them talked about contracts as a way of preventing conflict and especially not wanting to ever go to court. They want their contracts to be understandable. They want to be able to look back and remember what they were trying to accomplish in the first place. Because I am known for my work in contracts, I often get queries from the web. This query is a good example: “We know many attorneys but none that are able or willing to write fair, balanced contracts that spend more time on making sure the agreement is easily understandable and has a comprehensive conflict resolution process that avoids litigation.” – A common statistic thrown around the legal community and internet is that 90% of people don’t read a contract before they sign it. For example, do you read your car rental agreement? And who actually reads Terms and Conditions before checking the box? A couple of years ago, a story made the rounds about how 22,000 users had clicked the box and agreed to clean toilets and pick up animal waste in exchange for wifi service. Most users had just clicked without reading. When someone actually did read the T&C, he discovered a reward and the unusual terms. The company blog post explains more. After almost 30 years of being a lawyer, teaching business law, and training lawyers in contracts, I have seen many long, complex contracts that make no sense to me. I’ve seen contradictory clauses and fragments clearly left from prior uses of a template. Once, I offered a contract drafting class with some clever clauses involving Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I was pretty shocked when a potential client brought in a contract for me to review and some silly Mickey and Minnie language was in their contract. A lawyer once told me that it was his job to make sure that his contracts were hard to understand. “That way, I can argue for whatever my client wants when the deal falls apart,” he told me. I pity the parties who have to live with his contracts after they sign them. But we are stuck with that, aren’t we? The best we can do is try to avoid the worst mistakes, right? As lawyers, we have been taught to see contracts as documents that a judge will interpret when things fall apart. Contracts have to be complex and complicated, don’t they? Not so fast. Proactive and Preventive Law A worldwide movement is focused on the user experience of contracts, seeking to make contracts relevant, readable, and even focused on the well-being of all the parties. Proponents of Proactive Law point out that contracts are meant for people, not judges. One of the champions of the movement is Finnish legal consultant, lawyer, and contract innovator, Helena Haapio. Inspired by the Preventive Law movement of Louis Brown, Haapio has written, spoken, and practiced extensively on the topic. “Both preventive law and proactive law emphasize the lawyer’s role as a planner helping clients to achieve their objectives. In the practice of preventive law – as well as in the literature dealing with it – risk management and dispute avoidance often come to the fore. While these elements are important, the supporters of proactive law do not want to be associated solely with a message toward problem prevention, dispute avoidance, or risk management. To use the medical analogy, the idea is not only to prevent ill-health but to promote wellbeing. The goal is to embed legal knowledge and skills in clients’ strategy and everyday actions to actively promote business success, ensure desired outcomes, and balance risk with reward.” Helena Haapio, Introduction to Proactive Law: A Business Lawyer’s View, Scandinavian Law So how can lawyers shift from the perspective that contracts are for future litigation to living documents that support the ventures our clients are undertaking? There are several legal trends that are shifting the traditional, stodgy approach to contract drafting and negotiation. Plain Language Why do so many contracts still use archaic, repetitive language, and include legal jargon? When I was in law school over 30 years ago, Plain Language drafting was already seen as the professional standard. There are national and international standards, organizations, books, and experts about plain language. Cheryl Stephens is one of the pioneers of Plain Language movement. I asked her to comment. “Contracts are supposed to document a meeting of the minds, which is impossible when at least one party doesn’t even understand it. And I have met many lawyers who don’t even know the effects of the material they put in contracts. Plain language revision is a first step: not only to make the meaning clear, but also to expose the logical disconnects, gaping holes, and other deficiencies in the material. Unfortunately, few lawyers want to take the time to ensure that a contract is understandable. And I think fear of change is their downfall.” Values-Based and Conscious Contracts® Values-based Contracts, also known as Collaborative Contracts, Conscious Contracts® and Integrative Contracts, are a hot topic. Of more than a dozen topics I teach, I am asked for this topic more than any other and have taught it to law societies, corporate lawyers, big city, small town, and rural lawyers on five continents, so far. Many clients find the approach to be more attractive than the usual adversarial process. They are
Comic Contracts: A Picture is Worth 1000 Words
This was originally published at Enlivening Edge. “Contract.” What images are conjured for you by the word? For most people, a contract is a long written document with a lot of information no one understands. At least that was true for me in my early years as a lawyer and for most of my life as a consumer. A common statistic thrown around the legal community and internet is that 90% of people don’t read a contract before they sign it. As evidence of the truth of that, a few months ago a story made the rounds about 22,000 users who had agreed to clean toilets and pick up animal waste in exchange for Wi-Fi service, by accepting the provider’s Terms and Conditions. The Wi-Fi company’s blog post explains more. Even after almost 30 years of being a lawyer, I still see long complex contracts that make no sense to me. I pity the parties who have to live with the results of signing them. My mother recently asked my help with a complex contract she had been asked to sign. It is a long-term, contract, over 40 years. My mother is 78 so I suspect my children will end up being the ones left to deal with the contract’s terms and I had an interest in getting it right. My mother’s broker and I agreed it was the worst contract we’d ever seen. The headings had no relationship to the subjects in the paragraphs and I could as easily argue that the contract said “x” as that it said “not x” in the same paragraph, with y plus x occurring on a different page. I once talked to a lawyer who was proud of his ability to obscure his real intentions so that he could argue either side in case of future conflict. I imagine he would be very proud of this contract. But we are stuck with that, aren’t we? Contracts have to be complex and complicated, don’t they? Not so fast. In December, I attended a conference on Comic Book and Creative Contracts at Western Australia University in Perth. I was there to speak about the Integrative Law Movement and conscious approaches to contracts. (I have written about them in previous EE Magazine columns.) LINK At the conference, I was able to test-drive a project I’ve been co-creating with Basque design thinker, artist, and peace activist, Alex Carrascosa. Alex and I have taken the lessons of creative approaches to contracts and our project is evolving toward a board game for co-creating the agreements that are memorialized in a contract. Believe it or not, our game shows that negotiating a contract can be fun and that everyone can play and understand it. In a two-hour workshop, I was able to teach the game and the conference participants were able to generate an agreement We are now experimenting with using the game as a tool for teal (and tealish) start-ups. (Link to another article about this.) Also at the conference were many pioneers and creative problem-solvers, including South African commercial attorney Rob de Rooy. Rob created a model which he calls “Comic Contracts” as “a way for illiterate people to independently understand contracts, use that understanding to guide their behavior, and improve the relationships between contracting parties.” (See http://lawyersaschangemakers.com/rob-de-rooy-comic-contracts/ for more about Rob and his work.) In 2016, Rob’s Comic Contracts won the prestigious innovation award given by the International Association of Contract and Commercial Management (IACCM.) In 2017, Comic Contracts were featured in Fortune Magazine. Comic Contracts are generically called visual contracts, or sometimes comic book contracts. I first learned about the use of visuals in contracts from Colorado lawyer, artist, and consultant, Susanne van der Meer. Susanne began offering visuals as part of contracts in the Netherlands more than fifteen years ago. Visual contracts are also connected to the work of preventative and proactive law approaches which were initiated by the late Professor Louis Brown and carried on by Professors Tom Barton (USA) and Helena Haapio (Finland), both of whom were at the conference. I have known Rob for many years and have followed his work. I often talk about him and his Comic Contracts in my presentations. Most people find it amazing, which it is. But even I was wide-eyed at another conference presentation. John Maguire, formerly Chief Innovation Officer, now CEO, of Aurecon, was our speaker. Aurecon is an engineering firm employing over 7000 engineers, mostly in South Africa, Australia, and the Middle East. They work on big projects like major hospitals. John is interested in design innovation and sustainability. Working with conference host, Professor Camilla Baasch Andersen, Aurecon has converted their employment contract into a comic book format. John shared about the process of converting the long, dry, fine print into a series of comics that were clear, handled the issues, and engaged the readers. Visual contracts require a level of clarity and precision not required in long text-based contracts. As they took the long and cumbersome contract apart, they became more and more aware of terms that did not fit their values or culture. They had to reverse-engineer the complex lawyer-focused agreement to get back to their true intentions and needs they wanted to address in the contract. What were they really wanting to accomplish? How would their contract reflect their workplace culture and values? If a picture is worth a thousand words, as is often said, then what were the important words that needed to be in the contract and what were the images that could replace those words? The decisions for the comic book contract were different from and more nuanced than the text-based ones. For example, as they honed the contract to its essential elements, they needed to figure out how to depict the employees. Would they use actual photographs? How would they honor diversity and differences among the people of the many countries where they work? They decided to use robotic snowman-type images (expressive non-humans such as
Designing Contracts in a New Paradigm
A version of this article was previously posted on LinkedIn. It has been updated and edited for this site. For several years, my most popular course has been the Conscious Contracts Masterclass. It takes the new thinking of business – conscious business, values approaches – and incorporates ideas social technology from spiral dynamics, Reinventing Organizations, and several other disciplines. It is part of a multidisciplinary, holistic approach known as integrative law which parallels approaches developing in companies. The specific contract portions draw from my work, from Discovering Agreement by Linda Alvarez, The Book of Agreement by Stewart Levine, and The Blueprint of We collaboration document. In 2016, I began to work with an innovative group in Spain. They were combining design thinking with collaborative practice. We began to explore the idea of using design thinking with my contracts training. We met in person earlier this year to test some of our ideas and have continued to work together via internet. I arrived a week early to work on translations of materials and finalizing the collaboration with the design thinking leader. Alex Carrascosa, the artist and designer, created a structure for conversations that will lead to an agreement. It looks like a board game. Our event was opened by two local high ranking public administrators from the Basque government. Among the 60+ participants were: lawyers from as far away as Madrid, Big Law lawyers, SMEs, and solos, entrepreneurs in start-ups and consulting, president of legal foundation, health practitioners, tax and business lawyers, a Public Notary, family lawyers and leaders more than one Collaborative Practice Association, and many public administrators. The first day of the training began with an overview of Paradigm Shifts. Using images to help illustrate how we often have to look at things from a different angle to see what is later obvious, we began to practice what it was like to leave our first impressions and try something new. From Doughnut Economics to New Media, Conscious Capitalism to Patient-Centered and Integrative Medicine, Technology to Education, I introduced innovations in many disciplines. Most were probably new to participants and lay the foundation for what was to come. Having reviewed the paradigm shifts happening across disciplines on the global scale, I began to focus on the evolution of the legal profession. Most conversations about innovation in law are about technology. As an early adopter of most technology (I built my first website in the 1990s), I love a new tool as much as anyone. However, our focus was to be on the advances in human technology, how we will build relationships and work together on behalf of a better world for everyone. With a fast-paced slide presentation, each slide was a full workshop shown in a few seconds. I introduced restorative justice, collaborative practice, therapeutic jurisprudence, earth jurisprudence, values-based estate planning, and many others. We explored what new skills were needed for these new approaches and the values they share. Then, we got more specific to contracts. I introduced the 12 distinguishing characteristics of the Conscious Contracts process and document. The twelve characteristics are adapted from this article. For fun, I used images of a dozen doughnuts. We later had a snack of colorful doughnuts (not an easy find in Spain!) It was a multi-sensory experience! Over the years I have learned that the characteristics of the contracts cannot stand alone. The context of the change and the shifting values lay a foundation of understanding. Otherwise, people see them as a checklist and not the full shift that is required. In the afternoon of Day 1, we practiced some of the skills of the contract formation process. Participants began with identifying their own values. We then shared those values with the whole group and organized ourselves into small groups of like-valued people. As we began to go deeper in the exploration, one lawyer exclaimed, “I’ve found my people!” In groups with those who shared their values, participants designed an office space and procedures to align with those values. It was good practice for working together on a common values-based task. Then, we designed a process for Addressing Change and Engaging Disagreement (the “ACED”) which could be activated as an early intervention, thereby preventing more serious conflicts. The ACED provides a framework for staying conscious in times of stress and challenge. Just as each company is different, each ACED is different, tailored to the company. In Spain, all meetings begin or end with food. At the end of the first day, die-hards took a break after the workshop and went to dinner a few hours later. My housemate returned home after midnight…or so I think. I was in bed long before she arrived. On the second day, we began with an introduction to Design Thinking, then we used our design tool to go step-by-step, little-by-little, toward an agreement. Since I had led the first day’s program, I sat with participants while Alex led the second day. I was pleased to actually use the tool and evaluate it from a different perspective. My group acknowledged that we had an advantage on the other groups. I had co-designed the tool and knew its secrets. Most contracts begin with a set idea and the process is tied to making that idea happen. We wanted to illustrate the power of exploring and bringing to light ideas that might not have been discovered in a more directed process. We began with our values from Day 1 as we set out to discover what we would be and could be doing together. We practiced listening to each other, more deeply exploring our values. As we listened, we were invited to draw or write down impressions and resonant themes. With four in the group, we had several rounds of storytelling with each round getting clearer and deeper. We ended up with quite a large stack of notes on small slips of paper. Our next step was to identify common values among the group. After the deep listening,
Reflections on Being a Philanthropist
2018 is a milestone year for me. It is the ten year anniversary of being a ‘legal nomad’ travelling in service of systemic change in the legal profession. It’s also my 60th birthday. Both of these milestones are cause for reflection and asking ‘What’s next?’ Reflecting… Ten years ago I gave up my house and my law practice so that I could go where I was needed to help bring about the change I wished to see in the legal profession and the world. My permanent address became a mailbox. My hopes, in the beginning, were that the Cutting Edge Law website would help me to find, connect, and support those who were bringing about a more conscious legal system. I was ahead of my time. Lawyers had not yet adopted the technological skills or interest to participate in most of the features of the site. I had hoped that it would be a more lucrative journey. I soon discovered that being on the cutting edge, ahead of the crowd, I was more like a Johnny Appleseed, planting seeds. Over time, with some care and attention, the seeds I planted took root and began to flourish. As a community grew, others stepped up. It’s the way trailblazing seems to go: after the new ideas are embraced by early adopters, a market begins to develop and many more providers come in to fill the needs. The reward for the trailblazers is in seeing their ideas taking hold and the changes begin to reach the mainstream. Immensely fulfilling? Yes. Financially lucrative? No. I recently came across this meaning of philanthropy: altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement, usually manifested by donations of money, property, or work to needy persons, by endowment of institutions of learning and hospitals, & by generosity to other socially useful purposes.’ I also reflected on a term from my early days in economics: opportunity cost. I realized that I have been a full-time philanthropist for ten years. More reflecting… How much is ten years of me worth? A long time before I gave up my house, I was spending a lot of time on extracurricular activities. In my early years of law practice, unpaid time was spent with my family and given to pro bono and volunteer work for domestic violence causes, homeless teenagers, inclusivity, mentoring law students, and other social purposes. That significantly impacted my income. I wasn’t a rich lawyer, by any measures. Still, I earned a living, bought a nice house, car, covered all my needs and some of my wants. Robert Half Legal, a consulting firm, suggests that an average lawyer of my experience earns $136,000 to $236,000 a year. Even allowing that earnings are lower for those practicing in a small town, it is easily arguable that ten years of my time could be valued at a million dollars. In addition to foregoing income from law practice, I have taken the income I’ve earned from coaching and training and reinvested virtually all of it into activities that are intended for a social purpose. I’ve accumulated some debt along the way. Combined, my gift to this movement may be more like $1.5 million. Meanwhile, I have minimized my life to the point that I own almost nothing. When I left the house behind, I hoped to get a pay out from its sale, but it was not to be as my ex squandered the equity and let it go into foreclosure. The car came to a more natural end when someone ran a red light and totalled it. This ‘traveling-light-lack-of-possessions’ has served the growth of the Integrative Law movement well and is befitting a nomad but it’s not sustainable for my next decade. As the seeds of the legal movement have sprouted, taken root in some places, and are flourishing in others, it is a different time now. Many of my allies are making careers out of these new markets. I’m reflecting on what is next for me and the movement now that it has reached a different level. Stay tuned for what is next!
Kim’s Vision, Mission, and Values
The Day the Canvas Was Wiped Clean
I was in an exciting time of transition and creation of a new life. I was about to start my first job as a lawyer. For weeks, I had been talking to the two partners of a law firm in Hillsborough, North Carolina. We’d met and I had picked out one of their spare offices. We planned to settle the rest of the details on the next day. While unemployed, I was house-sitting. My friend was returning in a few weeks, so I was looking for a house near the law office. I had answered an ad and had filled out the rental application. My friend, Andy, needed a legal residence so he could deduct travel expenses on a long business trip. He had offered to pay half the rent in exchange for handling his mail and storing his belongings. With plans for a new job and not knowing where else to enroll her, I had registered my daughter, Ayni, in the elementary school near the law office. It was to be her third year there; she loved Cameron Park and her teachers. Ayni had spent the summer in Florida with her cousins. She was good company for my elderly grandmother. When my parents brought her back to start school, we met halfway. Tam, my partner of five years, hitched a ride with my parents, to visit family in Florida. Tam traveled light and left everything in storage. We’d started talking about how to arrange the return trip. Wednesday, September 21, 1994: The Canvas is Wiped Clean 8:30 Took Ayni to school. 9:30 Call from law partner: The other partner abandoned the office overnight. The firm has dissolved and along with it, my job. 10:30 Call from landlord: He rented the house to someone else. 11:00 Call from my mother: My grandmother died. The funeral is in Florida on Friday. 11:15 Left voicemail for Tam: I’m leaving for Florida. I can pick you up this weekend. 11:20 Return voicemail from Tam, no ring: I’m never returning. Our relationship is over. 1:00 In shock, reeling, I tell a friend that at least one thing anchors my life: Ayni is at Cameron Park Elementary and I can plan around that. 3:00 Picked up Ayni from school: I’m never going back to that school! I hate that teacher! I want to be home-schooled! 4:00 My friend called to say she and the children were on their way home. My housesitting gig was over. I was jobless, homeless, untethered, alone, shocked, bewildered, and grief-stricken. The canvas of my life was completely clear. I survived, and more. I began to create a whole new life. Homeschooling Ayni set us up for our own cross-country adventures. My friend, Bob, invited me to share a law office with him; we opened February 1. Andy and I started a new relationship. By the end of the year, Andy, Ayni, and I were living together in a blue Victorian three blocks from Cameron Park Elementary. By January semester, Ayni missed her friends and asked to return to school. In May, Andy and I got married on the lawn of our beautiful home. I had a whole new life and was happier than ever. Now, when I think I am having a bad day and things aren’t working out, I look back on that day. It seemed to be the end of the world, a day of crisis. Really it was the beginning, the clearing that allowed the miracles to come.