COLLABORATIVE LAW ARTICLE PICKED AS BEST IN STATE
April 6, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: April 6, 2005
CONTACT: Cory Chandler, cory.chandler@ttu.edu
LUBBOCK – The Texas Bar Foundation selected Larry Spain, a professor in Texas Tech’s
School of Law, to receive the Outstanding Law Review Article Award for 2005.
The foundation presents the award for the most outstanding article published in a
Texas law review in the previous year.
Spain’s article probes the ethical implications of collaborative law, a relatively
new form of legal practice in which the parties retain lawyers with a commitment to
resolve disputes without resorting to litigation. Couples sign a contract to negotiate
outside of court and reach agreement in a collaborative environment with the lawyers
acting as problem-solvers rather than using an adversarial approach. If the parties
do not reach a settlement, their lawyers must withdraw from the case and the parties
must then retain new lawyers to represent them in any subsequent litigation.
The article, “Collaborative Law: A Critical Reflection on Whether a Collaborative
Orientation Can Be Ethically Incorporated into the Practice of Law,” discusses the
impact collaborative law could have on the traditional model of client advocacy and
issues related to informed consent of parties that retain a collaborative lawyer.
It was published in the Baylor Law Review.
Spain said he wrote the article because this new form of practice has been legislatively
recognized in Texas without a great deal of research and public debate.
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CONTACT: Larry Spain, professor in the School of Law, Texas Tech University, (806)
742-3787, or lspain@law.ttu.edu.