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violence and adversarial vs. collaborative law

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  • violence and adversarial vs. collaborative law

    I have read a few articles on 'adversarial lawyers' and it seems its no secret 'adversarial' lawyers can really mess a family up, what about when its used in cases of domestic violence ?

    If its known to be destructive why do Judges allow 'adversarial' lawyers to go unchecked in their court room ?


    In my case my X had 2 adversarial lawyers from the same firm, by 'adversarial' i am referring to events like :

    a) submitting a psychologist report about their client but leaving off last page (the recommendations).

    b) out right lied to Judge successfully inflicting more financial burden on me.

    c) making personal negative comments towards me just outside Judge's hearing range.

    This are events lawyers control not their client - and not talking about lawyers responding in an agressive manner - talking about right out of the gate "day#1" this was their approach, effectively making sure negotiations and/or cooperation were contineously out of reach

    Why would they do this in todays 'give peace a chance' court system ?

    On item 'b)' it was a lie on court record before previous Madam Justice and the current Madam Justice just moved on, so the adversarial behavior continued.


    For over 3+ years I could get no protection from my X whom threatened me with feeling pain and just days before the end of my case was sending me materials like the picture of a tombstone;


    Was an 'adversarial' approach a good position for my 'X' in a situation where she was the perpretator of domestic violence ?


    A little background - my X beat our children severely, I mean bleeding from the mouth - knocking them to the floor and stepping on their necks for as little as spilling some popcorn watching a kids TV movie, I was attacked also such as blows to the upper body in front of my daughter and being knocked to the floor while sleeping in our bed, I was even told how to walk across the floor.


    The 'adversarial' approach was 110% effective in the situation of extreme domestic violence - it was thee 'perfect' position for my X especially with the court unwilling to intervene or acknowledge the behaviour.


    The 'collaborative' approach of my lawyers (from different firms not just 1 lawyers behaviour ) i sometimes refer to as 'laying down', if they truely wanted cooperation and any type of family plan or for 1 parent to be able to sit along side the other is it unreasable to ask they first had to curb the violence and threats against the other parent ?;

    I believe lawyers are have no practicle training in domestic violence ... and just throw it over the fence to therapists while in fact Judges are making the decisions;

    The mother moved out of the city, the Judge never knew I was getting pictures of tombstone just days before giving the mother custody of all 3 children , among other things the Judge never even knew I wanted parallel parenting ...


    I am in Calgary Alberta Canada, the last stronghold of what I see as a 'mothers only' legal system.

  • #2
    I don't really know why some lawyers take this kind of approach in every situation. They learn from one another. It's kind of the way they're "brought up." I guess it depends on what kind of lawyers they're influenced by when they're young, impressionable articling students. Some lawyers just like the power trip of pushing people around. They define success as being a pitbull I guess.

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    • #3
      many professional deciplines use models
      developed over decades, by models I refer to a
      standard set of processes to solve
      or control certain situations, these models
      may sometimes be refered to as 'best practises'
      or similar names.

      i believe the 'advisarial' approach described
      above is not a lawyer with a complex but a lawyer
      executing a known "model" thats effective in
      'domestic violence' cases ...

      and I am pretty sure seasoned lawyers and Judges
      know and recognize it in the court room ...

      think of it like this, a 'collabritive' approach
      by a lawyer trying to change an access order in
      favor of a violent offender isnt likely to happen
      at least to the extent of changing the custodial
      parent.

      however, a 'advisarial' approach is very different,
      if you've been beat'n yourself and now you X is
      coming after you outside the court room while their
      lawyer is going after you inside the court room
      then I think many of us simply come unraveled ...

      in some court rooms I doubt the above would be
      tolerated, but here in Alberta i seen it first hand
      Last edited by pokeman; 01-11-2012, 11:04 PM. Reason: spelling

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      • #4
        I am shocked that you gave the mother custody in light of the abuse you witnessed and endured. Strategy aside, as a parent are you not compelled to engage your own pitbulls and fight for your kids?

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        • #5
          you can believe it

          custody was decided in Madam Justices chambers 9mths before I gave up, they locked me out of chambers I was the only one who didn't know the plan

          advisarial lawyers are not the only evil walking the halls of (mis)justice, am in front of human rights comm now dealing with one of the others.

          Comment

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