Can We Talk? What We Have Learned About How to Have Productive Conflicts About Family Policy and Family Law

• Author: Bernie Mayer
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12322
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018

AFCC 2017 ANNUAL CONFERENCE PLENARY SPEECH

CAN WE TALK? WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED ABOUT HOW TO HAVE

PRODUCTIVE CONFLICTS ABOUT FAMILY POLICY

AND FAMILY LAW

(This article is adapted from a plenary speech to the Association of Family and Conciliation

Courts Annual Conference, Boston, June 2, 2017)

Bernie Mayer

How we handle professional conflicts affects our capacity to help others in conflict. Two AFCC dialogues, one aboutdomestic

violence, the other about shared parenting, illustrate the challenges of taking on professional differences. The former resulted

in considerable consensus. The latter involved a frank exchange of differences but little overall consensus. It was, however, an

important beginning of a critical conversation. Other issues calling out for constructive conflict engagement, include the crisis

in providing access to justice for family litigants who cannot afford legal representation. Professional groups must move

beyond defending their own self interests to addressing this crisis.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts sponsored two dialogues to deal with long-standing professional

conflicts: one on domestic violence and mediation and the other on shared parenting.

The Wingspread Conference on Custody and Domestic violence produced breakthrough agreements.

The Think Tank on Closing the Gap did not produce significant consensus on shared parenting but may have been the

more significant effort.

Other important conflicts remain to be addressed; especially concerning is the crisis in access to justice indicated by

the explosion in the number of people who represent themselves because they cannot afford lawyers.

Professional organizations have too often responded to this crisis by focusing on their professionalself-interests rather

than addressing the broader social crisis.

Keywords: Access to Justice; Constructive Conflict Engagement; Domestic Violence; Mediation; Professional Conflict;

Self- Represented Litigants; and Shared Parenting.

Conflict is our business. It really is, and we have to have the courage to talk about our most pain-

ful issues if we are to do our jobs effectively and ethically. I have been a member of the Association

of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) for almost forty years, and I have been greatly enriched

by the community of practitioners and scholars that it has brought together. But for me, the most

valuable and meaningful part of this affiliation has been the opportunity to participate in efforts that

AFCC has organized to take on important, contentious, and complicated conflicts about family pol-

icy and professional practice. AFCC has provided the community of conflict professionals with a

courageous, although at times flawed, example of how to take a constructive role in addressing the

most conflictual issues that our clients, our communities, and our society face.

On June 1, 2017, the Trump administration announced its intention to pull out of the Paris Treaty

on climate change. The struggle around this issue, which is an existential challenge for our world, and

the difficulty we have had as a societyin engaging in a constructive and meaningful conversation about

it, highlight just how vital it is to find effective ways of engaging in the conflictsthat define our times.

Correspondence: berniemayer@creighton.edu

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 56 No. 1, January 2018 56–63

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C2018 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts