In the last quarter-century, you could say the way we solve legal family disputes has been turned upside. It’s gone from confrontation toward collaboration, from the courtroom to the conference room. What’s expected of family-court judges has changed dramatically, as well as the roles of the lawyers who practice before them.
And it all has enormous impact on the increasingly diverse families – fewer and fewer of them bound in marriage – who come before the courts.
Two Baltimore law professors guide us through this revolution in their new book Divorced from Reality: Rethinking Family Dispute Resolution. Jane Murphy is professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. Jana Singer is professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.