In an industry as shrouded in mystery and misinformation as the legal industry, most anything out of the ordinary is met with a fair amount of skepticism. The public is confused enough when trying to define a “lawyer” versus “attorney” or “esquire.” When I introduce the concept of “holistic lawyer” to people, usually it is the first time they have come across the term, and usually they have little idea of what I mean.
What is a holistic lawyer? A Google search for the definition of “holistic” produces the following:
characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole.
When applying this definition, a “holistic lawyer” is an attorney who believes that a particular situation or “legal problem” cannot be adequately understood and addressed in the absence of a thorough understanding of the individual and the component parts of his or her life that may have contributed to current difficulties, or that may be affected by the ways in which the particular situation is addressed moving forward.
The holistic approach to legal situations, which strives to consider the broad universe of a client’s life, is fundamentally different from the traditional approach to law practice. The traditional approach primarily seeks to identify objective facts that may give rise to a proscribed cause of action or a defense to a claim being asserted against the individual. The attorney’s focus on these objective facts most often excludes more subjective experiential realities of a client’s life.
Because of the narrow focus of traditional law practice, solutions stemming from this orientation usually come up short in improving a client’s life in truly meaningful, long-lasting ways. Though this approach may result in some monetary compensation, fleeting sense of vindication, etc., it is rare that such an approach produces long-term, lasting improvement in a client’s life situation. By overlooking or ignoring the more broad context of the client’s life, the same dynamics that may have conspired to bring about his or her legal difficulties are likely to resurface in the future and produce similar recurring difficulties.
To learn more about holistic law practice, contact Holistic Lawyer Michael Lubofsky at (415) 508-6263, or visit http://www.Holistic-Lawyer.com.