Legal Docket: Resolving disputes

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Monday, August 15th, 2022. This is The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad you are along with us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

And for that, let’s say good morning to WORLD’s legal reporter Jenny Rough. Hey there!

JENNY ROUGH, REPORTER: Good morning, Mary, Nick!

EICHER: Hey, great job y’all on the first episode for Season 3 of the Legal Docket podcast. That was incredible. Great work!

ROUGH/REICHARD: Well, thank you. It’s an ongoing effort, so I would encourage each listener to subscribe to our Legal Docket podcast feed. We are in the Top 10 and that’s great because the higher the ranking, the more likely it is that new listeners will find out about it.

EICHER: Yes, so please subscribe and I’ll be honest and say it’s a bit of a mystery how the rankings work. Apple doesn’t share that. But it does stand to reason that the more subscribers, the better. The more individuals rating the podcast, the better. The more reviews, the better.

So, as one who gets to edit the scripts, I see how much work Mary and Jenny put into this, and if you appreciate the work they do, please take a moment and leave a rating and review and share with a friend. It’s such an education!

REICHARD: And Nick, I’d say you as editor by this point have an honorary JD!

Well, Jenny, Legal Docket Podcast episode two airs tomorrow—and today, let’s provide a preview: It’s a dispute between an employee and employer about fair wages.

ROUGH: That’s right, although it’s also about resolving legal conflicts without a judge or a jury or even the rules of evidence, using alternative dispute resolution.

REICHARD: So for today, we want to touch on that subject in a more general way.

ROUGH: We do. You know, I think about this every time I pass by a nearby neighborhood store. It’s a shoe and luggage repair shop. The cobbler’s been serving our area for over 30 years. There’s a sign above the check-out counter that says: “If you like my work, please tell others. If you don’t, please tell me.”

I love that sign.

REICHARD: I do too, but so often people do the exact opposite! It’s easier to speak badly about someone to other people than it is to speak directly and honestly to a person we’re unhappy with.

ROUGH: Mmm. That could be one reason why there are so many lawsuits in this country. An inability to reconcile.

REICHARD: One thing’s for sure: duking it out in court doesn’t promote reconciliation. It’s contentious. It’s draining of time, money, and emotions. It creates bitter feelings. That’s not to say our judicial system is wrong or bad.

ROUGH: Oh, no, it’s a great system. And it is a necessary part of a civil society.

PETER ROBINSON: I mean, without a functioning legal system, then might makes right. And we have vendettas.

Peter Robinson is a lawyer and law professor. He says a civil court system keeps us from killing each other in anger. It’s where a person can take a complaint to an institution designed to decide disputes.

ROBINSON: However there’s a big difference between getting an outcome to a lawsuit and reconciliation.

There’s another way to resolve differences.

Robinson specializes in an area of law known as alternative dispute resolution. He steers people away from the courtroom. A different kind of advocate.

ROBINSON: I want to be a lawyer, but I’m not sure I want to be a Rambo, scorched earth kind of human being.

And as a Christian, he incorporates Biblical principles: apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

He says encouraging fellowship—even amid a dispute—is of utmost importance.

ROBINSON: There’s that sense in our Western view of rugged individualism, we think we can have a conflict and nobody else is affected by it. And that’s just rarely the case. Usually, there’s collateral damage.

Robinson began his career over 30 years ago, working for a Christian conciliation ministry in Los Angeles. Many days, he would show up to the courthouse like any other lawyer. Except he wasn’t there to litigate. He would wait for the bailiff to address the parties to the lawsuit.

ROBINSON: The bailiff would say, okay, you guys are going to stand before the judge for a few minutes, and half of you are going to be disappointed. So, if you want to try and work something out, we have a mediator here.

A mediator is sort of like a coach. He helps the disputing parties negotiate. The bailiff gave the parties the opportunity to meet with Robinson as their mediator.

ROBINSON: He'll meet you out in the hallway, and he'll try and help you guys work something out.

Mediators don’t have authority to make a binding legal decision, like a judge or jury. But they do facilitate communication and understanding.

ROBINSON: And we found that people who met with us often came to agreements.

Robinson says a mediator takes a step and back and asks: What’s the nature of the parties’ relationship?

ROBINSON: Sometimes we sue complete strangers. A car accident, right? But often we sue people who played an important part in our life. A business partner, a family member over an estate, our employer.

Robinson also spent a lot of time helping Christians who wanted to avoid court altogether.

On the one hand, Christians are called to live by 1 Corinthians 6.

ROBINSON: Saying let’s not take our lawsuits to the courts, let’s take care of it in-house.

On the other hand:

ROBINSON: God cares about justice also. Micah 6:8: What does God require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. So God desires justice.

Mediation can help those two ideas work together.

ROBINSON: And now here is a forum where you can within your faith act as a follower of Christ as you come to agreement on a solution.

He says that’s a sign of spiritual maturity.

ROBINSON: That we don’t need a judge or 12 strangers to look into our business and tell us what’s right.

Even if it hurts financially.

ROBINSON: Plaintiffs might do better with a jury. And for them to say, okay I might get more money if I went with a jury, but I wouldn’t be obedient, obedient to the explicit instructions that even Jesus himself spoke.

He says disputes among Christians tend to fall into three categories.

One: Small business partnerships.

ROBINSON: A couple people go to church together, they decide to form a business together. And maybe the business does pretty good for a couple of years. But one of them is a visionary. And the other one is a bookkeeper. And so someone is out there making promises willy-nilly. And the other person says, how are we going to fulfill all these expectations? And frankly, they make a really good team, but they also get on each other’s nerves. So they decide to end the partnership, and now we need to allocate assets and liabilities.

A second area of conflicts among Christians: employment disputes within Christian organizations, ministries, and schools.

ROBINSON: You have human beings who all love the Lord, but yet, someone thinks that this person’s not a good third grade teacher, and the third grade teacher says, oh, yes, I am.

And finally? By far the most difficult: divorces. Some Christian conciliation services won’t handle them because of the scriptural admonition to stay married. But here’s Robinson’s take:

ROBINSON: We decided that we would rather help people get divorced amicably with as much love as possible. As compared to send them into an adversarial court system where the system encourages them to be antagonistic towards each other.

When Christians did call him with a dispute, he first encouraged them to talk with each another. Without him. He says that’s in line with scripture, too.

ROBINSON: Matthew 18. If you have a dispute with your brother, go and talk to him privately. I said, you know what? Have you talked to the other person is about this? Have you let them know how hurt you’ve been?

He encouraged them to have breakfast together.

ROBINSON: Don’t attack them. Just reach out to them and ask them to understand your needs in the situation. The first step is to go talk privately. It’s hard sometimes, but that’s what Jesus instructed us to do.

If they don’t reach an agreement, then bring a witness. That’s also from Matthew 18. Not necessarily someone who saw the incident.

ROBINSON: I think when Jesus said bring a witness, it may not be a witness to the underlying facts, right? It may be a witness to witness how the two of you are talking to each other.

A pastor, or mediator.

ROBINSON: And to coach you as to how you might say what you want to say but to say it in a way to where the other person is likely to hear it and receive it.

And if the parties still can’t reconcile? The third instruction in Matthew 18 says to take the matter to the elders of the church.

ROBINSON: Tell it to the church, and it becomes an arbitration.

Arbitration. Instead of mediation. Unlike mediation, arbitration is a binding decision.

ROBINSON: And I will sign that I’ll be bound by it. And I will not only be bound by it, but I also take a pledge that I know that I’m not supposed to have bitterness in my heart.

So Matthew 18 gives important procedural instruction. But Robinson says remember what comes before it:

ROBINSON: Interestingly, he gave us that instruction right after he told us to forgive each other 7 times 70. And right after, he said he tells the parable of the unmerciful servant.

Robinson has spent much of his career teaching at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution and says the Christian community needs people who are trained and gifted in dispute resolution to help those in conflict and to encourage reconciliation.

ROBINSON: Now let’s find a solution where you guys can reach an agreement and move forward. You don’t have to be best friends, but you can’t be enemies. You need to love each other no matter what.

On tomorrow’s Legal Docket Podcast, Mary and I cover a Supreme Court case about arbitration. Look for it wherever you get your podcasts.

That’s it for this week’s Legal Docket. I’m Jenny Rough.

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