Multisensory law and therapeutic jurisprudence: How family mediators can better communicate with their clients

Abstract

Lawyering often involves numerous and complex legal problems and related questions. This is the case regardless of whether a family law, a tort law, a criminal law case, or another kind of case is concerned. Faced with this situation, lawyers may experience great difficulties in intelligibly communicating these problems and questions to their clients. Consequently, clients may misunderstand or even not understand their lawyers. Such communication difficulties may prevent clients from properly disclosing their emotional needs and from conveying their legal, social, and economic interests. Therefore, this paper explores how integrating approaches from therapeutic jurisprudence and multisensory law could offer sustainable communicative solutions. One case in point is family mediation. This paper outlines how an integrated therapeutic jurisprudence and multisensory law approach could enable lawyers, and family mediators in particular, to render their client communication more intelligible, and thus more efficient and effective. It demonstrates that integrating these two approaches provides lawyers with vital tools and methods for enhancing client communication and therefore client well-being. Further developing these tools and methods requires stringent application and examination in legal practice.