About Us: The People

About J. Kim Wright

A visionary lawyer, servant leader and independent scholar on a global tour to inspire transformation of  law.

Currently scheduling events in the Toronto area, Scotland, England, the Netherlands and other points in Europe for May through July, 2013.

Advanced planning for return trips to Australia and South Africa, with possibilities being created for India, Thailand and South America.

Law Practice:

A graduate of the University of Florida Levin College of Law, Kim has been licensed as a lawyer since 1989.  She has been licensed in North Carolina since 1994. Due to her travel schedule, her law practice is limited and is primarily virtual in the area of values-based business law. She works with conscious businesses to have their legal documents align with their values and mission.

Kim was an early adopter of holistic, peacemaking approaches. Previously, she practiced integrative law including, collaborative law, many forms of mediation, preventive law, restorative justice, therapeutic jurisprudence, and other relational law approaches. She was one of the first lawyers in the country to have a social worker in her family law center and to practice in a multi-disciplinary team, wrangling with the bar to design a model that fit within ethical requirements.

Leader in Integrative Law Movement

Kim is a leader of the integrative law movement that is focused on integrating new models of collaboration, problem-solving, peace-making and healing conflict into the existing legal system. She applies a strategic thinking and organizational and community transformation background and skills to find leverage points for bringing holistic, healing approaches to law to geographic and practice areas.

She is the webmistress, publisher and managing editor of Cutting Edge Law, a resource and community for news, and conversations on topics related to the integrative law movement. Providing, supporting and showcasing a community of leaders in the movement, the site also contains over 350 video clips of pioneers, tracking the history and development of the growth of the approaches which make up the integrative law movement.  It offers information and role models for lawyers, judges, and law students who are seeking healthier, more conscious and values-based ways of practicing law.

In November of 2009, the American Bar Association named Kim as one of the first Legal Rebels who are “finding new ways to practice law, represent their clients, adjudicate cases and train the next generation of lawyers.”

Author

The ABA also invited Kim to write a book and in April, 2010, Lawyers as Peacemakers, Practicing Holistic, Problem-Solving Law was published.  It was named one of the ABA's Flagship Series and was on the ABA best-seller list for seven consecutive months in 2010.   She has written dozens of articles for law journals, periodicals and books on the integrative law movement, small business law, divorce, community living, and social transformation.   Her articles have appeared in Lawyers Weekly in Canada and Australia, and many US publications.

Media Advocate and Documentarian

Kim is an advocate for the integrative law movement in the media and educates reporters and producers about integrative approaches to law, sometimes advising them on specific cases.  She has worked on several documentary series and films, including a show on A&E Network where families of murder victims were brought together with the killers in a face to face confrontation that brought healing to all concerned. (She interviewed potential participants for the series and worked with producers on program design.) She was a co-producer of a documentary treatment of veterans treatment courts and consultant to a potential documentary on the pro-se movement.

Coach & Consultant

Kim coaches lawyers who are leaders in the integrative law movement. Her clients are leaders who seek to transform their own lives and practices as part of a broader plan to transform law.  She also consults with law schools, courts, communities and law firms about implementing integrative law models. She is available for private one-on-one or small group retreats.

Legal Education

For the past two years, Kim has been a member of the executive committee of American Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution Task Force on Legal Education, ADR and Practical Problem-Solving, LEAPS.  She works with law schools and professors seeking to incorporate integrative law models and problem-solving approaches. She was a consultant on the team for  the conference on Lawyers at Peacemakers and Healers at Phoenix Law School and is consulting with several other law schools on events in the coming year. 

Kim taught Integrative Law in the Summer, 2012 session at Charlotte Law School. She has been a guest lecturer at many law schools in the US, Canada and Australia and has taught ADR, Business Law and Restorative Justice as adjunct faculty at three colleges.  

Workshop Leader and Trainer

Kim has a broad range of training and workshop subjects.  Most fall under the umbrella of integrative law and the models and approaches in the movement. Some of her presentations address the overall movement in law and paradigm shift.  Others are focused on specific aspects of the movement, drawing upon her practical experience as a lawyer, coupled with her broad knowledge and experience of the integrative law movement.

She leads programs on collaboration, civility for litigators, restorative justice, working with victims and offenders, skills-based courses on conflict and communication, career and quality of life issues, holistic law, and several other topics. She was the main presenter at a joint conference for business leaders and lawyers in Melbourne, Florida in July, 2012, Partnering for Success.

Kim has led dozens of teleclasses and on-line seminars. She hosted the Lawyers as Agents of Evolutionary Change series.

Personal

Kim gave up her house and office at the end of 2007 and is now location independent, traveling around the world as an advocate for the integrative law movement. In her previous life, she raised a passel of children.  (She had seven children when she began law school and a total of 16 children lived with her.) She does not babysit for her grandchildren and she doesn’t knit booties but she is making the world a better place for all of them.

Kim is an amateur photographer who enjoys spending time in Nature, camping, hiking and sitting by waterfalls. She prefers the deep and philosophical conversation to the shallow and casual and has been known to have life-changing conversations with strangers in elevators.

Contact

To contact J. Kim Wright:
By email:  jkimwright@gmail.com
By phone:  Google Voice: 1 682 463 9529

Kim's profile: http://cuttingedgelaw.com/profile/j-kim-wright