Holistic law
What Is Holistic Law?
Holistic law starts from a simple idea: the people in a legal matter are whole human beings, not just “the plaintiff” or “the defendant.” A legal problem touches someone’s relationships, health, finances, sense of self, and community. Holistic lawyers try to see all of that and to resolve the legal issue in a way that serves the whole person and, where possible, everyone else involved.
History — IAHL
The movement took shape in the early 1990s, when Vermont attorney Bill van Zyverden founded the International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers (IAHL). Lawyers who felt the adversarial system was taking a toll on their clients and on themselves found a home there. The IAHL held conferences, built a network of practitioners, and set out principles that became the heart of holistic practice: honoring the dignity of every person, encouraging peace and healing, listening deeply, bringing the lawyer’s own values and wholeness into the work, and seeing conflict as an opportunity for growth.
IAHL as the gathering place
In 2011, the organization dissolved. But the ideas it nurtured didn’t disappear. Like a seed pod that bursts open, the IAHL scattered its ideas into the other organizations. Many lawyers who first found their footing in the IAHL went on to lead these efforts, and the idea of law as a healing profession is more widely accepted today than when the Alliance began.
2011 — IAHL dissolved
The movement took shape in the early 1990s, when Vermont attorney Bill van Zyverden founded the International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers (IAHL). Lawyers who felt the adversarial system was taking a toll on their clients and on themselves found a home there. The IAHL held conferences, built a network of practitioners, and set out principles that became the heart of holistic practice: honoring the dignity of every person, encouraging peace and healing, listening deeply, bringing the lawyer’s own values and wholeness into the work, and seeing conflict as an opportunity for growth.
How Holistic Lawyers Practice
Holistic lawyers practice in many fields, including family law, estate planning, business, and criminal defense. What they share is a way of working. They take time to understand what clients truly need, not just what they’re asking for. They look for resolutions that repair relationships rather than burn them down. They pay attention to their own wellbeing as well as their clients’, knowing that a depleted lawyer can’t serve anyone well. Many draw on mediation, collaborative practice, and reflective practices to do this.
Susan Daicoff / Comprehensive Law Movement
Legal scholar Susan Daicoff identified holistic law as one of the “vectors” of what she called the comprehensive law movement, alongside therapeutic jurisprudence, restorative justice, collaborative law, and others. Think of these as tributaries: each started in its own place, but they flow toward the same river. Holistic law helped name something many lawyers already felt, that law can be a healing profession, and it paved the way for the broader Integrative Law movement that brings these approaches together today.
What I've always done is listen to people, and find out what they want.
