Wellbeing & law
There is a lot of information being disseminated in the public domain regarding the benefits of improving mental health and wellbeing environments; whilst some is being peddled, a lot of the information and training is highly valuable. I believe it is correct that altering a mindset and approach can provide positive improvements to individuals, groups, communities and societies – especially if positivity and collaboration can improve the average interaction quality and environment of us all. This can be applied to how we use ‘law’ in our lives, which may at first blush sounds a bit artificial, because many use law without ‘thinking about the act’. We are, perhaps surprisingly, surrounded by law, obligations, duties, rights and moral laws and all of our interactions are generally defined by external and internal constraints of law.
Avoiding exploitative practices
One way to improve how we ‘use law’ is to avoid being exploitative. A well-known social issue faced by medical professionals, doctors and surgeons is that often they are approached outside of their work and asked for on-the-spot diagnoses, hounded with descriptions from exploiters seeking to avoid paying for a consultation or making a trip to the appropriate medical facility. The same applies to legal professionals. The signal words for an upcoming exploitation are: “I have a quick question; it will only take a few minutes.” or “If you help me with this, I will buy you a drink”. The investment lawyers and doctors make in their education, practice and self-development are, I hasten to emphasise, worth far more than ‘a drink’ although social courtesies are still welcomed.
The people who try to take the short-cuts are often the same type of people who have landed themselves in a legal conflict because of taking short-cuts or over-exploiting a situation. There is no one ‘group of people’ who do this. As humans, we sometimes do good and sometimes do wrong. Some exploiters are just temporarily doing so, others have exploitations firmly embedded in their nature. Whatever the formula, the outcomes are not positive.
Different environments for good legal & social outcomes
In free market economies, law is often linked to the freedom of individual first, with a set of constraints and protections relating to how that freedom might impact others, second. In collectivist economies, with some oversimplification to assist brief illustration, the reverse generally applies. Such economies either operate within a ‘common law’ system, where ‘equity and fairness’ are allowed to ‘step in’ to adjust statutes and written law, or a codified situation where the written law is accepted at the moment in time it applies as the most binding – with interpretation, conflicts of laws, good faith and ‘public policy’ principles allowing superior courts to seek to overturn and avoid unfair decisions. In all of these environments, it is achievable to trade off legal doctrine and strict legal application with some greater good, provided care is taken not to dilute rights or the ‘best interests’ principle.
I believe it is beholden on legal professionals to include in their practice a non-exploitation principle. If a client or third party seeks to ‘use’ a lawyer to exploit, the legal professional can point this out, may challenge the exploitation and propose suitable alternatives that may still preserve rights and facilitate commercial success. Sometimes, the ‘gloves come off’ in disputes or where another party is behaving so unfairly that to promote redress and remedy, aggressive stances are required. Nevertheless, opportunities for procuring parties to move back into a collaborative position should not be overlooked.
Contact info:
Hughes Krupica Consulting
PHUKET (HEAD OFFICE)
Hughes Krupica Consulting Co. Ltd
23/123-5 Moo 2 Kohkaew Plaza
The Phuket Boat Lagoon
T. Kohkaew Amphoe Muang
Phuket 83000 Thailand
Tel: (0) 76 608 468
BANGKOK (SERVICED OFFICE)
Hughes Krupica Consulting (Bangkok) Co. Ltd
29/41 Soi Ladprao 22
Ladprao Road
Chankasem, Chatuchak
Bangkok 10900 Thailand
Tel: (0) 20 771 518
enquiries@hugheskrupica.com
www.hugheskrupica.com
Contact info:
Hughes Krupica Consulting
PHUKET (HEAD OFFICE)
Hughes Krupica Consulting Co. Ltd
23/123-5 Moo 2 Kohkaew Plaza
The Phuket Boat Lagoon
T. Kohkaew Amphoe Muang
Phuket 83000 Thailand
Tel: (0) 76 608 468
BANGKOK (SERVICED OFFICE)
Hughes Krupica Consulting (Bangkok) Co. Ltd
29/41 Soi Ladprao 22
Ladprao Road
Chankasem, Chatuchak
Bangkok 10900 Thailand
Tel: (0) 20 771 518
enquiries@hugheskrupica.com
www.hugheskrupica.com