You’ve been a lawyer for 30 years, right?
Yeah! And I have had a study dedicated to mediation and advice in family law for more than 20 years.
However, you started a change of course, how did it come about?
The pandemic, beyond the confinement, brought a few months of fair; It was then that it occurred to me to create Espacio Leiva on Instagram. It was like opening a window to the world, from which -almost without realizing it- I began to display a facet that I didn’t know I had.
What is that facet you discovered?
I discovered myself communicating, I began to do Lives, I opened a blog, I did a radio program, in short, I connected with a creative version that transformed me and from which I began to generate a new look at Law that made me notice that we are still governed by a paradigm that no longer serves us.
How did the idea of a new paradigm for the legal profession appear?
This personal process, which included connecting with other disciplines and starting to study coaching, allowed me to observe the profession from another perspective. Since I received my degree, I have heard the same complaints about a system that has collapsed; however, despite the fact that mediation brought a great contribution when it comes to generating alternatives to resolve conflicts, we continue to be installed in the same place. I think it is time to be protagonists of a new way of practicing law.
What is this change you propose about?
I understand that society needs to have more ways of pacifying and, in this sense, the practice of law challenges us to be protagonists of a change that brings with it the approach of legal conflicts from a place in which emphasis is placed on the search for solutions and leave the judicial instance as the last option.
Your book “Advocacy is pacifying” delves into that idea, right?
Yes, the book invites you to reflect and question what you have learned; It proposes releasing stereotypes and abandoning the old way of practicing the profession to discover ourselves in a conscious legal profession, empathetic with the client and receptive to our own needs. From my point of view, our role, currently, is to disseminate law and then accompany the design of agreements that allow conflicts to be resolved in the extrajudicial sphere.
Do you think it is a possible change in the short term?
Without a doubt! The old way of defining the legal profession no longer serves us; the challenge is to encourage us to create the profession we want to practice. I believe in the strength of the thousands of lawyers who make up the Espacio Leiva community, in their desire to learn and in their ability to be the architects of this transformation. And, from now on, I trust my conviction to accompany them.
Contact details:
Space Leiva ®
Instagram: @mferleiva
Mail: [email protected]
by CEDOC