IF A THREAT OF VIOLENCE IS PRESENTED,WHEN DOES THE LAW REQUIRE FAMILY MEDIATORS TO BREACH CONFIDENTIALITY? |
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| Authors: | James Bartens |
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| Institution: | James Bartens graduated from Hofstra University's School of Law in the spring of 2004. He was a staff and book review editor for the Family Court Review. He graduated cum laude and with highest departmental honors from Hofstra University in the spring of 2001 with a B.B.A. in banking and finance. During the summer of 2003, he worked for the construction surety law firm of Westermann, Hamilton, Sheehy, Adeylott &Keenan, L.L.P., in Garden City as a summer associate. He has interned for the Honorable Ira B. Warshawsky at the Nassau County Supreme Court and for the finance department of Computer Associates International, Inc. He plans to practice law in either Florida or New York. |
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| Abstract: | For a family mediator to protect his client, a third party, and/or himself from unlawfully disclosing a client's admission, the family mediator should use the principles set forth in Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California when a threat of violence is presented by one of his clients, since many states have adopted these principles through case law and statute to protect third parties from acts of violence. The two most significant factors in determining whether to breach confidentiality are the identifiability of the victim and the likelihood of the potential physical harm. If a jurisdiction has not explicitly done so via statute, the family mediator should nonetheless follow these principles since they are likely to be adopted by that jurisdiction through case law, because the probability of a court's finding a special relationship between a family mediator and a client is relatively high. |
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| Keywords: | breach confidentiality family mediator Tarasoff threat violence |
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