Client-centered refers to a counseling perspective where the client is supported to make choices which affect their lives. Under the rules of professional conduct for lawyers, clients must make decisions about the goals of the litigation. Thus, a goal for legal counseling is to help lawyers help clients make optimal decisions.
A client-centered approach goes well beyond providing legal or other “information.” It is based on building a supportive relationship, which requires a variety of techniques and understanding of basic human functioning. The Integrative Client-Centered Model (ICCM) provides a practical and robust model of human functioning, together with tools to maximize client support.
The “client-centered” concept was pioneered by the famed American psychologist Carl Rogers, and has been adopted as the primary ethical legal standard in 49 of the U.S. states (RPC 1.2). It is the foundation of most mediation theories, most predominantly in Transformational Mediation theory.
Before the “decade of the brain” in the 1990’s the reasons a client-centered approach works was not understood. Few or no prior client-centered theories offered an explanation, nor a foundation to understand why a relational and autonomy-based counseling approach works. Modern attachment theory, and neuroscience-based theory including interpersonal neurobiology , provides a basis to understand what “client-centered” means on the ground and why it works.
Client-centered theory has been used by lawyers, litigators, mediators, judges, doctors, medical professionals, law enforcement (including hostage negotiators), clergy, educators, psychotherapists, and many other helping professions which is work with clients under stress and conflict.
The ICCM updates traditional client-centered theory, and offers specific tools and approaches, to maximize autonomous and effective client decision making.