Family Business Workplace Conflict Resolution

by Marty Price, J.D.

You represent a client who is accused of embezzling several thousand dollars from his employer. The employer is a small business where he has worked for a number of years in a position of trust and responsibility.

The business owner is shocked and outraged. Your client has no criminal record and has admitted to you that he stole the money to pay off a gambling debt. You see no plausible defenses.

Upon your advice, he has plead “not guilty” in the hope of obtaining a favorable plea bargain.

This is but one of many examples of a case of a serious (or not so serious) offense in which society has little or no need to exact retribution from the offender and, likewise, little or no need to punish for the sake of deterrence. Realistically, harm was done only to the victim. If an agreement could be reached, by which:

1. the offender would take meaningful responsibility for the harm done by restoring the victim’s losses, and by which,
2. the offender could demonstrate his remorse and become reconciled with the victim,

then most would agree that the state’s scarce justice dollars would be better spent prosecuting another offender who, absent remorse and meaningful responsibility, presents a genuine threat to the public.

This is the philosophy of restorative justice, rather than retributive justice, and it is from this philosophy that Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs (VORP) and Victim Offender Mediation Programs were born, about fifteen years ago.

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