Mindful Ethics -- A Pedagogical and Practical Approach to Teaching Legal Ethics, Developing Professional Identity, and Encouraging Civility (original) (raw)
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The Mindful Law School: An Integrative Approach to Transforming Legal Education
Touro Law Review, 2012
are recognizing their crucial role in providing students with services that help them relate more effectively to the high stress conditions in which they study, and that they will encounter as practitioners. 3 Importantly, while mindfulness is often regarded as a method of stress reduction; it is, in fact, a practice rooted in the concentration of attention, the skillful treatment of agitated emotions, and the cultivation of compassion, all of which are fundamental skills for the study and practice of law. While the introduction of mindfulness to legal education is not new, and its history can be traced back more than a decade, 4 exciting changes are taking place as traditional programs that introduce students to mindfulness, as well innovative courses that integrate mindfulness into the curriculum, are emerging on law school campuses. 5 Alongside these changes, a growing number of student groups are being formed that create a space for students to meet and share mindfulness insights and experiential practices. 6 This article explores how the University of Miami School of Law ("Miami Law") is integrating mindfulness into its curriculum and infusing it across the law school community. 7 Miami Law's cre-SOLUTION: A MINDFULNESS PRIMER FOR LAWYERS (2009). 3 The American Bar Association is changing its accreditation standards for law schools, calling on legal education to place more emphasis on each student's professional formation.
Educating Lawyers to Meditate? 79 U.M.K.C. L. Rev. 535 (2011)
This Article argues that the contemplative practice in law movement assists in answering the call for reform of legal education and the development of professional identity highlighted by the Carnegie Foundation in its "Education Lawyers" analysis and others, presenting the outlines of the pathway to effective reform so far missing from the mainstream critique. The author argues that the contemplative practices movement does much more than merely specify skills missing from traditional legal education that are crucial to effective and sustainable lawyering, including the capacity for self-reflection, emotional intelligence, and moral discernment. Going further, it suggests a new approach to the foundation of legal education --one which may better instill in young lawyers an abiding sense of an inspiring professional identity, embodying self-reflective civic engagement and practical, ethical judgment by broadening their sources of knowledge and ways of learning what they need to know to practice and to lead effectively in a changing world. Thus, this Article provides not only description and critique, but offers a solution to the problems identified by so many others: the grounding of legal education in contemplative practices proven to increase our awareness of the complex humanity at the center of the work of lawyering, and to maximizing our capacity to engage practical wisdom in the course of our service as lawyers, leaders and human beings. In so doing, it provides the first systematic examination of the synergy between the movement toward contemplative practice in law and the most recent wave of legal education critiques and proposed reforms, linking its prescriptions to the early humanist philosophy from which legal education was born.
2010
This Article argues that the contemplative practice in law movement assists in answering the call for reform of legal education and the development of professional identity highlighted by the Carnegie Foundation in its "Education Lawyers" analysis and others, presenting the outlines of the pathway to effective reform so far missing from the mainstream critique. The author argues that the contemplative practices movement does much more than merely specify skills missing from traditional legal education that are crucial to effective and sustainable lawyering, including the capacity for self-reflection, emotional intelligence, and moral discernment. Going further, it suggests a new approach to the foundation of legal education --one which may better instill in young lawyers an abiding sense of an inspiring professional identity, embodying self-reflective civic engagement and practical, ethical judgment by broadening their sources of knowledge and ways of learning what they need to know to practice and to lead effectively in a changing world. Thus, this Article provides not only description and critique, but offers a solution to the problems identified by so many others: the grounding of legal education in contemplative practices proven to increase our awareness of the complex humanity at the center of the work of lawyering, and to maximizing our capacity to engage practical wisdom in the course of our service as lawyers, leaders and human beings. In so doing, it provides the first systematic examination of the synergy between the movement toward contemplative practice in law and the most recent wave of legal education critiques and proposed reforms, linking its prescriptions to the early humanist philosophy from which legal education was born.
ETHICAL AWARENESS AND LEGAL EDUCATION
Students'Perception and Legal Education, 2016
In legal practice, it is paramount to see injustice in order to reach legal decisions. However, the shadow of prejudices, makes seeing injustice difficult. Prejudices are among the primary causes of epistemic injustice and for this reason, legal education should include ethical education in moral virtues, especially paying attention to particulars-a form of ethical awareness essential for seeing injustice. I claim that if we want students to observe the other's face in particular cases, legal education should include training in virtues like attention and openness, together with experiential learning that puts a focus on the person who suffers injustice. This entails an awareness of how one's actions get absorded by prejudices. This article will argue that legal education must incorporate the ethical training of law students so that they are able to recognize, as well as properly address, injustice and its grounds. In this article, I discuss practices of raising ethical awareness in the classroom, in particular a teaching practice constructed on the basis of Foucault's idea of the mirror.
MINDFULNESS IN LAW: A PATH TO WELL- BEING AND BALANCE FOR LAWYERS AND LAW STUDENTS
The National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being has raised strong concerns about the poor state of the mental health and well-being of lawyers and law students across the country. The co-chairs of the Task Force concluded that recent studies' findings of professional ill health and lack of well-being were incompatible with a sustainable legal profession and raised troubling implications for many lawyers' basic competence. This Article takes an in-depth look at the relevance of mindfulness for the legal profession and legal education and offers mindfulness as one way to begin to respond effectively to the Task Force's concerns. After first reviewing studies demonstrating high rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse among lawyers and law students, it reviews personal and professional options that have been used to date, with limited success, to address these problems, and it offers that developing a routine mindfulness practice could be one potential, effective solution to promoting the mental health and well-being of lawyers and law students. This Article explains what mindfulness is, describes a few of its most common meditation practices, and explores the benefits that can ensue from regular mindful practices, which have been scientifically supported in the clinical literature. It analyzes how the Author's law school has incorporated mindfulness and other wellness programs into its offerings for law students and offers some recommendations for how other law schools and legal employers might adopt mindfulness programs. This Article concludes by encouraging law schools and legal employers to incorporate mindfulness training and other wellness programs designed to enhance the health and well-being of law students and lawyers.
Mindful Ethics and the Cultivation of Concentration
2015
At the same time that the legal profession is experiencing great upheaval, mindfulness is being embraced as an important vehicle for assisting both the individual and the larger collective in responding to the many challenges posed by a rapidly changing world. A secular practice with roots reaching back thousands of years, mindfulness is commonly regarded as a tool for reducing stress, achieving greater focus and concentration, and working with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, pain, and a host of other physical and emotional challenges. Whereas five years ago there was little mention of mindfulness in the law, today it is a widely recognized term. Furthermore, a growing number of law schools are offering mindfulness programs, legal conferences are organizing mindfulness presentations and workshops, and legal organizations are introducing mindfulness to their members. “Mindful Ethics,” an approach that we developed for integrating mindfulness and professional responsibility, is ...