The Law Program explores ways of helping lawyers, judges, law professors and students reconnect with their deepest values and intentions, through meditation, yoga, and other contemplative and spiritual practices. We run retreats and events which provide a framework for considering ways in which contemplative awareness can enhance and enrich our professional and personal lives, and bring them more into balance. Our retreats address questions and ideas from both a contemplative and legal perspective: the nature of winning and losing, the role of compassion in adversarial situations, truth and “right speech,” Socratic and contemplative methods of inquiry, action and nonaction, separation and connection, and listening.
New Videos:
Four-Part Interview with Douglas Chermak
This video series covers the background of the Law Program, retreats for lawyers at Spirit Rock, experience of attending a retreat and ways of maintaining the practice after the retreat, and other aspects of the intersection of meditation and law practice. experience of attending a retreat and ways of maintaining the practice after the retreat. View the videos.
Charles Halpern on Empathy, Meditation, and the Practice of Law
A talk presented at the University at Buffalo Law School, Friday, September 25, 2009 by Charles Halpern, founding Board Member of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
Added to our Resources:
Reflections on a new course: Effective and Sustainable Lawyering: The Meditative Perspective
By Charles Halpern
The Mindful Lawyer and the Challenges of Diversity:
The Benefits of Mindfulness in Differently Diverse Practice Settings
By Rhonda V. Magee
Adapted from "The Mindful Law Professor and the Challenges of Diversity," 2008.
Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom
By Charlie Halpern
Chair of our Board of Directors and Visiting Scholar at Boalt Hall School of Law
This memoir demonstrates the benefits of integrating a commitment to social justice with the cultivation of wisdom--essential for effectively addressing the challenges of the 21st century.