Welcome to the online home of the Berkeley Initiative for Mindfulness in Law, an innovative new center at Berkeley Law exploring the benefits of meditation to legal education and law practice.
We are working to build a vibrant community in which students, faculty and staff can integrate the insights of meditation into their work and studies in order to foster a more just, compassionate and reflective legal system. You can find more background on our philosophy and history here.
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Students in Charlie Halpern's class "Effective and Sustainable Law Practice: The Meditative Perspective" practicing Qi Gong beside the law school
Mindfulness Initiative News, October 2012
Recent event: Sujatha Baliga on mindfulness and restorative justice
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Restorative justice
expert Sujatha Baliga came to Berkeley Law on Monday, Oct. 22 to present "Law's Middle Way: Mindfulness and Restorative Justice" as part of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice's Ruth Chance Lecture series. Click here to access the video from Sujatha's talk.
In her talk, Baliga addressed the value of mindfulness practice in both her prior work as a criminal defense lawyer and in her current role as the Director of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency’s Restorative Justice Project. She discussed the parallel paradigm shifts invited by the practices of mindfulness and restorative justice, as well as the place of forgiveness in restorative processes.
More than 70 people turned out for Sujatha's talk, and engaged in a rich dialogue after her prepared remarks. As a reminder to students with a deeper interest in Restorative Justice, you may wish to consider registering for Professor Mary-Louise Frampton Restorative Justice seminar (Law 231.8), which will be offered in Spring 2013.
Introduction to Mindfulness in Law draws 10% of 1L class
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In
its inaugural run, the new four-week, non-credit Introduction to
Mindfulness for 1Ls course designed by the Mindfulness Initiative drew
27 students in two sections, nearly 10% of the incoming class.
In the weekly, two-hour course, Charlie Halpern, criminal law professor Jonathan Simon and Dan Carlin ('13) taught students a foundation of mindfulness techniques and their relevance to law study and law practice. Students maintained a daily meditation practice and were paired with a partner for support and dialogue. The students were highly engaged in the course, which culminated in them drafting a "road map" for how they plan to integrate mindfulness into their law school experience.
The students in the course are also part of an ongoing pilot study, designed by the Mindfulness Initiative's scientific advisor Emiliana Simon-Thomas of the Greater Good Science Center, which will track indicators of focus, awareness, stress, and other traits over the course of the students' law school careers.
Mindfulness Initiative News, September 2012
New Introduction to Mindfulness for 1Ls course
The Mindfulness Initiative is offering a new four-week, non-credit course for 1Ls taught by Charlie Halpern, to help them integrate mindfulness practice into law school for greater focus and effectiveness. We are working with the Greater Good Science Center to conduct a pilot study of the effect of meditation on the students in the class. Click here for an overview of the course and logistics. Email BIML@law.berkeley.edu with any questions.
Google's Meng Makes Gift to Mindfulness Initiative, Joins Advisory Council
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We are pleased to announce that Chade-Meng Tan, a well-known philanthropist, speaker, and Google engineer has made a generous gift of $20,000 to the Mindfulness Initiative and joined the Mindfulness Initiative's Advisory Council. Search Inside Yourself, the seven-week mindfulness course Meng created at Google in collaboration with the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, has trained more than 1,000 Google employees in mindfulness skills. Meng has since launched the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI) in order to bring SIY to more companies and organizations around the world.
The Mindfulness Initiative is also excited to be co-sponsoring with the Greater Good Science Center a free talk by Meng on Tuesday, September 18 at the David Brower Center in downtown Berkeley on his new book, "Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Happiness, Success (and World Peace)". Please click here for more details. We encourage you to attend!
Mindfulness Initiative News, July 2012
Highlights of 2011-12
Throughout the year, the Mindfulness Initiative presented speaker events featuring some of the outstanding teachers and scholars in the field, including Jack Kornfield (below, with Tirien Steinbach), Jon Kabat-Zinn, Norman Fischer, Angela Harris, and Tirien Steinbach. All of these events are available in audio, video or both on our Events page.
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Charlie Halpern, Jennifer Edlin and
Jeff Selbin presented to clinical students at the East Bay Community Law
Center on using mindfulness to more effectively work with
traumatized clients and to cope with the emotional stresses of clinical work.
In the spring semester the Mindfulness Initiative, co-sponsoring with the Berkeley Law Mindfulness Group, presented an overnight meditation retreat at Nature Bridge Conference Center in Marin County attended by more than 20 students, faculty and staff. Attendees reported returning rejuvenated and refocused for their work and studies.
Plans for 2012-13
- New mindfulness-based courses: Building on Charlie Halpern's seminar "Effective and Sustainable Law Practice: The Meditative Perspective," the Mindfulness Initiative is coordinating as many as three new courses grounded in mindfulness, including a skills course focused on effective relationships in law practice, a 4-week no-credit introduction to mindfulness in law for 1Ls, and a negotiations course with a prominent mindfulness dimension;
- Meditation space at Boalt: Since the law school lacks a regular meditation space, we have proposed to transform an unused area behind the old library circulation desk into an “Impermanent Meditation Space” (IMS), soliciting designs through a student competition;
- Clinical work: We plan to expand our work with clinical students serving low-income clients, to bring mindfulness into their work in order to build trusting relationships, to manage stress, and to be more effective advocates;
- CLE/CJE programs: We will continue to present mindfulness-based CLE/CJE programs. We will give particular attention to lawyers who are doing social justice, civil rights, and environmental advocacy;
- Law professors’ retreat: We will hold a retreat/workshop in the summer of 2013 for law professors from around the country who have already launched mindfulness-based courses or are considering doing so;
- Law school retreats and weekly meditation: To introduce new members of the community to meditation and support those with an established practice, the Mindfulness Initiative will co-sponsor a retreat each semester, as well as a weekly lunch-time meditation. To receive notices about these and other events, please email boaltmeditation@gmail.com.
Featured media
Lawyer-meditator spotlight: Thelton Henderson
Judge Thelton E. Henderson on his Meditation Practice from Center for Contemplative Mind on Vimeo.
2010 Mindful Lawyer Conference
More than 180 lawyers, law professors, and judges gathered at Berkeley Law in 2010 to discuss the impacts and possibilities of meditation for their work and the legal field. Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley introduced the conference. Audio and video from the event are available free on the Mindful Lawyer Conference website
Dean Christopher Edley opening the Mindful Lawyer Conference