Table of Contents
Introduction | Registration | Participation & Reflection
Session Schedule & Information
EXCLUSIVELY FOR JUDGES
Lead Instructor![[Rope Bridge, Carrick-a-Rede. County Antrim, Ireland]](https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/service-pnp-ppmsc-09800-09832r.jpg)
Michele Statz, PhD
Associate Professor, University of Minnesota Medical School; Affiliated Faculty, University of Minnesota Law School
mstatz@d.umn.edu
According to the latest National Judicial Stress and Resiliency Survey, judges are increasingly “mentally worn down” with the weightiness of judicial work, the time- pressured nature of that work, professional and social isolation, and an increasingly critical public. To judges, these findings are not especially surprising. Nor are the reported impacts of these stressors, which range from burnout and secondary trauma to diminished physical and mental health, substance use disorders and changed habits and relationships. Many judges further struggle to locate appropriate supports, particularly in rural areas and other marginalized communities.
While attention to judicial health and wellbeing is of urgent importance, the onus remains largely on judges to heal themselves. Judges are variously encouraged to develop an individual gratitude practice, meditate, seek peer support, exercise, have better sleep habits, and do more “self-care.” These are all valuable tools for managing stress and improving health, and yet the prevailing emphasis on personal responsibility fails to honor judges’ already-depleted emotional resources or their diverse values and priorities. As a result, judges are held responsible for consequential decision-making and ensuring the continued effectiveness and integrity of the judicial system as well as for sustaining (or correcting) their own mental, physical, and spiritual health, largely alone.
This five-part virtual series recognizes this impossible context and the unique vulnerabilities that many judges carry, however privately. Premised on a model of mutual accompaniment, it honors judges’ wounds and weariness not as a liability but as a shared reference point from which to come together as judges, to learn, and to heal [SESSION 1, September 19]. It exposes judges to practices and paradigms [SESSIONS 2, 3, 4; October 3, 17, and 31] that represent different ways of being a judge (versus judging). And throughout, it seeks to build a community that finds new experiences of justice in the midst of relationship [SESSION 5, November 13].
All judges, at all levels, are welcome to register; we ask that judges plan to participate in all five 60 minute sessions. After each session, participants can anticipate reading materials for the next session and a Google document with some questions.
Please let us know your interest in participating by registering below by August 2025. (Earlier applications encouraged!)
We ask those participating to commit to all five sessions; to be prepared to discuss the readings during our time together; and to engage in substantial reflective writing in advance of each session.
This course is designed to make space for honest, vulnerable conversations; uncertainty; and trusting relationships. To that end, participants should attend with a spirit of respect, care, and open-mindedness.
Session Schedule & Information
Session 1: What brings us here?
September 19, 2025
Noon, PT
60 minutes
Required Reading:
Selected Excerpts from:
Watkins, Mary. 2019. Mutual Accompaniment and the Creation of the Commons. Yale.
(selections to be posted by January 2025)
Session 2: Judging as Healing and Restoration
October 3, 2025
Noon PT
60 minutes
Guest Speakers:
TBD
Required Reading
Wahwassuck, Korey and Abby Abinanti. 2023. Intergovernmental Collaborations to Heal, Protect, and Find Solutions: Joint Jurisdiction Courts 101. Tribal Law and Policy Institute.
Suggested Viewing
Tribal Justice
Session 3: Judging and (or in) Joy
October 17, 2025
Noon PT
60 minutes
Guest Teacher:
TBD
Required Reading:
Selected excerpts from:
Lama, Dalai, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Carlton Abrams. 2016. The Book of Joy: Lasting happiness in a changing world. Penguin.
Session 4: How we learn: values and judging
October 31, 2025
Noon PT
60 minutes
Guest Teacher:
TBD
Required Reading:
Selected excerpts from:
Pūrongo Rangahau | Study Paper 24: He Poutama. https://www.lawcom.govt.nz/assets/Publications/StudyPapers/NZLC-SP24.pdf
Session 5: Concluding Conversations
November 13, 2025
Noon PT
60 minutes
Required Reading:
Selected Excerpts from:
Watkins, Mary. 2019. Mutual Accompaniment and the Creation of the Commons. Yale.