Lawyering and Its Discontents: Reclaiming Meaning in the Practice of Law
52 Pages Posted: 27 Oct 2013
Date Written: 2004
Abstract
On April 6-7, 2003, Touro Law Center hosted an extraordinary continuing legal education (CLE) conference entitled Lawyering and Its Discontents: Reclaiming Meaning in the Practice of Law. The Conference brought together judges, interested practitioners, and academics involved in the Comprehensive Law Movement. The Comprehensive Law Movement includes therapeutic jurisprudence, collaborative lawyering, transformative mediation, and other approaches which aim to transform the practice of law into a humanistic and healing force rather than a confrontational and hurtful process.
Participants at this Conference explored factors that have contributed to lawyer distress and client disappointment, along with a variety of personal, professional and institutional approaches to dissipating that distress. The underlying premise for the Conference was that when lawyers find ways to practice law that optimize their own and their clients' well-being they can recapture the moral vision that originally attracted them to the law, and in so doing, find joy and meaning in their practices. Our hope was that this Conference would provide practitioners with an introduction to an array of tools and strategies available to positively affect the way they practice law, thus improving their lives, and, derivatively, the lives of their clients.
Keywords: CLE, Continuing Legal Education, Comprehensive Law Movement, therapeutic jurisprudence, collaborative lawyering transformative mediation, Silver, Marjorie A. Silver, Marjorie Silver
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