Seeking Balance: Mindfulness Practice Workshop
Since Fall 2012, Berkeley Law has offered non-credit mindfulness workshops. The workshop series is designed to equip students with skills to be more effective in their studies, and to be balanced and happy during the challenges of law school and beyond. The current four-week, non-credit series on the practice of mindfulness and its application to law study and practice. The series is designed to address the many causes of stress (personal, societal, global), identify ways for address and managing stress, developing a grounded and centered presence, and cultivating focus, equanimity, wisdom, compassion and resilience. It is taught by Tirien Steinbach, Director of the East Bay Community Law Center.
Student comments:
“A great experience that helped me become a more balanced individual. I really recommend it.”
“Take it. Law school is a stressful experience, especially 1L year. Mindfulness provides you with skills that will be beneficial to you throughout your entire life and there really is no better time to start this practice!”
“I am so pleased with what I have learned and experienced in the 1L Mindfulness Introduction, and I have no doubt that the skills I acquired will be put to use throughout law school and beyond.”
Mindfulness for Lawyers: Understanding the Legal Mind for Greater Effectiveness and Wellbeing in the Study and Practice of Law
Since Spring 2016
This 2-unit course will be an exploration of what it means to bring awareness and thought leadership to the study and practice of law. As you engage in this exploration you’ll be testing two hypotheses:
(i) That in any given moment you have the opportunity – or maybe, because of the legal profession’s standing, the obligation – to choose who you are, what values are crucial to you, and how you’ll honor those values, as law students, members of the bar, and members of society; and
(ii) That cultivating awareness and developing thought leadership gives you critical tools to help you make those choices in ways that can result in less conflict and suffering, and more curiosity, compassion, empathy and equanimity, for yourselves, in your profession, and in the wide sphere of influence that you, as lawyers, will have.
Judi Cohen, the instructor, is the founder and principal of Warrior One LLC, a company that trains lawyers in the foundational skill of mindfulness through its Essential Mindfulness for Lawyers® (EML) programs. Professor Cohen has presented and taught EML at law firms, bar conventions, in-house legal departments and prosecutors’ and public defenders’ offices throughout the U.S., as well as in public in-person and online programs, and has also written a number of articles on the importance of mindfulness for lawyers.