Tag Archives: Lawyering

The Law Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

Recently, I was invited to give a lecture at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law.  This talk grew out of my post, Legal Stress, which summarized how the law and legal system can be very stressful for everyone who comes in contact with it including parties, lawyers, law students, and even law professors.  Law … Continue reading The Law Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

Becoming Ourselves

Michelle Obama’s fabulous memoir, Becoming, has valuable lessons for us in legal education and practice.  This post first summarizes the book and then describes some of these lessons. The book is a chronological narrative of Ms. Obama’s life, which is fascinating in itself, though I was particularly interested in her portrayals of the worlds she … Continue reading Becoming Ourselves

Notes from Hastings’s Symposium on The Integrated Lawyer

From Debra Gerardi:  “Wholeness is not a place you can get to. Wholeness is a kind of attitude or approach to the whole of life. It’s a way.” David Bohm The University of California Hastings College of the Law held a two-day symposium last month entitled, The Integrated Lawyer: A Symposium on Well-Being and the … Continue reading Notes from Hastings’s Symposium on The Integrated Lawyer

Legal Stress

In a recent post, I described the intense stress that individual and organizational litigants often undergo as a result of litigation.  The legal system attracts and magnifies stressful conflicts, which affects everyone in its ambit.  In addition to litigants, this includes law students, lawyers, and legal academics. This post provides excerpts from my research summarizing … Continue reading Legal Stress

How Can Practitioners Help Clients Assess Their Interests and Risks in Litigation?

I recently visited our DR friends and colleagues at Quinnipiac, courtesy of an invitation from Charlie Pillsbury, the co-director of their Center on Dispute Resolution.  He invited me to give a talk as part of the Quinnipiac-Yale Dispute Resolution Workshop. I tested some ideas from the book I am writing with Michaela Keet and Heather … Continue reading How Can Practitioners Help Clients Assess Their Interests and Risks in Litigation?

How Can We Fix Legal System Failures to Properly Handle Sexual Offenses?

Over the past year, we have witnessed growing evidence of the massive failures of our legal system to deal properly with a rampant system in which powerful men sexually dominate others, especially women. This post describes the nature, magnitude, and consequences of a long-term history of criminal and civil sexual offenses in the US and … Continue reading How Can We Fix Legal System Failures to Properly Handle Sexual Offenses?

Serial Podcast Shows How Much You Can Learn From a Single Case

The first episode of the Serial podcast’s new season is a dramatic illustration of how much you can learn from a single case.  The case involves a young white woman who was prosecuted for her participation in a bar fight.  The Serial team are incredible storytellers, so this podcast is not “just” educational, but it … Continue reading Serial Podcast Shows How Much You Can Learn From a Single Case

Real-Life Account of Litigation Stress in Bill Cosby Case

I just wrote a post describing “litigation stress” that parties experience during litigation, noting that this can be particularly painful in some cases like those involving sexual assault allegations. Allegations of sexual assault by Judge Brett Kavanaugh have been in the news a lot lately.  While these allegations aren’t being litigated in court, the process … Continue reading Real-Life Account of Litigation Stress in Bill Cosby Case