In terms of legal disputes, clients appear to have the greatest psychological difficulty dealing with divorce and custody proceedings. This is of little surprise when one views these situations in the more holistic context of the individual’s adopted self-concept. Divorce and custody proceedings upset a wide range of the most central roles of individuals in

I have commented to others during the past week on the lack of personal connection I have felt toward the situation in Boston despite having grown up around there, and having gone to school and lived in Boston for several years. Just last October, my Wife and I had dinner with a childhood friend of

Few life situations present as much challenge in a legal context as divorce involving young children. Along with innate drives to nurture and care for our children are entrenched self-concepts built around identities a a parent, a wife, a husband, etc., that become threatened. All of this takes place while spouses try to deal with

As a species we are far from the fastest or the strongest. Our senses of sight and hearing lag far behind many other species. Humans have survived largely as a result of a highly effective abilities to scan their physical environment for danger, analyze and process this information, and devise solutions to overcome perceived threats.

For centuries, the function of attorneys in American society has been primarily defined by an ethical obligation to zealously represent clients within proscribed evidentiary and procedural guidelines aimed at eliciting “truth” and, ultimately, some ephemeral notion of “justice.” The more broad notion that attorneys should work towards the overall betterment of society has been subordinated

Inherent in contemporary American jurisprudence is the notion of ultimate judgment. By its nature, our adversarial system ultimately adjudges one party “right,” and the other party “wrong,” or some variation on that theme. In contrast, mindfulness emphasizes the importance of letting go of the judging and comparing mind in favor of a non-dualistic connection to

The mindful law practice emphasizes the unique core of each individual client that lies beyond his or her “problematic” legal issues. In cultivating mindful attention on present-moment experience, clients come to face concerns which are typically future-focused, often manifesting themselves in the emotion of fear. This clash between present-moment awareness and projected future concerns, however,

In cultivating a heightened ability to dis-identify from conditioned thought and judgment and more meaningfully attend to present-moment experience, one can begin to sense the richness of life and the interconnectedness we share with all living beings. This felt sense of interconnectedness is a precursor of compassion towards all living things. In the context of

Most civil litigation whether divorce, employment, business-related, etc., involves at its core a claim by one party that the opposing party failed to conform his/her/its behavior to a certain expected standard of the aggrieved party. Since so much civil litigation involves parties with some preexisting level of familiarity with opposing parties, there is usually some

A casual analysis seems to reveal a correlation between unhappiness and legal difficulties. What is confounding, of course, is whether legal problems cause people to suffer and feel unhappy, or whether unhappy people are more prone to poor decision-making that ultimately results in legal conflict. Though this correlation – to some extent – likely runs