Best Practices for Legal Education

I’ve been a devotee of Parker Palmer ever since I read The Courage to Teach.[1]  I often think of his statement: “We Teach Who We Are.”[2]   In January, David Brooks, Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, echoed a similar sentiment.  Brooks’ piece, entitled Students Learn from People They Love,[3] told of how a class he taught at Yale softened around him after he had to cancel office hours a few years ago, having shared with his students that he “was dealing with some personal issues and a friend was coming up to help me sort through them.”  Recognizing something that many of us have long known, Brooks drew the connection between emotional relationships and learning.  Thus his Palmer-like statement: “[W]hat teachers really teach is themselves—their contagious passion for their subjects and students.”[4]

But we teachers are much more than our passion for our subjects and our students. We are human beings who bring into our teaching the accumulation of all the innate and environmental influences and experiences of our entire lives.  While these influences implicitly affect how we teach, each of us strikes a balance of how much of the personal we explicitly bring into our interactions with students, both in the classroom and outside.  My tendency is to share a great deal about myself, to share my personal stories.

I am an advocate of holistic lawyering, of the essentiality of understanding that a client comes into a lawyer’s office with a host of needs, only some of which are legal.  The lawyers I regard as most effective, the ones I most admire, are those who recognize their clients’ multiplicity of extra-legal challenges and, where appropriate, address them, if only by suggesting or referring to other professionals.

In writing this blog entry, I came to realize that I might appropriately call myself a holistic teacher. I’m not only committed to teaching my students the knowledge, skills, and values of the profession they are studying to enter.  I care about how they will bring their entire beings into their careers.  All of their signature strengths as well as their challenges.  If they are struggling in any part of their lives, it will likely bleed into their performance as students and, ultimately, left unaddressed, into their careers as lawyers.

I teach a general civil externship seminar.  I have the luxury of inviting my students to focus on key aspects of successful lawyering generally taught, if at all, only in clinics and externships.  These include, above all, the people skills so essential to effective lawyering:  communication; cultural competence; emotional intelligence; self-care; and finding realistic and healthy balance among work, family, friends, and self.

A joke I tell about myself and often share with students in distress is if a student comes into my office complaining of a hangnail, I recommend talk therapy, because it has been so helpful in my own life.  I have long been open about my history of episodic clinical depression, and have shared it with students and others struggling with their own mental demons.[5]   Sometimes, however, I wonder if I risk crossing the line between teacher and therapist.

Here’s a recent example.  I have been working on a pro bono case with a student now in her last semester.  We’ll call her Susan; not her real name.  Several times Susan had promised to get me a draft of a letter to a Congressperson for my review by a certain date and had not done so.  I had told her that I understood she had a lot else on her plate, and just to send me an email if she wasn’t able to get it to me by the date she had promised.  A week or so ago, she assured me that wouldn’t be necessary; she would absolutely get it to me by the end of the following weekend.  That didn’t happen.  Last week Susan and I were talking after a lunch hour program about her upcoming interview for post-bar exam employment at a firm with which she was currently externing.  It was an encouraging and upbeat conversation.  At the end, I gently mentioned that I had neither received the draft letter or an email explaining she was unable to get to it.   She confessed that she had begun to draft the email, but was just too anxious to finish it.  Apparently, this was not an isolated instance; she has long been plagued by anxiety.  A deeper conversation ensued about the importance of being in communication for the career she was entering.  I mentioned something I often said to students, that they wouldn’t have gotten as far as they had if they didn’t have an awful lot going for them.  But if something wasn’t working and they were unable to fix it on their own, there was no shame in seeking professional help.  Susan shared that she knew this, and also that she had stopped going to therapy several years ago when her therapist had suggested she might benefit from anti-anxiety medication.  Susan was and is adamantly opposed to psychiatric medication.  I stressed the importance of not burying her head in the sand, that the choice of whether to take medication would be her own but that not doing anything to solve a seemingly intractable problem was not a rational choice.  I reminded her of my own mental health history.  She later wrote, thanking me for the advice.

I write all of this with admitted ambivalence.  I even question whether it belongs in the “Best Practices” Blog.  For I struggle with my tendency to so readily recommend therapy to my students.

There are times when crafting my journal prompts, I have to remind myself to relate them to my students’ lives as externs and the lawyers they are becoming.  An example, from our exploration of Emotional Intelligence:

1. Reflect on how well you think you know yourself, your MO (modus operandi). For example, are you aware of what your immediate response is to an upsetting or difficult situation?  Are there automatic responses you have that you would like to change?  Specifically, do any of these responses tend to create problems for you professionally, to keep you from being the law student or lawyer you most want to be? If so, what steps can you take to change them?

and another based on the chapter I contributed to Learning from Practice,[6] on Work and Well-being:

2. Considering chapter 25 and our class discussion on Monday, reflect on what, if any, habits or practices you have developed in law school that detract from your sense of well-being. What, if any, habits or practices contribute positively to your sense of well-being?  What if anything might you change to improve your well-being, now and going forward?

Is it good practice to probe so personally into my students’ inner lives?  Is it sufficient that I offer them the option of writing about something less personal?  Although I may have doubts, I find that these prompts often elicit some of the most thoughtful reflections of any my students write.  Self-awareness, like awareness of others’ emotional contexts, is so critically important to being an effective lawyer.  Where in the curriculum can we explore this if not in experiential courses and, specifically, in journals?  Here’s a recent example from one of my student’s journal responding to this prompt:

One habit developed during law school that detracts from my well-being is that I have stopped going to the gym and eating healthy. I was always very into fitness and living a healthy lifestyle….  The time constraints of law school and working fulltime have forced me to essentially eliminate this from my life. . . .  My physical health and body image definitely play an important role in my mental health.  In the future, I think it will be important for me to carve out time to keep this part of my life….

I value the importance of introducing my students to positive psychology[7] and mindfulness practices, both empirically demonstrated to provide a plethora of benefits.[8]  For more than ten years, I have had a regular morning meditation practice which has been hugely beneficial in my own life and work.  For many years I have introduced my students to mindfulness meditation in the first class of the semester.  I usually show a wonderfully accessible twelve-minute video of Anderson Cooper’s introduction to meditation at a weekend silent retreat with Jon Kabat Zinn.  For even longer than that, I have begun each of my classes with two minutes of what I have come to call “settling in,” accompanied by an introduction, and invitation, to mindful breathing.  Some students find it to be an invaluable tool for settling their minds and reducing their anxiety, in and out of class.  Many others are agreeable to practicing it in class, but not inspired to try it elsewhere.  Still others find it to be a hippy-dippy waste of time.  I know it alienates some students, but that’s a cost I deem worth it for the possibly life-long benefits it provides for others.

I consciously model vulnerability, fallibility, and taking responsibility for messing up.  I admit my MO—being a scold.  I am naturally impatient with students who haven’t lived up to their responsibilities, who haven’t exhibited the professionalism becoming a lawyer requires.  I work hard at not acting out of my “default position.”  Too often, I fail.  Even if I say nothing, it shows on my non-poker face.  To put it mildly, this does not improve the climate in the classroom.   Here’s an example from this semester of failing and recovering:

I have the smallest seminar I have ever had: only five students.  We meet on Mondays, late afternoon.  On a Tuesday that was a “legislative” Monday[10] following Presidents’ Day weekend, only three students showed up.  The absent students hadn’t notified me. The following Monday, three students showed up.  One of the absent students had let me know that she had a stomach flu; I heard nothing from the other.

The assignment for that particular class was to prepare for partnered simulations based on the ethical dilemma hypotheticals in chapters 10 and 11 of Learning from Practice.[11]  The instructions I sent with the assignment right after the prior class, in bolded text, instructed the students to do two things:  1) coordinate with their simulation partner in advance and 2) notify me if they weren’t going to be in class so that I could make alternative assignments.  Of the three students who showed up, only one had read all of the assigned pages, and none had communicated with their partners about the simulations.

I did my best not to blow up but I was practically ready to end class then and there.  Instead, I took a deep breath, gave them a few minutes to read the hypotheticals, and left the classroom for a few minutes to cool down.  When I returned, we discussed the scenarios, rather than acting them out.  It was the best I could think to do at the time, and the discussion was sufficient to get us through the remainder of class.  It probably goes without saying that it was not a great class.

My true recovery actually occurred the following day when, having sufficient distance in time and place, I drafted, edited and emailed the class a missive I titled “IMPORTANT.”  After reciting the concerning events of the previous two classes, I added:

I appreciate that you are all juggling multiple responsibilities and substantial workloads.  This is training for careers as lawyers.  You are in the process of developing your professional identities.  I am committed to supporting you in that process.

Your professional training to become lawyers requires you to be accountable and in communication.  If you need to miss a class for which you have been assigned a particular role or task, you should inform your professor and any affected classmates in advance, or, if not possible, as soon as you can.

…

Law school generally, and the externship and clinical programs in particular, serve as a laboratory for developing the professionalism habits you will need for your future careers.  Towards that end, I … have attached … a Professionalism rubric[12]… .  I ask all of you, as you prepare your mid-semester self-evaluation to rate yourself on this rubric and see where you need and want to improve.  I will ask you to do the same at the end of the semester.  It’s up to you whether you want to share your rubric with me.

We are a very small group.  That has advantages and disadvantages, the latter having been evident for the past two classes.  We all need to work hard to live up to our obligations in order to maximize this learning experience for you.

I am posting the above on the Discussion forum and invite replies.  Or contact me privately and/or anonymously.

I’m committed to your success and know that you are, too.

No one took me up on the offer to post on the Discussion forum, nor to contact me otherwise.  Nonetheless, at the following class, all five students were present, thoroughly prepared for the simulations, and completely engaged.  It was a terrific class thanks to the work they put into it.

* * *

I have never been a trial lawyer or practiced law in a private firm.  I don’t have much in the way of war stories relevant to my externs’ placement experiences.  But I do have stories gleaned from seven decades of lived experience.  I have wisdom gained from pursuing my three major life passions:  One, to write and speak about more healing, relational and non-adversarial methods of achieving justice, resolving conflict, and ordering legal affairs.  Two, to decrease the shame and stigma around mental illness, having suffered six episodes of major clinical depression over the past forty-four years.  And three, to help my students envision and strive for careers that will make them excited and happy to get out of bed every morning.  I have been blessed with a career that has enabled me to pursue all three.

When I look back on my more than 36 years of teaching, I see that I have lived them holistically.  My work has been almost seamlessly integrated into the rest of my life, not separate and apart.  In both I have experienced the full gamut of emotions: joy, sadness, frustration, contentment—but never boredom.

We teach who we are.

[1] Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (1st ed., 1998).

[2] Id. at 1.

[3] David Brooks, Students Learn from People They Love, New York Times, Op Ed 1/17/19.

[4] Id.

[5] See, e.g., Marjorie A. Silver, Healing Classrooms, in Transforming Justice, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law 264-65 (Marjorie A. Silver, ed., 2017);  Marjorie A. Silver, A Transformational Melancholy: One Law Professor’s Journey Through Depression, https://ssrn.com/abstract=1908992 (2011).

[6] Marjorie A. Silver, Chap. 25: Work and Well-Being 699-724 in Learning from Practice (Wortham, et al. eds., 3rd ed. 2016).

[7] Id.at 700-05.

[8] See, e.g., Shailini Jandial George, The Cure for the Distracted Mind: Why Law Schools Should Teach Mindfulness, 53 Duq. L. Rev. 215 (2015).

[9] omitted.

[10] This is Touro’s term for following a particular day’s schedule on a different day of the week.

[11] Lisa G. Lerman & Lisa V. Martin, Ch.10: Ethical Issues in Externships: An Introduction 261-78; Alexis Anderson, Ch. 11: Ethical Issues in Confidentiality  279-93 in Learning from Practice (Wortham, et al. eds., 3rd ed. 2016).

[12] See https://www.stthomas.edu/media/hollorancenter/pdf/FINALProfessionalismRubricMarch2019.pdf.

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This past June, I had the pleasure of participating in the Integrating Positive Psychology into Legal Education conference at Suffolk Law School, organized by Professor Lisle Baker.[1] Each of the twenty or so participants in the conference were tasked with preparing a two-page “Advisory” as well as a nine-minute presentation, designed to improve student well-being.  I chose to write and present on Overcoming Procrastination.

In her terrific MOOC, Learning How to Learn,[2] and companion book, A Mind for Numbers,[3] Barbara Oakley shares a powerful technique for overcoming procrastination: the Pomodoro Technique, invented by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s.[4]  Cirillo used a kitchen timer, shaped like a tomato, thus its name.  The technique is simple:

• If you find yourself avoiding work you should be doing, commit to spending 25 minutes working as intensely as possible on that assignment or project.
• Use a kitchen timer or app on your phone to time yourself.
• Before you begin the work, however, think of some reward (Ice cream? Web surfing? A walk in the park?) you will give yourself when the 25 minutes are up.
• And even if at the end of the 25 minutes you want to keep going—stop and give yourself that reward!

Oakley explains that when human beings are faced with assignments, projects, tasks that they aren’t intrinsically motivated to complete (like your students’ Contracts reading, or your tenure article, perhaps?), the pain center in our brain lights up.[5]  So we put off the task because few of us enjoy pain.  Instead, we look to do something that gives us pleasure.  Once we actually sit down and focus on the dreaded task, however, the pain often disappears.  As one expert has noted, “The dread of doing a task uses up more time and energy than doing the task itself.”[6]

And even if the task remains unpleasant, almost any of us can suffer for twenty-five minutes.  And then there’s the dish of ice cream, a walk in the park, or ten to fifteen minutes of guilt-free web-surfing!  Just anticipating that reward helps ease our suffering.

Furthermore, brief study sessions followed by a break improve our students’ learning and fix what they are focused on into their long-term memory, as it allows time for whatever they are studying to “sink in,” so that when they return to task, refreshed, they find they understand the material better than when they left it. That’s because breaks from task allow our brains to process what we are learning, or work on solving a complex problem, while we are focused on something else.[7]

Oakley, who readily admits to being a first-class procrastinator, says that science doesn’t yet know exactly why 25-minute increments work so well, but it is widely found that they do. But she offers certain caveats, useful to those of us among us who procrastinate, as well as our students.  First, sometimes it may make more sense to use somewhat longer periods of time, depending on the task.  Oakley also admits that if she finds herself in a state of flow[8] she may keep going, deferring her reward.[9]  She posits that it takes about 20 minutes for the anticipatory pain to dissipate, so by the time you are in the last five minutes, you may well find yourself in that rewarding flow state.[10]

Oakley emphasizes that one needs to stay focused on the time, not on the task.  By doing so, one can proceed more deliberately, and thus produce better results.[11]

The Pomodoro technique is widely used, with variations in its application.  In an excellent seven-minute video, Thomas Frank offers good, practical suggestions, such as keeping a list of whatever distractions come into our mind while we are in our Pomodoro session.  This moves the distractions from our mind to paper, thus facilitating our return to task.[12]

In a very entertaining 14-minute TED talk, blogger Tim Urban, a self-proclaimed master procrastinator, argues that leaving things to the last minute generally isn’t a problem for him when he has a deadline, but it definitely is when there is none.  Thus, it can be a major problem in achieving one’s long-term or life goals.  Nor does Urban suggest that he does his best work when he leaves it to the last minute, which he demonstrates with great humor.  If you decide to try the Pomodoro technique yourself, I recommend checking out Urban’s talk as your reward after working your intensive 25 minutes![13]

[1] R. Lisle Baker, Suffolk Law School in Boston, https://www.suffolk.edu/law/faculty/Lisle_Baker.php.

[2] Barbara Oakley, Learning how to Learn, https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/lecture/Dci3o/a-procrastination-preview.

[3] Barbara Oakley, A Mind For Numbers (2014).  This book is useful for anyone interested in how the brain learns, retains, and retrieves information, whether you ever have the need to solve a complicated math problem.  It was one of two books on the science of learning our then new Dean, Harry Ballan, gifted to members of the faculty in December 2016; the other was Peter C. Brown, Make it Stick (2014).

[4] Francesco Cirillo, The Pomodoro Technique, Work Smarter, not Harder https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique.

[5] Not a literal pain center, but we feel discomfort, and our primitive brain (our amygdala) seeks to avoid that discomfort.

[6] Oakley, supra note 3, at 85 (quoting Rita Emmett).

[7] To understand how and why that happens, and for many other excellent tips on improving learning, I heartily recommend Professor Oakley’s free Coursera MOOC and/or book.  See Oakley, Learning how to Learn, supra note 2; Oakley, A Mind for Numbers, supra note 3.  See also Pam Armstrong’s May 15, 2018 blog post on this site, Mixing It Up: Interweaving Lecture/Lesson and Retrieval Practice for Better Test Results.

[8] Barbara Oakley, Brain Training to Beat Procrastination with the World’s Easiest Learning Technique, The Big Think, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTQDaUQ9MAU (3 ½ minutes).

[9] Researchers at MIT have determined that studying in blocks of one hour—50 minutes of study with a ten-minute break is optimal for effective focus and learning.  Effective Breaks, Study Tips, http://uaap.mit.edu/tutoring-support/study-tips/tooling-and-studying/tooling-and-studying-effective-breaks.

[10] Oakley, supra note 8.

[11] Here there might be some disagreement between Oakley and the technique’s founder, Francesco Cirillo.  Cirillo does focus on the end product, and his steps include calculating how many Pomodoros one will need to accomplish a task, presumably by a set deadline.  See Cirillo, supra note 4.

[12] Frank notes that procrastination operates differently for different people.  For him, it’s only a problem getting started.  The Pomodoro technique helps him get over that hump.  Thomas Frank, How to Stop Procrastinating: The Pomodoro Technique, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0k0TQfZGSc.

[13] Tim Urban, Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arj7oStGLkU.

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In his August 21, 2017 blog, John Lande offered cogent observations about the new report of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change.  Noting the substantial stress that both law students and lawyers experience and the evidence that this stress contributes to the high incidence of substance abuse and mental illness among both groups, John opined that addressing the symptoms of these problems without taking on their causes was insufficient: in order to prevent these problems from arising, both the law school and the practice of law require cultural change.  I agree, although my interest in work towards such a shift has taken a different direction.  John quotes from the report: “Our legal system is adversarial—it’s rooted in conflict.”    Of course, conflict is inevitable.  But is an adversarial legal system inevitable?  I suggest that adversarialism need not remain its dominant paradigm.

This cultural transformation has been incubating in a growing segment of the profession and the academy for at least the past three decades.  Examples include Collaborative Law, Restorative Justice, Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Integrative law, and Humanizing Legal Education, among other developments in the law, seeking healthier, happier paths to achieve justice and practice law.  By introducing law students as well as lawyers to more healing, relational and therapeutic ways to be a lawyer, resolve conflicts and achieve justice, we can increase the chances that they will choose careers more consistent with balance and well-being—for themselves and for their clients.

Humanizing Legal Education

At the end of the last century, propelled by the energy and commitment of Professor Lawrence Krieger[1] from Florida State University, whose work is likely well known to the readers of this forum, a group of law professors forged an online Humanizing Legal Education (HLE) community.  In 2009, that community achieved permanent status in the American Association of Law Schools (AALS), becoming the Balance in Legal Education (Balance) section.  A primary goal of HLE and the Balance section is the enhancement of student well-being.  Many law professors, not only around the country but around the world, have been reforming how they teach to compassionately support their students in constructively managing the inevitable stress of legal education.  This is what Healing Classrooms, the chapter I contributed to the recently published book, Transforming Justice, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law, is about.[2]

Healing Classrooms, the reader may already have noticed, is a double entendre, one that deliberately captures two modalities for humanizing legal education generally and teaching transformation in particular.  Examples of atypical courses discussed elsewhere in Transforming Practices include Susan Brooks’ Communicating for Success, Victor Goode’s Contemplative Practice, Rhonda Magee’s Introduction to Race Law and my seminar Transforming Justice and Lawyering (né New Paradigms in Law and Lawyering), discussed below.  These are courses outside the mainstream curriculum, focusing on skills, values, and content to support alternative approaches to practicing law and achieving justice.  The former, and by far the most common, are those that, while part of the mainstream curriculum, are taught by faculty attuned to and concerned with the emotional well-being of their students and the lawyers they will become.  These teachers proactively, consciously endeavor to humanize all the classes they teach.  They approach legal education holistically.  Much as integrative lawyers relate to their clients as whole persons, not just legal issues or “files,” these teachers regard their students as individuals, each of whom brings to the classroom her unique set of experiences, challenges, joys and sorrows.  They deliver traditional academic content informed by best practices in teaching and learning theory, including nonjudgmental compassion.  Their classrooms serve as antidotes to the too often toxic effects of traditional legal education.

Faculty I have encountered who fall into either or both categories are too many to mention, but Appendix A in Transforming Justice highlights the course offerings of many who have inspired me in my journey as a teacher.  Appendix B, also undeniably incomplete, includes the names of many others who are dedicated to humanizing their classrooms and supporting the healthy development of their students.  There is no doubt that their legions will grow, as the Legal Academy, much like society as a whole, accepts the indisputable connection between the well-being of its graduates and the fulfillment of its mission to educate lawyers as part of a helping profession.  Our students are much the better for these efforts.

Humanizing the Profession

In the spring of 2015 I began to teach a dedicated seminar with an experiential component, Transforming Justice and Lawyering.  The course serves as an overview of the Integrative Law Movement.[3]  Students learn about collaborative law, restorative justice, treatment-based (problem-solving) courts, transformative mediation, and other approaches to practicing law, resolving controversies and administering criminal justice outside of the traditional adversarial paradigms, in ways that aspire to enhance the well-being of participants and engender relational and healing outcomes in matters that might otherwise end up in acrimonious or punitive litigation.  Students spend an average of four to five hours per week in one or more of these settings, learning from those who are solution-oriented judges and lawyers practicing in these transformative paradigms.  In addition, students learn about mindfulness, emotional competence, and effective communication, all of which help students develop both self-awareness and awareness of others.  The course also emphasizes the importance of self-care, health, and well-being to the sustainable practice of law.

Transforming Justice and Lawyering offers students the choice to be different kinds of lawyers—lawyers who can enhance their clients’ well-being and their own.  Lawyers who can contribute to address the brokenness of justice-involved persons through appropriate resources and treatment, rather than incarceration.  And the students meet lawyers and judges who have enriched their own lives as well as those they represent, supervise, or serve through work that they love.  Whether these students ultimately seek employment in these settings or not, they are able to experience that there are many ways to be a lawyer, and many ways to find joy and satisfaction in the practice of law.  By introducing them to a number of humanistic innovations in processes and settings designed to achieve justice and resolve disputes, they are better able to critically examine how well the adversarial system of justice and traditional law practice succeed, or fail to succeed, in enhancing the well-being of all stakeholders.

However, it doesn’t require a dedicated course to expose students to these alternative practices.  In both my Professional Responsibility course and Civil Externship seminar, I spend some time exploring the range of careers and settings available to those with a law license, and make sure to discuss these practices as well.[4]

For example, I have included restorative and collaborative practices in the ADR segment of my Civil Dispute Resolution and Procedure course. Criminal Law and Procedure professors might introduce Restorative Practices and Treatment (Problem-solving) Courts in their courses, and compare the potential for therapeutic outcomes for participants in such processes with the punitive, retributive nature of our criminal justice system.  As restorative justice is increasingly used as an alternative to suspension in elementary and secondary schools, those who teach courses on Juvenile Justice and Education Law might incorporate coverage of such practices.   Family Law courses could contrast the benefits and drawbacks of the collaborative process with divorce litigation.  By learning about alternative roles focused on practicing law as a helping, healing profession, law students are able to expand their conceptions of the professionals they might become and envision increased possibilities for being healthy and happy in their chosen profession.

Changing legal culture is an evolutionary process.  As J. Kim Wright’s new book, Lawyers as Changemakers[5] documents, the Integrative Law Movement is spreading throughout the world.  Perhaps it will never become the dominant paradigm in the United States, but those of us who might like to see a kinder, healthier legal culture, have an obligation to introduce our students to these possibilities as part of their legal education.

[1] The empirical research conducted by Larry, and his colleague and collaborator, Ken Sheldon, has likely done more to identify and address the causes of law school distress than any other work.  See Lawrence S. Krieger & Kennon M. Sheldon, Ph.D., What Makes Lawyers Happy? Transcending the Anecdotes with Data from 6200 Lawyers, 83 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 554 (2015); Kennon M. Sheldon & Lawrence S. Krieger, Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students: A Longitudinal Test of Self-determination Theory, 33 Personality Soc. Psychol. Bull. 883 (2007); Kennon M. Sheldon & Lawrence S. Krieger, Does Legal Education Have Undermining Effects on Law Students? Evaluating Changes in Motivation, Values, and Well-Being, 22 Behav. Sci. Law 261 (2004).

[2] In my recently published book, Transforming Justice, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law (Marjorie A. Silver, ed. 2017), I have described some of these methods.  See ch. 9, Healing Classrooms 251-98.  Most of the remainder of this blog is adapted from that chapter.  Footnotes omitted.

[3] See infra, note 5 and accompanying text.

[4] The chapter I contributed to the text for externship programs, Learning from Practice, ch. 25, Work and Well-Being, includes a segment on the Integrative Law Movement.  Learning from Practice: A Text for Experiential Legal Educations 714-16 (Wortham, et al. eds., 3rd ed. 2016).

[5] J. Kim Wright, Lawyers as Changemakers:  The Global Integrative Law Movement (2016)

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