An introduction to Conscious Lawyer programming, and a little taste of (and practice with) the WebEx technology. With our Executive Director, Raquel Lazar-Paley, Esq. Register Now! Space is limited to 15 “seats” per session!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 3:30 pm Pacific / 6:30 pm Eastern

Attend an Intro session and get the following:

$5 off any workshop set

Innate Intelligence of the Body Politic, with James S. Turner
Mindful Practice: Sustainable Practice, with Stella Rabaut
Conscious Lawyer in the Trenches, with Michael McCormack

OR

$20 off the entire Law as a Healing Profession series

New initiatives and trends in the law are developing and a movement is taking root that is finding its place within the traditional legal model. These changes reflect individual and societal needs as well as the personal needs of legal professionals. Contrary to common perceptions, lawyers who are identifying and utilizing these trends effectively are engaging in careers that are profitable and personally fulfilling. Law as a Healing Profession, the inaugural lecture series of Conscious Lawyer, is an introductory course on emerging trends in the legal profession. Highly interactive webinars will be used to bring lawyers from throughout the country together to learn in a dynamic new modality.

Law as a Healing Profession will be divided into workshops which may be taken as individually or as a series. Part I will explore the underlying dynamic that is creating new trends in the law, will discuss initiatives that are creating those new trends, and will emphasize the development and application of useful tools with which practitioners may experience for themselves a successful and satisfying legal practice. Parts II through IV (currently in development) will provide a more in-depth analysis of the tools and their application, marketing and business strategies, and management of a progressive, enlightened legal practice.

Attorneys who enroll in Law as a Healing Profession will be invited to join in a series of online discussion forums and additional interactive online sessions to delve more deeply into the topics addressed in the workshops. The successes of a Conscious Lawyer or Conscious Law Firm will be highlighted on the Conscious Lawyer website each month, beginning Spring 2008.

Part I: Understanding and Integrating Emerging Trends in the Law

The ancient Greeks viewed society as a true community - the ills of one were experienced as the ills of all. Although there is no return to culture as the Greeks experienced it, emerging legal trends are finding ways of transcending and including historical and ethical ideals within the context of modern society’s emphasis on self-interest and individual rights. Join us in an exploration of the unfolding ebb and flow of legal and political energy, and engage in discussions on how the power of the law can be used to integrate polarities and create systemic balance.

Read more about James S.Turner’s two-part workshop, The Innate Intelligence of the Body Politic.

Read more about Stella Rabaut’s two-part workshop, Mindful Practice: Sustainable Practice.

Read more about Michael McCormack’s two-part workshop, Conscous Lawyer in the Trenches.

LAW AS A HEALING PROFESSION, PARTS II, III and IV

Currently in development. Please join our mailing list to receive up-to-date information about our latest course offerings.

The Body Politic is the system and framework of communities engaging in the public expression of private preferences, interests, desires and objectives. Innate Intelligence is a term most commonly used by alternative health care providers to describe the body’s ability to maintain its own health without outside interference. This inaugural presentation of the Conscious Lawyer is grounded in the assertion that there is an Innate Intelligence to the Body Politic like the innate intelligence of the physiology of the body, that allows it to maintain its own balance and resolve its own problems — and that a democratic legal system is how that innate intelligence expresses itself.

According to this analysis, there is a natural, regulating system in The Body Politic which is analogous to the healing systems inherent in the human body. When we deviate from the underlying logic of a sound system, the result is the creation of distortions and, in turn, reactions that will attempt to put the system back into balance. Using the current health care system and emerging alternatives as an example, original Nader’s Raider James S. Turner will discuss how the law serves as an expression of the self-balancing impulse in a community’s relationship with its core reality.

In this two-part presentation consisting of 90 minutes each, Mr. Turner presents his view of how the American Experiment (as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights), and the unfolding ebb and flow of American energy from the time of the Founding to the present, mirror natural health concepts. He then suggests that understanding and applying these concepts can enable lawyers to contribute to healing current social dislocations. Mr. Turner will discuss the underlying logic of this analysis and how the balancing mechanisms of the legal system work most effectively when they are congruent with the bedrock revealed by natural logic.

Mr. Turner will conclude with an introduction to the concepts of Holistic Law, Law as a Healing Profession, and Integral Law, providing guidance to lawyers who practice or who might desire to practice in these ways how to work most effectively to create sustainable, positive changes in the legal system and in society as a whole.

Cost
$75 to view the recorded archive of this 2-part workshop

Join Stella Rabaut, attorney, law professor and retreat designer, in two thought-provoking sessions that will consider the current state of the legal profession and explore conceptual and practical shifts that are occurring. In addition to competence and competition, additional abilities are essential in the modern practice of law. Specific, supplemental skills are being called for in 21^st century lawyering. These skills add to those taught, practiced and rewarded in previous decades.

In these workshops, we will explore the contemporary needs of lawyers through the following questions:

• Is being conscious a foundational requirement for effective lawyering?
• How does “emotional intelligence” factor into the practice of law?
• Is altruism possible in the practice of law? Does the practice of law call for the tempering of a caring ethic?
• As counselor-at-law, can we find ways to guide, coach and tap into the inner wisdom of our clients?
• How can a lawyer be mindful of the larger implications of their cases and the importance of sustaining connections and relationships?

These workshops will also explore the role of creativity in lawyering, whether collaboration is optional or essential in a modern law practice and whether we really have the courage to make a difference.

A fascinating set of workshops for the conscious lawyer who is striving to be more self-aware, listen deeply to their clients, and become personally fulfilled in their mindful, sustainable practice.

Cost
$75 to view the recorded archive of this 2-part workshop

More than any other part of our culture, our legal system depends on crafting a certainty or order drawn from the past. This culture - anchored in precedent, history and habit - appears to be an immovable object. Yet the accelerated rate of change in technology, science, business and social demographics is an unstoppable force requiring adaptation and novelty. How do lawyers reconcile their unique position in this dynamic?

“Conscious Lawyer in the Trenches” will explore our role as purported stewards of legal rights and responsibilities during these times of heightened creative tensions that are rippling through so many layers of culture. Join Michael McCormack, former commercial litigator turned holistic lawyer-in-the-making, in this two-part workshop which will feature honest, probing discussion of the following questions:

• What do conscious lawyers do that distinguishes or defines their practice?
• What resources does one develop and draw from as a conscious lawyer?
• How does one build and maintain a conscious law practice?
• How is conscious lawyering useful and efficient?
• How can we nurture ourselves, our clients, and our practices while working daily in a legal system that gives mere lip service to the values of conscious lawyering… without losing our shirts, or worse?

Via collaborative conversation and exercises, these workshops will explore the treasures and the tests, the tools and the traps that arise in a conscious lawyer’s practice day to day. We’ll share ideas about how to build a conscious law practice from the inside out, with the intent of making a conscious legal system more than something to believe in, but also something to experience.

Cost
$75 to view the recorded archive of this 2-part workshop