Day of Empathy
Day of Empathy will take place across 50 states, and focus on uplifting stories of people impacted by the criminal justice system to encourage legislative action Continue reading
Category: Lifelong Learning
THE GEORGIA JUSTICE PROJECT — Family Restoration after Prison
by Ross Brockway of the Georgia Justice Project. Artwork by Kim Vanderheiden. Reprinted from The Conscious Lawyer magazine’s special feature of the work by members of PISLAP (Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law and Politics.) If you feel moved by this story, please support the work of the Georgia Justice Project and PISLAP, and sign up to receive The Conscious Lawyer where you’ll find many more articles inspiring and informing us to practice law with awareness and intention. Continue reading
In Addition to Protest, 10 Actions in Response to the Death of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, & Ahmaud Arbery
Some of these are things you can do on your own. Some are things that are easier if working in a group for support and dividing up tasks. 1. Contact your local leaders to insist that a community review board of police complaints be created where you live. If one already exists, how are the members selected? Is it made up of a diverse membership, not only racially but economically, and of people with diverse life experiences? Does it have enough power to sufficiently respond to a harmful occurrence? If not, discover what steps you can take to have one formed. 2. Communicate with local officials and police department to find out what training local police receive regarding sensitivity to stress and trauma, de-escalation, building community relationships, restorative justice and restorative practice techniques. 3. Push for a review of the nation’s police forces to remove officers who repeatedly exhibit racial… Continue reading
Shelter in Place without Shelter
As people in America and around the world are being told to shelter in place in response to the rapid spread of Covid-19, the unhoused remain exposed, without access to shelter, medical care, and are losing access to food and places to wash hands or shower. Some government officials have promised hotel vouchers or trailers, but they have been stalled, and are not reaching local municipalities. Some people among the unsheltered communities are frantic, others are becoming hopeless. People are very scared. In the past week, I’ve personally worked with families with children who had nowhere to go but the street (who thankfully are now being sheltered by a local non-profit), and a person with cancer who still has nowhere to go. In the past few months I’ve jumped on Nextdoor a number of times to support others in my community who were active in finding solutions for the local… Continue reading
Matthew Part IV: Compassion—a radical critique
“I am a part of all that I have met . . .” Alfred, Lord Tennyson – Ulysses, line 18 “Jesus in his solidarity with the marginal ones is moved to compassion. Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. In the arrangement of “lawfulness” in Jesus’ time, as in the ancient empire of Pharaoh, the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion. The norms of law (social control) are never accommodated to persons, but persons are accommodated to the norms. Otherwise the norms will collapse and with them the whole power arrangement. Thus the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as personal… Continue reading
The Conscious Lawyer: An Interview with Elaine Quinn, Editor
Elaine Quinn is the editor of The Conscious Lawyer, a professional magazine and website devoted to positive, socially aware developments in legal practice and thinking. Elaine has also contributed thought provoking, in-depth book reviews on this Justice Conversation website. I asked Elaine if she would be willing to share with us some of her experiences in the founding and development of her magazine. Here’s what she had to say: First, let’s give our readers a sense of what The Conscious Lawyer is. Can you describe the overall concept? In simple terms, The Conscious Lawyer is for lawyers*, (*when I use the term lawyers, I mean anyone working or studying within the field of law) that are interested in using the instrument of law for good. This is a desire to do good that arises from the realization that we are all deeply interconnected. It seems to be a shift in… Continue reading
Film Recommendation: “Healing Justice” available through World Trust Films
“As you watch this film you may experience a range of powerful emotions. Please know that you are not alone. May our thoughts and feelings create fires that ignite the gifts of learning, healing, and transformation. May we recognize and honor the depth of our inter-connectedness. May we nourish the flames that burn away hatred and fear. May we utilize these gifts to mend ourselves and our communities.” These words begin the film, “Healing Justice,” which has been recommended to us by a friend familiar with the Justice Conversation project. It is a good film for sharing with educators, law enforcement, judicial professionals, as well as non-profits. After viewing it, I also want to emphasize that it’s a good film for adults in the general public. For anyone who votes. For anyone who may at some point come into contact with our justice system. For you. I will add, though,… Continue reading
Book Review: ‘The Desire for Mutual Recognition – Social Movements and the Dissolution of the False Self’ – Peter Gabel
Contributed by Elaine Quinn, editor of The Conscious Lawyer This review first appeared in the online magazine, The Conscious Lawyer, vol IV, October 2018. You can purchase this book through Routledge Taylor & Francis Group or through your favorite bookseller. “…our original longing from birth [is] to be seen by the other in a way that fully recognizes our humanity and our longing to simultaneously affirm our recognition of the other in the same way.” (Chapter 3, page 58) Before reading any further, take a moment to sit and look at the striking portrait below. This unusual and powerful invitation is one made to the reader in the first chapter of the book. It is an invitation that perhaps experientially captures the essence of what the author wants to convey – the experience of being truly recognized by a fully present human being, of deepening into our own natural presence… Continue reading
Reimagining Justice for a Precarious World
Contributed by Mothiur Rahman of New Economy Law, a legal innovation lab based in the UK, strengthening civic resilience for precarious futures. Having been invited to give a UK briefing for the 2018 Conference for the “Project for Integrating Spirituality Law and Politics” (PISLAP), I have been reflecting on what it means to bring these 3 domains together of law, politics and spirituality. Many might associate law and politics together, but joined with spirituality? Modern notions of spirituality often see spirituality as a personal individual pursuit, separated off from the political that is social and collective by definition. Why is this the case? This separation begins to make sense when one considers that the spiritual foundations of Christianity were being settled at a time when the idea of institutions and their functions were still in their intellectual infancy. Thus it is arguable that the manner by which “spiritual authority” was… Continue reading
Book Review: Transforming Justice, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law by Marjorie A. Silver
Review by Elaine Quinn This review first appeared in the online magazine, The Conscious Lawyer, vol II, May 2017. Available through Carolina Academic Press If I had an understanding before that law needs to change and that that change is already happening, this book has helped that understanding become a conviction. The book reinforces the message that our society is undergoing a shift in consciousness from an experiential sense of innate separateness to one of innate togetherness, that scientific evidence is available to prove the validity of this shift, and that our cultural institutions – law being one of the most essential – need to join with and support this shift rather than resist and hold it back. One of the core messages in the book echoes that of ‘The Ecology of Law – Toward a Legal System in Tune with Nature and Community’. That is that legal thought needs… Continue reading