The Conscious Lawyer

Here is an excerpt from an interview with J. Kim Wright, Integrative Law Movement.
The Conscious Lawyer 
​VISION FOR LAW IN 2050“The seeds of the late 1990s and early 2000s have flourished. We are grateful to our pioneers and trailblazers who held this vision and brought it to fruition.
Lawyers are now recognized for our true purpose: peacemaking, problem-solving and healing the wounds of the community. Trials are rare and civil. Collaboration, prevention, and transformation are the lawyers’ stock in trade. We create sustainable agreements and resolutions.
Lawmakers serve, conscious of all the stakeholders, and of our interconnectedness with Nature and each other. They work on common goals and values to benefit everyone.
Law enforcement focuses on Right Relationships, working in partnership with the community to foster strong, empowered and safe communities.
Judges are wise leaders who help to balance competing values, hold everyone accountable, and deliver fair results with love, compassion and empathy.
Prisons are a part of our past. Now we focus on rehabilitation, healing, and reconnection for all members of society. Criminal behavior is seen as a symptom of brokenness that needs to be healed.
Law students still learn the focused, analytical thinking that is known as thinking like a lawyer. Now they are also trained in holistic thinking. Art is part of the balanced core curriculum.
Our history of restorative practices and nonviolent communication in schools has helped to produce citizens who tell their truths, take responsibility and accept accountability.
The Legal System Works for Everyone.”​
Our history of restorative practices and nonviolent communication in schools has helped to produce citizens who tell their truths, take responsibility and accept accountability.
The Legal System Works for Everyone.”
J. Kim Wright is a US lawyer and a founding pioneer of the expanding Integrative Law Movement, a movement that can be described in many ways including, in Kim’s own words: “an international movement that responds to the challenges of law practice with creative, innovative solutions. It blends the human and the analytical. The approach spans personal and systemic change. Integrative lawyers are purpose-oriented, that is, they have a clear sense of their own purpose and the purpose of law; they have a broader view of their roles as lawyers, often seeing themselves as change agents; and they are innovative, looking for ways to serve clients and themselves.”
She herself usually answers the question of what Integrative Law is using the poem of ‘The Blind Men and the Elephant’ given the concept is not easily defined or captured in words. These creative tools also invite a sensory, as well as intellectual, understanding of the concept, something which would be encouraged by lawyers within the movement.
What, for you, is the main difficulty with today’s mainstream legal system?I think one of the issues is that people are considered commodities. Clients are sources of money and lawyers are not sources of conflict-resolution but rather people come to lawyers so that they can “beat somebody up”. And so, in both cases, the process is not about resolving conflict, peace-making, healing or getting beyond something. It is not about creation, it is not about love. If it was about all of those things the practice would be designed differently and society would be designed differently, And it is one of the reasons that I am so interested in transforming the practice of law because it is that kind of design, those kinds of values, that I want to promote.
It can be challenging to sustain these beautiful visions when faced with the reality of the problems we see everywhere in the world. Where do you turn for sustenance and courage?I am constantly inspired by the people that I meet and their courage in stepping out and being different when it looks like they are all alone. That sustains me a lot as well as being part of a community that is still able to be idealistic. I am almost 59 years old and I am supposed to be jaded and cynical and, for goodness sake, I am a lawyer! All lawyers are cynical right? But no, I am not, I really am constantly inspired. I am inspired that you created this magazine, you listened to what you were called to do. And I am inspired that I am having dinner this evening with a lawyer who has gone to India to do yoga training. She was looking for what to do next and she got the call to go to India. The people in my community and the people I meet on my travels are just magical, the greatest tribe. And that is the main thing. Travel is my spiritual practice because it brings me in touch with, not only these people, but the synchronicities of the world.

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