idealawg

"The Peacemaker Test: Application and Comparison"

Excerpt:

Perhaps in time legal philosophers will cease to be preoccupied with building “conceptual models” to represent legal phenomena . . . and will turn instead to an analysis of the social processes that constitute the reality of law.

The “Peacemaker Test” executes the “turn” that Lon L. Fuller, in the passage quoted above, hoped legal philosophy would take. Although the Peacemaker Test is what Fuller called a “conceptual model,” it was derived from the work of peace studies scholars who described and listed the characteristics that they observed in effective peacemakers. Because of its origin in actual dispute resolution, it is anchored in what Fuller called the “social processes that constitute the reality of law.

The test asks questions about legal rules in order to

Want to sharpen your memory? Research has shown this simple technique will help

When people have practiced Kirtan Kriya for just 12 minutes per day for 8 weeks, their memories have improved. The technique is very easy to learn, and instructions are found in several books (e.g., The Better Memory Kit) and at many places on the Internet (e.g., here or here).

An excellent description of Kirtan Kriya is found at the Alzheimer's Research & Prevention Foundation Web site. Excerpt:

This non-religious practice can be adapted to several lengths, but practicing it for just 12 minutes a day has been shown to reduce stress levels and increase activity in areas of the brain that are central to memory.

What do the words Kirtan Kriya mean?

In Sanskrit, a kirtan is a song, and kriya refers to a specific set of movements. In the Eastern tradition, kriyas are used to help bring the body, mind and emotions into balance to enable healing.

...

Is it essential to use these sounds during the meditation or can other sounds be used as a substitute?

From an Eastern perspective, it is believed that the placement of the tongue on the roof of the mouth while making these sounds stimulates 84 acupuncture points on the upper palate. This causes a beneficial bio-chemical transformation in the brain. ...
...

The Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation believes that the various parts of Kirtan Kriya are each vital to the whole, and recommends practicing it in the traditional way to fully reap the benefits of the exercise. ...

How do you practice Kirtan Kriya?

Click to read the rest.

One of the research studies of Kirtan Kriya was described at the Alzheimer's Research & Prevention Foundation Web site. Excerpt:

Life after law: She's an Edgar Award-winning crime writer who "lies for a living"

In her past, Stanford Law grad Meg Gardiner practiced law in Los Angeles. Today she's a crime writer with eight well-received novels to her credit. Unlike most Wikipedia pages I have read, hers is unusual—witty and fun. An excerpt:

Writing is her “third career,” says Gardiner. “In earlier incarnations, I practiced law in Los Angeles and taught writing at the University of California, Santa Barbara. After living in California most of my life, in the early 1990s, I moved with my family to the United Kingdom.”

It was during her freedom in those early years in the UK that she wrote her first novel, completing a task she’d set for herself a decade earlier. “I always wanted to write a novel. And it was time to put up or shut up.”

...

As the daughter of an English professor, “I was obviously in a home where books and reading and writing mattered,” Gardiner told the Santa Barbara Independent newspaper. At Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California, she reported for the Charger, the school paper, but her father urged caution to his budding writer. “He said I could write novels after college and be another novelist who waits on tables or I could become a lawyer who writes novels.” She heeded his warning, but later left the law behind and began writing. “I decided I didn’t want to argue for a living,” she said. Instead, as the title of her blog "Lying for a Living" implies, she now lies for a living.

Click to read other life-after-law stories.

Wonderful, magical, short film! Worth 11 minutes of your time

What a great way to start Sunday (or any day). This little animated film is unique and uplifting. Click to watch "The Silence Beneath the Bark."

And here is a very short documentary on the filming of "The Silence."

What do you think? When watching the film, I was entranced.

Image credit: Short of the Week.

A location-independent and Twitter-using lawyer: Her clients are Gen Y entrepreneurs

Rachel Rodgers said on Twitter that she is:

[A] biracial New Yorker living in Cali, biz lawyer to GenY entrepreneurs, caffeine addict, traveler, dreamer, blogger, etc

I have a business law practice dedicated to GenY entrepreneurs. Also have an Online Law Office that I am developing @ the mo

Most of my clients are twentysomethings w/ businesses/non-profits in a whole range of industries incl tech, film, agro, etc.

Why did she join Twitter?

to follow @carolynelefant & @scartierliebel so I could learn how to start my own practice;
Now I share resources & learn a ton from twitterville. Its an awesome little community that I love interacting with everyday

About her firm, she says at her Web site:

Spring 2011 Lawyers in Balance Seminars at Georgetown Law: Back by popular demand

From the Course Information page:

The Lawyers in Balance seminar is back by popular demand!  This non-credit seminar teaches important skills that typically are not addressed in the classroom but are highly useful in your coursework, the profession, and leading a balanced life as a student and laywer.  LIB is based on a course that hundreds of students at Georgetown Medical Center choose to take before they graduate, and it is jointly sponsored this year by the Office of the Dean of Students (ODOS), Campus Ministry, OPICS, and CLE.

In groups of ten, and led by experienced Law Center administrator-facilitators, students in LIB will learn a range of stress reducing "mind-body" techniques, including meditation, journaling, reflective discussion, guided imagery, and the like.

For similar programs and activities offered by other law schools, click on contemplativelawstudents.com. If you know of others that should be added to the list, please e-mail me.

Note: Photos from a reunion held in 2009, of some alums of the Lawyers in Balance program. I wonder what they are now doing professionally?

Image credit: Georgetown Law.

"Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density"

Abstract:

Therapeutic interventions that incorporate training in mindfulness meditation have become increasingly popular, but to date little is known about neural mechanisms associated with these interventions. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), one of the most widely used mindfulness training programs, has been reported to produce positive effects on psychological well-being and to ameliorate symptoms of a number of disorders. Here, we report a controlled longitudinal study to investigate pre–post changes in brain gray matter concentration attributable to participation in an MBSR program. Anatomical magnetic resonance (MR) images from 16 healthy, meditation-naïve participants were obtained before and after they underwent the 8-week program. Changes in gray matter concentration were investigated using voxel-based morphometry, and compared with a waiting list control group of 17 individuals. Analyses in a priori regions of interest confirmed increases in gray matter concentration within the left hippocampus. Whole brain analyses identified increases in the posterior cingulate cortex, the temporo-parietal junction, and the

A "blessed replacement" to Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style"

Not long after I took my first writing seminar from law and English professor George Gopen, my copy of The Elements of Style landed in my wastebasket. Over the years, I took more of Gopen's workshops on writing, and we became friends. Four years ago, I interviewed him here on idealawg. From that interview:

Almost all the advice we got from our writing teachers is wrong:

“Avoid the passive.”  Wrong.

“To make it better, make it shorter.”  Wrong.

“Write the way you speak.” Wrong.

“Vary the way you begin your sentences to keep

Life after law: "Driven to comedy by law school"

Not sure if comic Heather Gold ever practiced law, but she did earn a JD at Northwestern in 1995. I learned of her on Facebook in a posting by Nancy White about Bringing Unpresenting to Seattle in April 2011. I must confess I don't understand from the Internet exactly what the "unpresenting" concept is. From the Seattle event registration page:

You'll learn the emotional mechanics that let you create quick intimacy. Go from talking TO a large group of people to talking WITH them. You already know how to have a great conversation with one person. Learn how to transform your presentations into conversations. Learn how to read the room and transform your presentations into conversations.  You'll prepare and lead a conversation with personal guidance from Heather. NO bullet points. NO slides. Just the greatness in you and the "audience."

Know more? Let me hear from you.

Minnesota's 13th Annual ADR Institute on Friday, October 29, includes book discussions

With the number of states and organizations offering conferences on alternative dispute resolution, the challenge for a presenting entity is coming up with programming that is both fresh and useful. I see a couple of offerings at the MN 13th Annual ADR Institute that appear to have the potential of being, as these conferences go, out of the ordinary.

From the conference brochure [pdf]: