Lawyering from the Inside Out
Learning Professional Development through Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence

Through mindfulness and emotional intelligence, lawyers can improve focus, productivity, interpersonal skills, and find greater meaning in life.

Nathalie Martin (Author)

9781107147478, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 June 2018

278 pages, 28 b/w illus.
23.6 x 15.6 x 2 cm, 0.52 kg

'Just as the legal profession is finally appreciating the importance of non-cognitive skills that are not typically taught in law school classrooms, Nathalie Martin's wonderful new book arrives to lay a foundation for those essential skills. This book is a must-read for every lawyer and should be a part of every law school curriculum. Better still, read this book before you go to law school, and you will have a big head start in your legal education.' Todd D. Peterson, George Washington School of Law

Law is a varied, powerful, and highly rewarding profession. Studies show, however, that lawyers have higher rates of alcoholism, divorce, and even suicide than the general population. Stress creates these poor outcomes, including the stress of dealing with other people's problems all day, the stress of spending excessive amounts of time at work, and the stress of being disconnected to what is most meaningful in life. Through mindfulness and emotional intelligence training, lawyers can improve focus, get more work done in less time, improve their interpersonal skills, and seek and find work that will make their lives more meaningful. This book is designed to help law students and lawyers of all experience levels find a sustainable and meaningful life in the field of law. This book includes journaling and other interactive exercises that can help lawyers find peace, focus, meaning, and happiness over a lifetime of practicing law.

Introduction
Part I. Nurturing Your Best Self: 1. Gaining self-awareness
2. Introduction to mindfulness
3. Managing energy, time, and physical space for happy and healthy efficiency
4. The lawyer in society: popular culture images of lawyers and your self image
5. Lawyer skill sets: what we have, what we need
6. Building your professional identity
7. Lawyer resilience
8. Mindfulness theory and practice
Part II. You and Others Around You: 9. Emotional intelligence basics: theory and practice
10. Advanced emotional intelligence
11. Emotional intelligence on the page: the writer's life
12. Giving and receiving feedback
13. Empathy
14. Cross-cultural lawyering
15. Making mindful, client-centered decisions
Part III. You and Society: Finding Greater Purpose: 16. Purpose, creativity, happiness, and the practice of law
17. Responsibility to society, professional identity, and access to justice
18. Gratitude.

Subject Areas: Legal skills & practice [LAS], Law [L], Social, group or collective psychology [JMH]