Abstract
This Article discusses efforts to address directly the crisis in the mental health and well-being of law students by providing training in mindfulness. It describes an empirical study of three offerings of mindfulness training at a law school and reports its results in reducing law students’ stress (“calming down”) and providing other benefits, such as increased self-awareness (“waking up”) and its corollaries in various aspects of emotional, personal, and interpersonal well-being. Key findings include positive benefits in: lowering perceived stress and reactivity to triggers causing stress; increasing self-reported focus and concentration; improving the ability to reframe one’s outlook (and thus resilience); increasing self-compassion and self-acceptance (thereby taming the severe “inner critic” prevalent in many high-achieving law students and lawyers); and strengthening students’ mindfulness generally, which has been shown in research from other fields to positively affect many dimensions of health and well-being. The Article explores how these specific benefits support important lawyering skills and competencies that are needed in contemporary legal practice.
Recommended Citation
Charity Scott & Paul Verhaeghen,
Calming Down and Waking Up: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Mindfulness Training on Law Students,
21
Nev. L.J.
277
(2020).
Available at:
https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/nlj/vol21/iss1/7