THEORISTS AND JURISTS SERIES
Charles Halpern, September 25, 2009, 2:00 – 4:00 pm
“Effective and Sustainable Law Practice: the Meditative Perspective”

The University at Buffalo Law School
Room 106, O'Brian Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260

Sponsored by the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy
Reception in the Baldy Center conference room to follow.

Video of the event will also be streamed live on the Baldy Center Ustream channel.

During the past decade a number of lawyers, judges and law professors have begun to explore the relevance of meditation and other contemplative practices to legal education and the work of lawyers. Courses have been offered in law schools around the country, and lawyers and judges have participated in retreats and workshops. The benefits range from managing stress at a difficult time in a high stress profession to sharpening lawyers’ skills, such as negotiation, client interviewing and trial advocacy. Meditation can heighten emotional literacy and increase  the capacity to make empathetic connections. A growing body of scientific evidence is establishing the demonstrable impact on brain function and structure from regular meditation practice. Many law students are finding that the meditative perspective makes them more effective students and improves academic performance. Wisdom has historically been a quality prized by lawyers. Meditative practice can help bring wisdom into law practice and legal institutions.

Charlie Halpern has been a public interest entrepreneur, an innovator in legal education, and a pioneer in the public interest law movement for four decades. An honors graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law, he left a promising career in a corporate law firm, Arnold & Porter, in Washington, D.C. to establish the nation’s first public interest law firm, The Center for Law and Social Policy (now CLASP) . He was also co-founder of the Mental Health Law Project (now the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law) in the early 1970s.

Halpern was the founding dean of the City University of New York School of Law, a school devoted to training public interest lawyers, and a member of the faculty at Georgetown and Stanford Law Schools. From 1989 to 2000 he served as the first president of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, a $400 million philanthropic foundation in New York City where he developed an innovative grant program during his tenure there that drew together social justice advocacy with meditation and spiritual inquiry.

During his years as a leader and innovator in legal education and nonprofit organizations, Halpern has pursued a path of wisdom and inner growth that has energized and informed his work. He has practiced meditation for the past 20 years and currently leads meditation workshops for lawyers, judges and law students. He is a co-founder and board chair of The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society and a consultant to nonprofit groups and foundations. His book, Making Waves and Riding the Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom, was released in 2008.

Halpern lives in Berkeley, California, where he is currently Scholar in Residence and Lecturer at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley. He grew up in Buffalo and retains close ties to the community: his father was a long-time faculty member and served as dean of the University at Buffalo Law School.