Justice, Compassion, and Self-Care

This one-hour session explores the pathway to justice through compassion and self-care. Prof. Tyler will deeply explore CBD’s 5 states of P.E.A.C.E — Pause, Exhale, Attend, Connect, and Express — that support 5 P.E.A.C.E traits — Prosociality, Equanimity, Altruism, Compassion and Ethics, which are described at contemplation.stanford.edu. He will share the challenges and triumphs in cultivating P.E.A.C.E., during a 20-year career as a public defender and, since 2012, as a clinical law professor. Questions he will address are: - How has he integrated contemplative practices and self-care into his life to support the capacity for a long career of service? - How has he taught and mentored students and lawyers in the conscious cultivation of the 5 P.E.A.C.E states to support, deepen and sustain the 5 P.E.A.C.E traits? The session will include substantial opportunities for engagement among attendees. - Attendees will be invited to ponder and discuss a series of scenarios that implicate fundamental values of justice in conflict with other values. - Attendees will be asked to consider how they might respond to the scenarios in the context of the P.E.A.C.E states and P.E.A.C.E traits at the center of the Contemplation by Design program.
Instructor: Ron Tyler, J.D., is an Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford Law School. The Clinic represents clients in the superior courts of California. Professor Tyler’s scholarly agenda focuses on self-care skills for lawyers and criminal practice and procedure, and in 2016 he published an article in the Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law titled The First Thing We Do, Let’s Heal All the Law Students: Incorporating Self-Care Into A Criminal Defense Clinic. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty, Professor Tyler was an Assistant Federal Public Defender for 22 years in the Northern District of California. A dedicated defense attorney and nationally recognized expert, he has litigated at trial and appellate courts covering the full gamut of federal criminal cases. He teaches regularly at seminars for criminal defense attorneys, investigators and paralegals. He is also active in several nonprofits, serving on the Executive Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Board of Regents of the National Criminal Defense College and the William A. Ingram Inn of the American Inns of Court.