Our Mission
Warrior One’s mission is to offer lawyers, law students, and social justice advocates mindfulness tools to cultivate a professional and personal life that is infused with wisdom, compassion, happiness, and ease.
Why We Exist
Warrior One was founded in 2009 by Judi Cohen to address the profound challenges of practicing law in the 21st century. Impacted by more than 25 years of living surrounded by the conflict inherent in the adversary system, and by the stresses of practicing and teaching law; and having witnessed at close range the suffering of her colleagues, Judi put her decades of mindfulness study and practice into trainings designed specifically to support the legal profession.
Anxiety, stress, overwhelm, and disillusionment are our frequent companions. Many of us – young and old, students and support staff – are chronically influenced by these states of mind. Research confirms, and our personal experiences corroborate, that these states of mind impact our own wellbeing, the wellbeing of our firms, organizations, and families, and the wellbeing of our communities and those we serve.
We’ve heard from thousands of lawyers and law students over the years who say their intention is to make a positive contribution to the world through their work. Yet too many of our well-intentioned colleagues have sacrificed their own physical, mental, or emotional wellbeing in the process. We firmly believe that no one should have to do that.
Hence mindfulness. Mindfulness offers us the ability to understand the legal mind at an insightful level. It trains us how to cultivate present moment awareness. It supports our ability to face the difficulties of a life in the law with courage, resilience, and self-compassion. And it enables us to create a joyful life in the law, one that both elevates intellectual and emotional intelligence, and supports the continuing cultivation of fundamental wellbeing – wellbeing that is grounded in connection to self and others, a sense of belonging, and fundamental happiness.
Our programs are unique because they are designed by lawyers specifically for the legal mind. Whether you’re ready to apply to the 2022 Mindfulness in Law Teacher Training, interested in our online, CLE-accredited, Basic Training, or want to enjoy our weekly Wake Up Call live or via podcast, we hope you’ll jump in and discover the power of mindfulness. We’re proud of our record of success in helping legal professionals do just that, and we’d be honored to support you.
What’s With Our Name
Warrior One was named after the ancient Tibetan legend of the Shambhala Warriors.
According to that legend, there will come a time of chaos in the world, when powerful, opposing human forces will rise up in an attempt to annihilate one another, and the earth’s future will hang in the balance.
At that moment, the Shambhala Warriors will emerge. They will wear no uniforms or insignia, but they will be imbued with the moral and physical courage to point to our common humanity and persuade those at war to lay down their arms.
They will succeed because they will be able to explain that the real weapons in this terrible war are not made of explosives, but arise from our choices, lifestyles, work-styles, and relationships. In other words, they are weapons made by the human mind.
And as such, they can be dismantled by the human mind.
The Shambhala Warriors will champion the values of justice, kindness, compassion, and belonging for all beings. They will champion the earth. And they will do all of that using only two weapons: wisdom and compassion.
Compassion will enable humanity to realize that our own wellbeing, the wellbeing of others, and the wellbeing of our planet, are connected. It will empower us to live into a commitment to do no harm. But compassion alone will not be powerful enough to create change.
To create real change, compassion will need to be combined with wisdom. Wisdom enables us to be open-minded, thoughtful and discerning: to see things as they are, and not as we wish them to be. And, in so doing, to realize that the battle is not between external good and evil, but between the good and evil that runs through the landscape of each, ordinary, human heart.
Plato is said to have written, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Wisdom provides the clarity to see that this is true.
At Warrior One, we believe mindful lawyers are the Shambhala Warriors, or can be…or should be. Our job is to fight our clients’ battles with compassion and wisdom, and to teach others how to do that. Our true mission is, or should be, to help everyone learn how to navigate the line between good and evil in their own heart. When we do that, our relationships with adversaries, clients, colleagues, students, and ourselves, are different, better, transformed.
Our world is in great need of transformation right now. As we slowly emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, racism, climate collapse, immigration, equity, inclusion, belonging, and the patriarchal nature of society, demand our expertise. In the trenches of public interest, in defenders’ offices, in labor, in family law, and even in the most rarified corporate law environments, as we fight our day-to-day battles, we can also be paying attention to all of this.
Our intellect is powerful. Our influence is broad and deep. We can no longer afford to adopt anything but the wisest, most compassionate perspective. And we must do that right now. The great scholar and judge Hillel the Elder was once asked to explain the ancient laws of the Hebrews, while standing on one foot. Hillel said, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole law; the rest is the explanation.”
And he also said, “If not now, when?”