The Legal Profession is Intense
Our colleagues are overworked, under-resourced, and overwhelmed.
Firms, legal organizations, law schools, bar associations, and individuals are desperate for wellbeing solutions.
We have the potential to be enormously influential and the urgent question is, how can we be intentional about that?
Join a Nine-Month, Intensive, Evocative, Conversation
About These And Other Urgent Topics
The 2024 Mindfulness in Law Teacher Training
Our 2022 program was remarkable.
Please check back soon for videos and testimonials from the class.
Are you interested in our 2024 cohort?
Be the first to know when applications are available:
send us a note
to have your name added to our Early Applicants list.
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What You Will Learn in MLTT 2024
The classical foundations of mindfulness and how to teach these to lawyers
How to explain why mindfulness is crucial for competence and wellbeing in the law right now
Teaching tools for an eight-limb approach to yoga, for lawyers, judges, and law students
How to offer mindfulness programming in service of undoing racism, xenophobia, and other forms of conscious and unconscious bias in the law
Which mindfulness tools can help legal professionals to address climate emergency
The most up-date information about contemplative neuroscience, and how to share that
How to lead mindfulness, compassion, gratitude, and other meditation practices
Basic yoga and other movement practices you can offer to sedentary humans
How to talk about mindfulness and yoga with wary (or cynical) lawyers and law students
And much more!
About MLTT
The Mindfulness in Law Teacher Training (“MLTT“) is the only mindfulness teacher training created by and specifically for lawyers. Unlike other trainings that cast a wide net, MLTT is classical mindfulness explicitly designed for the legal mind. Led by Judi Cohen, Alisa Gray, and Gullu Singh, the 2024 MLTT format will include online and in person full-cohort trainings, one-on-one mentoring with leaders in the mindfulness in law movement, small group meetings, and individual study and practice.
We’ll admit a relatively small cohort of students to MLTT 2024, striving for a balance of diverse, committed, legal professionals who have a mindfulness practice and want to:
- Deepen their practice
- Cultivate the skills and confidence to teach mindfulness to:
- Legal and conflict professionals
- Professionals working in social justice
- Law students and faculty
- Become leaders in the mindfulness in law movement
Who Should Apply to MLTT 2024?
One of the strengths of MLTT lies in the diversity and inclusiveness of our community. We extend a warm invitation to everyone to apply, and especially welcome applications from those who identify as members of Black, brown, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander and other/all communities of color; Queer communities; all other communities historically underrepresented in the law or in mindfulness practice and teaching and/or who have been oppressed or feel unseen; and those who intend to offer mindfulness in those communities, in public interest, or in other racial or social justice settings. And, we also welcome applicants in BigLaw, commercial law, family law, criminal law and justice, and everything in between.
Another strength of MLTT is in the flexibility and openness of our curriculum. We welcome applicants from various streams of contemplative practice. Although our training emphasizes the classical teachings of mindfulness, Zen, and yoga, we honor and make space for multidimensional teaching and learning. We are proud to count among our alumni so far, those who are teaching in secular, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and Indigenous meditation traditions as well.
Finally, the MLTT community includes a true kaleidoscope of legal professionals. Our alums are lawyers, judges, mediators, law students, law professors, professional development directors, coaches, trainers, and presenters, from North America, South America, Asia, and Europe. They work in BigLaw and at small- and medium-sized firms, in internationally renowned and local law schools, with bar associations, in public interest, in criminal defense and prosecution, in professional development, and in individual and group coaching formats. We welcome all who want to deepen their understanding of mindfulness in order to share that understanding with members of the multifaceted U.S. and international legal community.
What to Expect from MLTT 2024
- Entrée into an inclusive, growing, community of mindfulness-in-law teachers sprinkled across North America, and South America, Asia, and Europe
- A warm welcome into what will be a diverse and multi-faceted 2024 cohort of students and teachers
- Access to our core teachers whenever you’d like
- Your own small group with whom you’ll share learning, practice leading meditations, share and overcome concerns, spark questions, and no doubt remain close with well beyond graduation
- A solid foundation in classical mindfulness, including history, theory, and practice
- Careful, joyful, personal, instruction in how to create and lead mindfulness, compassion, lovingkindness, and other types of mindfulness-based meditations
- One-on-one mentoring from one of the luminaries in the mindfulness-in-law movement, hand-picked for you to support your unique interests
- Guidance in whatever direction you choose: developing a course; creating a syllabus; pitching a program to a bar association, law school dean, organization, or firm; starting a mindfulness group at your workplace; creating a program for public defenders, DAs, in public interest, or in corporate law – the sky’s the limit and our instructors have done it all or we’ll connect you with someone who has
- Study including personal interaction with honored, internationally-acclaimed mindfulness and yoga teachers who rarely make themselves available to such small groups
Our Remarkable MLTT 2022 Teachers –
Check Back Soon for Our 2024 Teaching Lineup!
Judi Cohen
Judi is the founder of Warrior One. She leads The Wake Up Call, the teaching cohort of Warrior One's Mindfulness in Law Teacher Training, and Warrior One's Essential Mindfulness for Lawyers online training.
Alisa Gray
Alisa is an MLTT Lead Teacher and an AV-rated partner at Tiffany & Bosco, P.A. in Phoenix, Arizona, where she practices in the area of probate-related litigation and mediation, representing corporate trustees, professional fiduciaries, and individuals in complicated or contested guardianships, conservatorships, estates, and trusts.
Gullu Singh
Gullu is a real estate attorney, dedicated meditation practitioner, and mindfulness teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and InsightLA, with a particular interest in integrating the insights of mindfulness into daily life and work.
Norman Fischer
Zoketsu is a poet and Zen Buddhist priest who leads the Bay Area Working Group for Law and Meditation, is a senior teacher and former co-abbot of San Francisco Zen Center, and is the founder and spiritual director of the Everyday Zen Foundation, which is dedicated to adapting Zen Buddhist teachings to Western culture.
Rhonda Magee
Rhonda is a Professor of Law at the University of San Francisco School of Law and the author of The Inner Work of Racial Justice, as well as a frequent speaker and lecturer on the topic of race, justice, equity, and mindfulness.
James Baraz
James is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and co-authored and teaches the internationally renowned program, Awakening Joy.
Stephanie Lewis
Stephanie is an employee benefits attorney with the U.S. Department of Labor, a certified coach and mindfulness instructor, and a graduate of MLTT.
Robert Chender
Robert is a corporate attorney, 40-year meditation teacher in the Shambhala tradition, founder of the mindfulness group sponsored by the Law Society of England and Wales, and founding teacher of MLTT.
Kamini Desai
Kamini is the Education Director and Core Curriculum Developer of the Amrit Yoga Institute, a cutting-edge teaching center for advanced studies in eastern philosophy, one of three Founding Directors of the International University of Yoga and Ayurveda, and the author of Life Lessons, Love Lessons and Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep.
Ron Tyler
Ron is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Criminal Defense Clinic at Stanford Law School who integrates mindfulness into his clinic teaching and practice, and previously enjoyed a 22-year career as an Assistant Federal Public Defender with the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Northern District of California.
Ingrid Benninghoff Prados
Ingrid (MLTT 2020) es abogada colombiana y profesora de Mindfulness para Derecho en Chile. Enseña mindfulness a estudiantes y profesores de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. Es la fundadora de meditation.law-Mindfulness para el mundo legal®.
Rudhir Krishtel
Rudhir is an executive coach and consultant offering space for difficult conversations and growth at the intersections of leadership, mindfulness, wellbeing and DEI issues, practiced law for 15 years as a federal clerk, patent litigation partner at Fish & Richardson, and senior patent counsel at Apple, and is a graduate of MLTT.
Sarah McCarthy
Sarah co-founded The Wise Warrior, a well-being program aimed specifically at supporting public defenders though the stressors and secondary trauma of their work, developing self-compassion, and helping them to find balance and equanimity in their lives.
Emily Doskow
Emily is a family law lawyer in the Bay Area, the author or co-author of numerous books including Nolo’s Essential Guide to Divorce; Nolo’s Essential Guide to Child Custody & Support, and The Legal Guide for Lesbian & Gay Couples, a frequent speaker on LGBTI family issues and on mindfulness and law, and a graduate of MLTT.
Nicolle Kopping-Pavars
Nicolle is an attorney in Ontario, Canada and South Africa who practices family law in Ontario and conducts workshops and retreats on mindfulness and emotional intelligence in North America and South Africa, hosts meditation clinics for her legal colleagues in Toronto, and is a graduate of MLTT.
Emily Bruce
Emily is the director of equity and inclusion at UC Berkeley School of Law, directs Berkeley Law’s Midweek Mindfulness Program, and is an occasional lecturer at Berkeley Law.
Michelle Vasquez
Michelle has been a Deputy Public Defender in Santa Clara County for 18 years. As an undergraduate at UCLA Michelle worked for the Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, where her efforts focused on desegregating schools in Georgia.
Words From MLTT Alums
“My biggest take away from MLTT 2020 is that things can always get worse, but through our practice we can endure and withstand far more than we think. MLTT 2020 has been a much needed refuge for me through this very difficult period of time. Walking out of Green Gulch two days before the shelter in place order was the greatest blessing. I was in the right frame of mind to take these difficult times in stride, and with joy. The program has given me the confidence to help others do the same. More than anything, I’ve learned that having a sangha (community) makes everything better.“
“I highly recommend MLTT for those who want to teach mindfulness, build their network of mindful lawyers, and bring meditation to more lawyers in their communities and workplaces. The program provides depths of knowledge, incredible resources, an awesome structure, and an incredible atmosphere for personal growth and building community.“
“Just be. Just breathe. Feel the connection. Be in community. It is enough, I am enough. I learned a bunch, have a bunch more to learn, appreciated all the new ideas and concepts and thinking about them – how they worked and might not work for me – and where my resistance…and…strengths might be in all this.“
“The yoga teaching showed me how to move out of my head and into my body. I would not imagine teaching mindfulness to anyone without that learning and I’ll be forever grateful to MLTT for it. After MLTT I have much more access to my own experience…and that is invaluable training. Thank you!”
“This program is an amazing launching pad for a lifetime of mindful, kind and ethical service to your clients, your community, your family, and YOURSELF. It exposes you to the foundations of mindfulness, and to guest teachers who have thought and written about the area. And it introduces you to a group of like-minded lawyers and legal professionals who provide encouragement and support.”
“MLTT 2018 was a turning point for me – not only has the program equipped me with the skills and confidence to teach mindfulness, it has given me an enriched understanding of Buddhist philosophy, human nature, and life itself. I also came away from the program with a cohort of fellow travelers on this path, and I know the friendships that have been formed through this program will continue to encourage and sustain me for years to come.”
Examples of the powerful work our alums are doing…
- Running a robust mindfulness program at a public defender’s office
- Teaching the first law school mindfulness course in South America
- Speaking about mindfulness at bar association meetings for AAPI Bar Associations, Women’s Bar Associations, NBLSA (National Black Law Student Association) and local BLSAs, at family law, sports & entertainment, and other bar association meetings, and in many other venues
- Developing a national mindfulness-based coaching and training program for corporate and public interest firms and organizations
- Leading county-wide, weekly meditation sittings for all county employees
- Offering a mindfulness course for European mediators
- Providing a 30-minute weekly sit for attorneys at a multi-national law firm
- Running a mindfulness training course for judges
- Integrating mindfulness into a family law practice in Canada
- Holding a regular sitting group for small-firm colleagues
- Running a coaching and training program for attorneys integrating mindfulness into the U.S. Department of Labor
- Teaching mindfulness courses at law schools in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and other U.S. states as well as in Santiago, Chile
- Employing mindfulness practices in high-stress interactions with clients
- …and more