Cura in Mind: SLU Law Professor Makes the Case for Mindfulness
09/17/2020
As they prepare to practice the law, students in Saint Louis University’s School of Law also have the opportunity to hone their practice of other skills – mindfulness and meditation – to help them balance their legal studies with their mental and overall well-being through the “Mindfulness for Law Students” program.
Started by longtime faculty member and attorney David Lander, J.D., “Mindfulness for Law Students,” aims to give students the skills and space to incorporate mindfulness into their daily lives.
As the University community dispersed due to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Lander’s program moved online for the summer. Now, its expanding as a virtual “Intro to Mindfulness” program open to the whole SLU community.
“Mindfulness can be beneficial to everyone, but especially to students and lawyers,” Lander said. “The practice of law is often adversarial and mindfulness can help balance the needs of the practice with the needs of a good person and good mental health.”
As wellness – mental, physical, emotional and spiritual – becomes an increasingly visible issue on campuses across the country, the SLU community has stepped in and stepped up to care for their fellow students, faculty and staff members with new programs, resources and opportunities to connect in the spirit of cura personalis.
Nationally, the incidence and awareness of mental health and wellness issues has increased on college campuses. The Chronicle of Higher Education, among others, has highlighted the rise in student mental health needs in recent years.
Fostering Kindness across an Adversarial Field
By its nature, life in the legal field can be stressful, from the heavy intellectual loads students and junior lawyers may carry in their class or early professional work to tense, confrontational meetings with other attorneys or clients.
Lander, who retired as an attorney with Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale, is a professor of practice at the School of Law who has been teaching in a variety of roles since 1973. He knows the stress that can accompany a legal career first-hand.
“Several aspects of the practice of law can eat away at kindness and perhaps can make a person see kindness as a weakness,” Lander said.
Twenty years ago, he began his own meditation and mindfulness practice, practices he found life-changing. He began Mindfulness for Law Students as a way of giving back to the school he’d come to call home.
“Mindfulness is a path that allows zealous and excellent representation of clients and a nature of loving kindness,” he explained. “Mindfulness helps us focus on the here and now and less on the hard stuff that happened yesterday.”
Helping Students Practice Valuable Skills for Life Beyond the Law
The weekly program, traditionally held in SLU’s Scott Hall, offers law students, faculty members and staff a place to pause, reflect and to practice meditation. While held in-person in the past, the sessions have gone online due to the social distancing precautions the University adopted due to COVID-19.
“Every student is under stress and mindfulness helps deal with that stress,” Lander, who once taught topics including consumer law, economic justice and commercial law, explained. For the past three years, he’s taught only mindfulness and an introduction to mindfulness.
“Law students are preparing for a career that can interfere with loving relationships,” he explained. “Mindfulness helps equip the student for that career.”
For Lander, the program is especially suited to those who want to cope with stress by developing positive, life-long habits grounded in a sense of cura personalis.
“Most of the mission and values of mindfulness coincide, support and are supported by SLU's mission and values,” he continued.
What does Lander hope students carry with them from the sessions?
“The habit of pausing and relaxing, the taking of a breath,” he said. “I hope they take away greater focus, more patience and more love of self and others, and if possible the habit of meditating when the time and opportunity present themselves.”
Want to Join "Intro to Mindfulness?"
Sessions will be held weekly on Mondays from noon to 12:30 p.m. via Zoom. The meeting's Zoom ID is #934 1992 4568.
The sessions' password is Mindful.
For questions or more information, contact David Lander.
In David’s Words
Mindfulness has brought me greater patience and has expanded the role of kindness and compassion in my life. It has helped me keep my focus on the task in front of me and hold it there until the task is fully completed. Mindfulness has helped me find and hold onto joy in one hand while I am deeply aware of the serious problems in my life in the other hand. It has helped me observe my own mind and consciousness so that I can learn more about myself. While I have been practicing formal and informal mindfulness the buzzing in my brain has softened and has often become quieter. It has strengthened each of my five senses and helped me be more aware of them.
Because the practice of law is often adversarial, mindfulness is especially helpful in balancing the need to be a fierce advocate and with the need to keep loving kindness central to my character.
I love the Saint Louis University Law School community and feel a strong urge and commitment to bring the practice and values of mindfulness to supplement and strengthen the values of this community.
Nationally and at home here at SLU, mental health and wellness issues have become increasingly visible. In the spirit of cura personalis, the University community's call to “care for the individual person” and to respect the dignity of each person as a child of God, Cura in Mind, a limited series, is shining a light on the ways that Billikens are helping students cope, manage and thrive mentally and emotionally on campus.
The series aims to give those working on mental health issues on campus a chance to reach out to let Billikens know that there are friends, faculty and staff members who are here to help.
Story by Amelia Flood, University Marketing and Communications