Republicans mocked President Obama when he suggested that empathy was an important ingredient in a justice. In fact, the president was simply repeating the insight Theodore Roosevelt uttered more than a century ago when he explained to his close friend, Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, why he was inclined to nominate Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to the Supreme Court.
President Obama takes the opposite view. When he was a Senator and opposed the nomination of Chief Justice John Roberts, one of the greatest appellate lawyers in the history of the country--he said that judges decide cases based on their deepest values and core concerns, their perspective on how the world works, their empathy, and what is in their heart. That is what then-Senator Obama said.
I, for one, did not take an oath to support and defend a judge's empathy or perspective on how the world works, whether that judge is liberal or conservative. I did not take an oath to support and defend a judge's view of evolving social norms or shifting cultural understandings.
Republicans, however, excoriated Liu’s writings while serving as a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, saying he adopted a legal standard of “empathy” that encouraged judges to try to view cases through the perspective of the people appearing before them, rather than through a strict reading of the law.
Liu is probably the worst of the worst of President Obama’s judicial nominees. He lives and breathes “empathy.” This should generate the most important fight over a judicial nomination of the year. http://bit.ly/mHoYzf
Tips on using compassion in criminal law. Compassion is often taken into account in criminal law cases. The word compassion means feeling sympathy for someone based on the situation that they are involved in. When a defendant goes before the court, they are often shown compassion by the judge or jury. Here are some ways that compassion is used in criminal law.
Meditating lawyers? It's no joke. Charles Halpern has been leading a movement to promote empathy and mindfulness in the practice of law.
As mindfulness becomes more widely diffused and embedded in legal education and practice, we can anticipate that the core values cultivated through mindfulness practice—empathy, compassion, a sense of interconnection and impermanence—will be reflected in the functioning of lawyers and courts, and in the substance of legal doctrines.
He had challenged conventional wisdom when he called empathy “an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes” and thus the preeminent quality he would look for in his Supreme Court nominees. It was not the first time the President had used the word “empathy” to describe his views on constitutional interpretation and the complicated work of a judge. It may, however, have been the last.
To the Right, empathy was nothing less than a code word for judicial activism, a dog whistle to the Democratic base that the President would choose judges who would put the counsel of a bleeding heart above the demands of impartial justice. To the Left, a scholastic debate over the merits of empathy was not very inviting, particularly if winning minor points might come at the expense of the President’s first nominee.
Do you need help with conflict in your family, neighborhood, or workplace? Our trained mediators and facilitators will work with you to find solutions. We can help you develop the tools to turn an angry exchange into a dialogue, and conflict into effective communication. Using E.A.R.S = Empatize (validate), Ask questions (clarify), Rephrase, Sumarize
New research reported this week in Scientific American shows that physicians get less empathic as they see more patients and progress through their medical training, a finding that mirrors studies about the impact of law school on lawyers that Susan Daicoff has cited in her many writings about the social psychology of lawyers...
Substitute "lawyer" for physician, and these studies tell us that empathy on the part of lawyers isn't just touchy-feely icing on the professional services cake. Empathy is more like baking powder: without it, the entire cake is flat, tough, and inedible
by Pauline H. Tesler San Francisco and Mill Valley,
All politics is moral. Political leaders put forth proposals on the assumption that their proposals are the right things to do, not the wrong things to do. But progressives and radical conservatives have very different ideas of right and wrong..
The basic idea is this: Democracy is based on empathy, that is, on citizens caring about each other and acting on that care, taking responsibility not just for themselves but for their families, communities, and their nation. The role of government is to carry out this principle in two ways: protection and empowerment.
Peter Gabel, Associate Editor Tikkun Magazine. Was Law Professor at University Minnesota, UC Berkeley and New College. Organizer for Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law and Politics.
Peter atlks about changing the justice and legal system from one based on selfishness and competition to one based on empathy. For transcripts see: http://bit.ly/eBlrZR
Q: Can Empathy be perfectly excised from the Judiciary? A: Anthony - No,... If lack of empathy means to close your eyes to the consequences of the laws decree, that's just silly. We supervise the criminal system. Our sentences are 8 times longer than sentences in England and Western Europe. Winston Churchill said your society will be judged by how you treat the least deserving of your citizens. Of course empathy has a role.... You certainly formulate principles without being unaware of where those principles will take you and what their consequences will be in human terms... If cost is a way to activate human compassion, I'll take it.....
The fundamental quality of human relationship is empathy. Empathy enables you to understand another person's situation, make sense of his behavior, and distance yourself from you own initial self-absorbed reaction to what other people do. It is a supreme expression of consciousness, providing the ability to wait a moment and consider what's happening before acting.
Freedom and capitalism encourage empathy; government power and administrative nitpicking undermine it.
A second, oft-repeated talking point is that empathetic judges are dangerous, activist judges. No sooner had President Barack Obama uttered the word "empathy" in connection with judicial appointments than the word took on a life of its own.
It became a code word for judicial overreaching, and it served as the blank slate onto which politicians painted doomsday scenarios of a judiciary run amok. That one word became so politically charged that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor went on record as distancing herself from the approach to judging espoused by the President.
Question: Do you believe that it is ever appropriate for judges to indulge their own subjective sense of empathy in determining what the Constitution and the laws mean? If so, under what circumstances?
Response: To the extent that empathy means an ability to understand a claim from another person’s point of view, I think it can help a judge to appreciate the arguments on all sides of a case and to ensure that the litigants’ claims have been fully heard. However, to the extent that empathy causes a judge to be biased or prejudiced or to identify with a particular litigant or outcome, it is inappropriate and must have no role in judicial determinations of what the Constitution and the laws mean.
In negotiation, self control and empathy are more important than a sharp mind or sharp tongue.
In a negotiation, the most important personal attributes you can bring to the table are not the razor-sharp mind and tongue you developed in law school. Instead, empathy combined with self-control will get you the best result in a negotiation, with the added benefit of making you feel better about yourself and your job.
You Are Your Own Opponent Most lawyers must negotiate at least occasionally, and many believe they know how to do it because they went to law school. Wrong
Charles Halpern is scholar in Residence at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley, is a public interest entrepreneur, an innovator in legal education, a pioneer in the public interest law movement, and a long-time meditator. He has been promoting meditation, mindfulness and empathy in the legal field.
A key part of the program, and the hardest part according to Sicamous councillor Fred Busch – a volunteer with the program for the past five years – is that the offender is made to face their victim and learn the true impact of the offence.
Through this civil exchange, the offender may develop a greater sense of empathy for the victim, and the community of which he or she is part.
(President Obama) stated his intention to make empathy a primary criterion in appointing judges. “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it is like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it is like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled or old. And that is the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”
This was a striking statement. Rarely have qualities of heart or empathy been articulated as criteria for the selection of judges. It is not surprising that Obama would commit himself to this new criterion. He is a man who has identified “cultivating empathy” as one of the important values in his life.
However, criminologists and people working on prisoner rehabilitation have discovered from research that for prison to serves as a crime reduction mechanism, it is necessary to work with prisoners on victim empathy, accountability for offending; as well as their reintegration process.
President Obama has been talking about compassion a lot on the campaign trail. Why? He used the word in his big speech on reining in the country’s debt and then again at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser last week.
What does the compassion talk mean? We answer that question in today’s episode of the “Fast Fix”.
Over the years, I have handled these disputes using a combination of different strategies, including "letting them work it out", "teaching them effective communication skills (ha!)", "separating them", "giving each of them empathy," "mediating," "refereeing", "problem-solving" and "punishing."
None of these have been as effective, efficient, and satisfying to me (or to them!) as the method described below, which I have freely adopted from Dominic Barter's Restorative Circles model (and lovingly named "micro-circles").
With midterm elections four months away, Republicans criticized Obama's philosophy of judicial empathy, an idea the administration first posed last year when the president nominated Sonya Sotomayor to the nation's high court...
"Even today, President Obama advocates a judicial philosophy that calls on judges to base their decisions on empathy and their 'broader vision of what America should be,'" said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican member. "He suggests that his nominee shares that view. Our legal system does not allow such an approach."
As Justice Sonia Sotomayor did a year ago, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan backed away today from President Barack Obama's statements about the role of empathy in judging. “Senator Kyl, I think it’s law all the way down,” she said. “The question is what the law requires. Now, there are cases where it is difficult to determine what the law requires. Judging is not a robotic or automatic enterprise, especially on cases that come before the Supreme Court…. But it’s law all the way down, regardless.
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.