As I was dancing an idle fly across my corruscating Twitterstream a few days ago, I hooked a tweet from @idealawg on mindfulness for lawyers. It struck a chord. I RT’d it immediately with a deft roll-cast, thus:

The University of Miami Law School is teaching law students the art of mindfulness for lawyers  offering its students what it calls ‘a robust contemplative practices offering’ and, a few days ago, The Florida Bar News publicised a Mindfulness Program designed to help lawyers to ‘live in the moment’ on the thesis that contemplative practices for lawyers are key for the effective study and practice of the law.

The originator of this tweet, Stephanie West Allen, JD a US lawyer an advocate of the practice of mindfulness for lawyers, asserts that in the law, as in ‘any field in which it is important to understand, predict or influence human behaviour, neuroscience will play an increasing role’.

This should not be a surprise. The pressures of legal practice are huge and teaching lawyers to wake up and smell the coffee in terms of developing the necessary mental,emotional and psychic resources to succeed (indeed, to survive) appears to be becoming a burgeoning new industry in the US with progams such as The Mindful Lawyer and recent publications like The Six-minute Solution: A Mindfulness Primer for Lawyers(apparently sold out!). This development echoes, in the sphere of legal practice, the more populist philosophy of Eckhart Tolle in books like The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment and Practising the Power of Now.  I expect we will be seeing more of this kind of thing shortly in the UK. We certainly need it.

Mindfulness or an ability to concentrate is the single, most effective life-skill of any practising lawyer. However, the depth and quality of concentration demanded by modern-day legal practice goes far beyond the commonplace. It does, I think, demand a special kind of mental training.

Lawyers are required to define and re-define complex goals, both for themselves and for their clients; they must, steadfastly and continuously, avoid distraction in spite of a constant plethora of interruption; they must set and re-set work priorities, often on an hourly basis; they must, instantly and constantly, identify relevance and eschew irrelevance; they must be able, often and at short notice, to draw deep on their mental and emotional reserves. Legal practice in the 21st century requires a very high level of mental acuity indeed.

These abilities, referred to, in part,in the Mindfulness for Lawyers program as ‘Jurisight’ and verging on the Siddhis of occult Vedanta, are not the natural fruit of traditional legal training. Indeed, the development of these abilities demands incredible mental stamina, a high degree of emotional intelligence, acute insight bordering on the visionary and a depth of awareness that is characteristic rather of the Zen warrior, the religious ascetic or the contemplative devotee, than of the work-a-day, jobbing lawyer.

Whilst the lawyer coaching industry gathers pace, ultimately it falls to individual practitioners to equip themselves for the exigences of professional life. A good start is to become acquainted with techniques of basic time management as expounded in books by Mark Forster such as Get Everything Done and Still Have Time to Play and Do it Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management and, if up for the elephantine battle that it entails, wrestling with some more esoteric works on developing the power of concentration such as Concentration and Concentration: A Guide to Mental Mastery by the Hindu acsetic, Mouni Sadhu. For de-stressing New York style Meditation in A New York Minute: Super Calm for the Super Busy.  And see Mindfulness Meditations for Management The Mindful Leader: Ten Principles for Bringing Out the Best in Ourselves and Others.

It is really not surprising that the profession should be turning to the annals of neuroscience and religious asceticism for urgent help, for urgent and inspired help is certainly needed.

Not for nothing is mindfulness and an ability to concentrate a corner-stone of personal and spiritual development in all the great religions. ‘If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light,’ advocates the Apostle Matthew (Matt 6:11) and, in the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, the warrior archer Arjuna is taught by his guru Dronacharya that, to hit the distant bird with his arrow, he must see, not the sky, not the tree, not the branch, not the bird, but only the minute scintilla of sunlight reflected in the black centre of the very eye of the bird.

Such is the degree of intensity of concentration demanded by modern legal practice and those who lack it simply flounder.

Finally, for those who do find it difficult to concentrate on one thing at a time - remember the Ancient Chinese Proverb:

 ’ If you chase two rabbits, both will escape’ …..or go hungry.