What is Mindfulness, and Why Should Judges and Attorneys Want to Know About It? (Presented by the Federal Bar Association Judiciary Division)

Moderator, Honorable Robert E. Bacharach | Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals

Since 2013, Judge Robert Bacharach has served as a United States Circuit Judge for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Before his appointment, he served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Western District of Oklahoma from 1999-2013. Before that appointment, he served as a law clerk for Chief Judge William J. Holloway, Jr. of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and then practiced civil litigation at Crowe & Dunlevy in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, from 1987 to 1999.

Dr. Amishi Jha | University of Miami

Dr. Amishi Jha, PhD is Director of Contemplative Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology at the University of Miami. Prior to her current post, she was an Assistant Professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her B.S. in Biological Psychology from the University of Michigan, her Ph.D. in Psychology (Cognitive Neuroscience) from the University of California–Davis, and her post-doctoral training at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University in functional neuroimaging.

With grants from the Department of Defense and several private foundations, she leads research on the neural bases of attention and the effects of mindfulness-based training programs on cognition, emotion, resilience, and performance in education, corporate, elite sports, first-responder, and military contexts.

In her laboratory at the University of Miami, she uses functional MRI, electrophysiological recordings and behavioral techniques to understand why our attention sometimes fails us, and if it can be trained for greater focus and less distractibility. She launched the first-ever study to offer mindfulness training tools to active-duty military service members as they prepared for deployment. What she has discovered is that without intervention, attention is compromised, and attentional lapses increase. Yet, with mindfulness training, attention can be strengthened and protected.

In addition to her own published body of research, her work has been featured at TED, NATO, the World Economic Forum, the Pentagon, and the UK Parliament. She has received coverage in The New York Times, TIME, Forbes, Mindful Magazine, NPR, and more. In addition, she has been interviewed by Joe Rogan, Brene Brown, Russell Brand, Deepak Chopra, Duncan Trussell, Dan Harris, Sharon Salzberg, and many others. In her national bestseller, Peak Mind (Harper Collins), she shares her discoveries on how attention can be trained for optimal performance and well being. You can find Dr. Jha at http://amishi.com.

Jeremy Fogel | Berkeley Judicial Institute

Jeremy Fogel is the first Executive Director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, a center at Berkeley Law School whose mission is to build bridges between judges and academics and to promote an ethical, resilient and independent judiciary. Prior to his appointment at Berkeley, he served as Director of the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, DC (2011-2018), as a United States District Judge for the Northern District of California (1998-2011), and as a judge of the Santa Clara County Superior (1986-1998) and Municipal (1981-1986) Courts. He was the founding Directing Attorney of the Mental Health Advocacy Project from 1978 to 1981 and was a national leader in promoting access to justice for people with chronic mental health issues.

Judge Fogel has taught for the Federal Judicial Center since 2002 and was a lecturer at Stanford Law School, where he taught a course on the psychology of litigation, from 2003 until his relocation to Washington in 2011. He taught for the California Continuing Judicial Studies Program (CJSP) and California Judicial College from 1987 to 2010 and served on CJSP’s Curriculum Planning Committee for six years, including two as chair. He has served as a faculty member for legal exchanges on ethics, case management and intellectual property in approximately twenty foreign countries. During his tenure at the Federal Judicial Center, he oversaw the development of the Center’s first comprehensive, integrated curriculum for judicial branch education.

Judge Fogel was a member of the Committee on Financial Disclosure of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 2004-2011; he chaired the subcommittee that developed the original platform and procedures for electronic filing of annual financial disclosure reports and laid the groundwork for online public access. As a California state court judge, he chaired the Judicial Ethics Committee and Judicial Discipline and Disability Committee of the California Judges Association, and he organized and led a confidential counseling program for judges facing disciplinary proceedings.

He received his B.A. from Stanford University in 1971 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1974. Judge Fogel has received numerous accolades, including the Samuel E. Gates Litigation Award from the American College of Trial Lawyers for significant contributions to the litigation process, the President’s Award for Outstanding Service to the California Judiciary from the California Judges Association, and the Vanguard Award from the State Bar of California for notable contributions to intellectual property law.

I. Topic walkthrough | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

II. The basics of mindfulness | 2:10pm – 2:20pm

III. What mindfulness has to do with the work of lawyers and judges | 2:20pm – 2:30pm

IV. What neuroscience shows about the beneficial effects of mindfulness on performance and attention | 2:30pm – 2:40pm

V. Discussion of case studies from the field of cognitive neuroscience | 2:40pm – 2:50pm

VI. Practical applications of mindfulness for judges | 2:50pm – 3:00pm

Break | 3:00pm – 3:10pm

VII. Practical applications of mindfulness for lawyers | 3:10pm – 3:20pm

VIII. Q&A | 3:20pm – 3:40pm