“I am calling for an all-out revolution.” These words reverberated through the federal district courthouse in Miami in the spring of 2012, but there was no one calling for security. In fact, it was eerily quiet in the conference room in which the call for revolution was sounded. How can that be? Well, the audience was a group of well-regarded litigation counsel and judges and the revolutionary leader a prominent federal district court judge. The revolution: Mindfulness in law as a vehicle for restoring civility, decreasing stress, and enhancing the fundamental fabric of the legal community.

Judge Alan Gold pondered how counsel might react if he sounded a Tibetan bell rather than a gavel to bring order to his court. Members of the state and federal judiciary, the Federal Bar Association, the Dade County Bar Association, and several law school faculties and law firms were all present to discuss this idea of mindfulness and how it might benefit individual lawyers and the entire legal profession. The conversation that day led to the establishment of the Mindfulness in the Law Joint Task Force, the goal of which is to provide information, training, and the opportunity for lawyers to gather to share mindful meditation sittings.

Mindfulness is an awareness of life in the present moment: Simple to state, but not necessarily so easy to accomplish. Our minds are often cluttered with ruminations about the past and concerns about the future. We are so busy living in the past or projecting onto the future that often we are not acutely attuned to what is happening in the present moment. The clutter inhibits clarity of thought and increases stress and anxiety.

Mindfulness creates the opportunity to pause, breathe, and connect with one’s inner thoughts, feelings, and emotions; in other words, to become aware of how we are reacting in a given situation and to provide ourselves with the opportunity to moderate our reaction and respond thoughtfully.

Scott Rogers, director of Miami Law’s Mindfulness in Law Program and cochair of the joint task force, explains how mindfulness works: Through an exercise as seemingly simple as paying attention to the breath, with practice one becomes more expert at noticing the subtle movement of the mind and body as thoughts, feelings, and sensations continuously arise and pass away. The trick, if you will, is to not get so caught in the thought or overwhelmed with the feeling that you are transported away from the object of your concentration and lose your grounding.

When attorneys practice mindfulness, the experience they gain by noticing their minds moving off into distraction, and returning their attention to their breath, makes them better equipped to deal with the unexpected—because they catch the thoughts and feelings that are resisting the moment, and are better equipped to stay on task and respond in proportion to the challenge. For the same reasons, they enhance their capacity to be more genuine and present for what arises in their interactions with their clients, their colleagues, witnesses and adversaries. They are better able to focus on and enjoy their work.