Dr Amar Dhall: Australia-The Law & Emotional Intelligence
I have a lot to be thankful for to Lawyer, Author and Global Legal Change Maker J. Kim Wright, who I affectionately refer to as the Mother of the Integrative Law Movement. In her website she says,
“Legal Systems Change: Grow, Connect, Inspire, and Learn
I am an advocate for systems change in the law, particularly focusing on a set of values and models called Integrative Law. I’ve arranged my life to follow my passion and values and to connect with lawyers who are changing how law is practiced by following theirs.
I was first licensed as a lawyer in 1989. I thought law practice was a pretty miserable profession and I avoided it — until I met Chicago lawyer Forrest Bayard. He talked about peacemaking, collaboration, and dignity and how his divorce clients became friends and co-parents after the divorce. He showed me that another way of practicing was possible.
Until then, I thought I was alone. Meeting Forrest changed my life and transformed my law practice. It is my mission to follow in his footsteps and do that for others. Lawyers who are doing things differently are often seen as weird by their peers, even if what they’re doing is evolutionary and amazing. Having a community gives us courage to persist”.
Much the same as Kim, I too thought I was alone when I opened the doors to Gibraltar’s First (and only) Holistic Law Firm, Amber Law in March 2013. It was not until I came across her book ‘Lawyers As Peacemakers: Practising Holistic Problem-Solving Law’, published by the American Bar Association, years later and then actually met Kim in person in one of life’s serendipitous opportunities, that a whole new world and global web of like-minded lawyers, academics and judges became available to me.
One of these amazing human beings I have had the privilege to connect with thanks to Kim, is:
Dr Amar Dhall a Polymath: Lawyer, Mediator; Shaman; Musician, Psychotherapist, Lecturer and Writer
My first question to Dr Amar during our Covid-19 Zoom conference call, was whether ‘Amar’ was his birth name or he had ‘acquired’ it? I asked because ‘Amar’ is the Spanish word for ‘love’. I am firm believer that our names give us a clue as to our life’s purpose or mission. Indeed, he said, it is his given birth name! ‘Dhall’, he continued, ‘means to shield, or to lead’. What a fabulous name and so in alignment with Dr Amar’s personal and professional journey and work in the world.
In his website, Dr Amar explains his life-long exploration of conflict once he became aware about the effects of the suppression of his inner voice, “brought about from a deeply held fear about the world”. Step 1: articulating his anger and confronting his fear through combat sport. Step 2: choosing to read law learning that in legal disputes there are, much like boxing, ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ save that, “there is no physical violence involved in the courtroom, but rather there is a clash of intellects”. Here in my experience as a Barrister in Family Law, I would take it further and say there is violence in courtrooms- there is mental and emotional violence. Step 3: was becoming a trained Mediator as he was dissatisfied with the concept that conflict is resolved with a, “‘winner’ and ‘loser,’” and that (as I have also come to learn), clients might ‘win the battle but lose the war’- my words. Mediation is collaborative rather than combative and, “side steps the paradigm of ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. Dr Amar’s Step 4: taking him into the present, is when he realised that deeper than a collaborative approach to conflict, is, “self-responsibility”.
Dr Amar says, “From a place of self-responsibility conflict is completely reframed, as I realise that I am the creator of my lived experience. The realisation struck me so deeply that I chose not to practice law, even though I was in the top couple of lawyers in my year group and received attractive offers to practice; rather, a post-jungarian psychotherapeutic practice and legally informed mediation practice with an emphasis on personal responsibility which is much better aligned to my values”.
Dr Amar’s journey has taken him then; from suppression of his inner voice as a child and teenager, into an exploration of physical conflict in his twenties, into excellence in the law and mediation and finally into post-jungarian psychotherapy- from physical violence into adversarial conflict with a ‘winner’ and loser’, then to collaboration and finally to self-responsibility.
I can relate to Dr Amar’s journey. I have walked a similar path, save that rather than boxing I found my space for Self-expression through dance. I concur with his conclusions not only at an intellectual level but at an experiential one, having spent almost 2 decades in Court rooms whilst integrating yoga, mindfulness and other holistic practices into my legal practice; becoming an accredited Mediator in 2014 (though practising Mediation before it became a ‘thing’ to have the accreditation!) and finally, fully committing to non-adversarial methods of resolving legal conflicts/ disputes/ issues, including mediation but also with the emphasis on self-accountability, which Dr Amar describes as ‘self-responsibility’.
Over recent years, Dr Amar has found joy in empowering others which he says, “I could only do once I had learned to empower myself”. I find his beautiful words so resonant with my own experience and journey in Law. Practising Law Holistically and facilitating in clients creating their own path of peace and healing throughout and after the Legal process, only became possible once I too had embarked on my own path of exploration of healing and wellbeing tools.
My thoughts are whether this is the natural, unfolding process that all Integrative Lawyers must live through to take on the insights, awareness and understanding? Or, are there globally enough Integrative Lawyers collaborating with University Law Faculties to teach these, ‘Steps,’ in an experiential way to undergraduates, in order to create a ‘fast-track’ of knowledge to be imparted?
Both Dr Amar and my good friend Dr Emma Jones, Senior Law Lecturer at the Open University, Co-Founder of the UK Chapter on Therapeutic Jurisprudence and author of ‘Emotions in the Law’ (Routelege), are already integrating their teachings at Universities.
Transformation of the way we traditionally practice law, particularly in the adversarial system, has been unfolding across the globe since the mid-1980s and continuing... On ending I share one of my favourite quotes from Socrates:
“The secret to change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new”.
For further information, please contact:
amber@amberlaw.com
http://jkimwright.com
https://www.amardhall.com