Rehabilitating Lawyers

This book seeks to bridge the traditional divide between scholarship and practice in the field of law. It introduces the interdisciplinary perspective of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) and then, largely through the thoughtful and informative essays of practitioners and clinical law professors, shows how criminal law practice can be enriched — and how clients can benefit — from lawyers looking at their practice with a TJ lens. Lawyers can be positive change agents for many of their clients, and will find that this approach can markedly increase their own professional satisfaction and enhance their professional image.

"Rehabilitating Lawyers is the kind of smart and balanced book too often absent from the fractious debate about the future of our criminal justice system. By embracing healing as a legitimate criminal justice goal, Professor Wexler offers up an exciting new paradigm in which lawyers finally deserve the label 'counselor.'" — Robin Steinberg, Executive Director, Bronx Defenders

"Criminal law, criminal lawyers and their clients need more than skillful representation in court. For the cycle of offending to be slowed, for criminal law to meet its stated objectives, and for criminal lawyers to survive burnout, fundamental reconceptualising of the law and lawyering are needed. Rehabilitating Lawyers provides a challenging way of reframing through therapeutic jurisprudence how opportunities for reclamation of offenders can be fostered and criminal lawyers can play a role in reducing recidivist offending. It explores how the ethical practice of criminal law by attorneys and judges alike, from charging through trials and sentencing and into probation, can be made more humane and constructive." — Dr. Ian Freckelton SC, Barrister, Melbourne, Australia, Professor of Law, Forensic Medicine and Psychological Medicine, Monash University

"The editor hopes that this book will bridge the wide academic/legal practitioner divide. It has done so admirably....This inspirational edition deserves wide circulation and further incorporation of its ideas into legal education, court practice and legislative action." — Law Institute Journal, October 2008

"The most interesting, important and innovative book I have read about the practice of law in many years. I'm a former Public Defender (still one at heart), and I hope this book is read by all of those who devote themselves valiantly to this most undervalued position. Anyone who has ever represented a criminal defendant owes Professor Wexler a great debt of gratitude."— Professor Michael L. Perlin, Director, International Mental Disability Law Reform Project, Director, Online Mental Disability Law Program New York Law School

"Wexler's collection deserves a place on the shelves of academics interested in this important area of legal education; it is a balanced well referenced source, and a great primer for this area of theory and practice. An equally important reading audience are court administrators, judges and Attorneys General who have the clout to implement some of these suggestions." — Australian Lawyers Alliance Journal