Edward Spillane, '92: Yoga and Meditation Lend a New Perspective to a Judge's Work
The Meditative Judge
In the meditation and yoga classes I’ve taken for the past several years, I’ve learned that mindfulness—an acute awareness of what is happening in the present moment—can improve my life. In yoga mindfulness allows one to unite the body and the mind in the present through a variety of physical poses. But as a municipal court judge in College Station, Texas, I have also seen it work wonders in my courtroom. In retrospect, I was using mindfulness long before I recognized what it was.
I met my first “client” while in law school. At the University of Chicago Law School’s Mandel Legal Aid Clinic in the early 1990s, we were helping citizens avoid losing their housing due to evictions that violated federal civil rights law. I do not remember her name. But I can remember as clearly as if it were yesterday the experience of seeing the law I had studied in class come to life in the basement legal aid clinic. I can still remember the dress and sweater she wore for the interview at the clinic and her children, who accompanied her. She told me her story, her struggles, her work history, and we eventually were able to save her housing by sending a letter to the landlord explaining the situation and the lawsuit we might file should she be evicted.
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