Community Organizing
The time has come for a Renaissance not of the mind, but of the collective. It is the time for a Renaissance of relationships, so to speak – a change in the way that we look at our world and the way we understand that our choices impact the culture and community around us.
For many years now the mindfulness movement has evolved in different ways and under many different names. Conscious lawyers, visionary law, holistic justice and relationship-based lawyering are all terms born of this movement. Not that the idea of building community is that “visionary” but it takes a visionary to make that first step toward change.
It isn’t just about the legal field – community transformation can and should happen across the gamut, from healthcare to education to the way that businesses interact with the public. Our goals and dreams have to reflect the fact that everything is connected, interdependent and that without the whole system nothing could move forward.
To make a community, it takes everyone looking on the problems with innovative eyes.
To be a leader means not only to understand in what direction we should head out, but also when you should hand the map over and let someone else point the way.

It's important to show not just the leader, but the followers, because you find that new followers emulate the followers, not the leader.
Derek Sivers
Resources
- Leadership in Transformation: Building Capacities for a New Age by Stewart Levine and Rick Symre
- Educating Lawyers for Community by Anthony V. Alfieri
- The Transformation of Legal Education by Sarah Kellogg
- Transforming Juvenile Justice: Lawyers Making A Difference By Mark D. Hassakis & Lisa Jacobs
- The Lawyer's Role(s) in Deliberative Democracy by Carrie Menkel-Meadow
- The Lawyer's Role in a Contempor s Role in a Contemporary Democracy, Promoting Access to Justice and Government Institutions, Equalizers and Translators: Lawyers' Ethics in a Constitutional Democracy by Martin Bohmer