Briefing Memo on the Healthy Workplace Bill

After a bit of a quiet period during the heart of the pandemic, various state legislatures are showing renewed interest in the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill. Perhaps it’s the growing attention being accorded to toxic workplaces, or maybe it’s a sign that our elected officials are not as consumed with the challenges posed by the pandemic. (It’s likely both!)

I’ll be discussing more details during the months to come, but for now I wanted to share with you a briefing memo I put together about the Healthy Workplace Bill generally. It’s adapted from written testimonies that I’ve submitted to specific state legislatures. If you’d like to access a copy, please go here for a free download.

In addition, I made a pdf of a Dec. 2021 feature article in the ABA Journal, membership magazine of the American Bar Association, featuring my work on workplace bullying and related contributions to the field of therapeutic jurisprudence. Amanda Robert wrote the piece as part of the ABA Journal‘s “Members Who Inspire” series. Please go here for a free download of that article.

Podcast episode: On workplace bullying, therapeutic jurisprudence, pizza, etc.

My law school has a faculty podcast series designed to introduce students and others to what we’re doing. Here’s my podcast episode, recorded late last fall and now online. I talk about workplace bullying, therapeutic jurisprudence, work & the pandemic, gaslighting, classes I teach, respond to some personal Q&As about my favorite food, a recommended book, etc., and close with some advice. It’s a quick 18 minutes. To access the recording, go here.

Watch and learn: Video recordings of 2022 programs

 

Hello dear readers, I’m linking below video recordings of several programs in which I participated during 2022. I hope you’ll find something of interest!

• “Bullying and Incivility in the Academic Workplace” (March 2022) (link here) — I gave a presentation about “Bullying and Incivility in the Academic Workplace” to the Northeastern University College of Science in Boston, as part of a series on “Disrupting Academic Bullying.” I first cover bullying, mobbing, and incivility generally, then I examine these behaviors in academic workplaces.
• “Creating Healthy Workplaces Through Legislation” (April 2022) (link here) — At a conference hosted by the U.S. Department of the Navy and Howard University, I was invited to participate in a panel discussion on “Fostering Professional Climates and Cultures Through Accountability.” The conference was the 2022 “National Discussion on Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment at America’s Colleges, Universities and Service Academies.” I joined Rear Admiral Rebecca Patterson, Keetah Salazar-Thompson, and Kelley Bonner on this panel. My brief handout for the conference is posted here.
• “The WBI Story: Drs. Ruth & Gary Namie” (July 2022) (link here) — I had the privilege of interviewing Drs. Ruth and Gary Namie, co-founders of the Workplace Bullying Institute and long-time colleagues and friends, about the history of their pioneering work to address workplace bullying. This program was part of Gary’s Workplace Bullying Podcast series.
• “The Hero’s Call: Workplace Bullying” (Sept. 2022) (link here) — Suffolk Law alumnus and trial attorney Marc Diller extended an invitation to appear on his law firm’s video web series, The Hero’s Call. Marc and his colleague, Dr. John Naranja, asked me about my work around workplace bullying, the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill, and associated activities in the field of therapeutic jurisprudence.
• “The Dignity of an Intellectual Life for All” (Oct. 2022) (link here) — I organized and hosted an interactive discussion featuring Zena Hitz (tutor, St. John’s College and author, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life (2020)), followed by a responsive panel of distinguished educators, including Joseph Coulson, Hilda Demuth-Lutze, Linda Hartling, and Amy Thomas Elder. Hosted by Suffolk University Law School and co-sponsored by the Basic Program in Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago, Harrison Middleton University, and the World Dignity University initiative of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies.

A case for therapeutic jurisprudence in legal education and the legal profession

University of Miami Law Review, 2021

University of Baltimore Law Review, 2021

This semester, I had one of my most enjoyable teaching experiences ever at Suffolk University Law School, via a unique course that I’ve designed called the “Law and Psychology Lab” (LPL), a four-credit, workshop-type offering that examines the intersection of law and psychology in ways that are relevant to legal practice, law reform, and the legal profession. The course explores law and psychology primarily through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ), a multidisciplinary field of theory and practice that examines the therapeutic and anti-therapeutic properties of law and policy, legal processes, and legal institutions.

I’ve referenced TJ frequently on this blog. It has become a central framing theory for my work in drafting and advocating for legal protections against workplace bullying. It has also profoundly shaped the way in which I look at the law in general. In fact, from 2017-19, I served as the founding board chairperson of the International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence, a global, non-profit organization dedicated to public education about TJ.

I designed the LPL course to engage students in a variety of discussions, presentations, and projects. Ideally, it is intended to work best in an in-person format, with only occasional reliance on Zoom for specified reasons, such as guest speakers. However, after teaching the course the first three times either partially or all online due to the pandemic, this was the first offering that didn’t involve the ongoing use of Zoom to hold class.

Perhaps this is a reason why the course went so well this past fall. But the main reason is that we had a great blend of students who were eager to dig into the subject matter, engage one another in conversation, and keep an open mind toward new concepts and ideas. It was so gratifying to see the learning process unfold during the course of the semester. Among other things, it helped to underscore my belief that TJ has so much to offer in terms of reforming our laws and legal procedures and building our legal institutions. The ways in which my students discussed, applied, and even embraced TJ also illustrated its very practical utility; this is not highfalutin theory, disconnected from on-the-ground relevance.

I am now preparing to teach a very truncated version of the LPL during our one-week intersession period next week, a one-credit mini-course called “Introduction to Law and Psychology.” Although I would prefer to teach this course in an in-person format as well, I’ve opted to teach it online so that students will not have to return to campus a week earlier than their peers in order to enroll in it. Nevertheless, I hope this compact offering will provide students with some valuable insights and perspectives that will enhance their legal careers.

Law review articles

Bringing TJ into the law school classroom is partially what I had in mind when I wrote two law review articles that were published in 2021. I also wanted to provide legal educators and others with useful, accessible introductions to TJ.

The first was a lengthy, comprehensive survey of the field of therapeutic jurisprudence, titled “Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Foundations, Expansion, and Assessment,” University of Miami Law Review (2021) (free download, link here). Clocking in at over 90 pages, I use it as the primary text for the Law and Psychology Lab. The article has been very well-received with the TJ community and often is recommended to those who wish to gain an in-depth introduction to this field.

The second is a shorter piece, titled “Teaching Therapeutic Jurisprudence,” University of Baltimore Law Review (2021) (free download, link here), that offers ideas for incorporating TJ into the law school curriculum and makes bibliographic suggestions for reading assignments and research projects. This is now the primary text for the brief Introduction to Law and Psychology course mentioned above.

If you’d like to dip your toe in the world of TJ, then I recommend the University of Baltimore Law Review article. But if you’d like to jump and take a swim, then take a look at the University of Miami Law Review article.

***

Educators who would like to review the overall syllabi for the “Law and Psychology Lab” and “Introduction to Law and Psychology” courses may request copies from my staff assistant, Trish McLaughlin, at tmclaughlin@suffolk.edu. Please enter “Yamada Law and Psychology syllabi” in the subject line and provide your full name and institutional affiliation. Thank you!

Popular 2022 posts

Image courtesy of citypng.com

Hello dear readers, and welcome to the New Year! I collected ten of the most popular 2022 posts on work-related themes. If you missed them earlier or would like to take another look, then here’s your chance to read them:

• “Gaslighting” is the Merriam-Webster 2022 “word of the year” (Dec. 2022) (link here)
• Watching “Gaslight” (1944): One viewer’s guide (Oct. 2022) (link here)
• Workplace bullying and mobbing: Annotated recommended book list for 2022 (Aug. 2022) (link here)
• We need to dig beneath generic references to “toxic workplaces” (Aug. 2022) (link here)
• “The Wire” as work primer (July 2022) (link here)
• The Amy Wax situation: On academic freedom, diversity & inclusion, workplace mobbing, and cancel culture (July 2022) (link here)
• Dr. Martha Stout on outsmarting sociopaths (including those at work) (June 2022) (link here)
• On disability bullying (March 2022) (link here)
• Bullying, mobbing, and incivility in the healthcare workplace (Feb. 2022) (link here)
• A degrading money grab for classroom supplies in South Dakota (Jan. 2022) (link here)

“The Hero’s Call”: An alumnus interviews me about workplace bullying

One of the most gratifying things that I experience as a law professor is when I can reconnect with a former student who has built a successful and positively impactful legal career. Such was the case recently, when Suffolk Law alumnus Marc Diller extended an invitation to appear on his law firm’s video web series, The Hero’s Call.

Marc’s law firm is devoted to personal injury law, built around the conviction that those who suffer harms because of someone’s negligent, reckless, or intentional behavior should be entitled to compensation for their losses. And I’m delighted to note that Marc himself has become a highly accomplished and respected trial attorney here in the Bay State.

When the pandemic emerged, his firm launched The Hero’s Call series to spotlight the work of folks who are working to safeguard and advocate for the health and safety of others. Marc and his colleague, Dr. John Naranja, interviewed me for The Hero’s Call about my work around workplace bullying and associated activities in the field of therapeutic jurisprudence. To watch the 24-minute interview, go here.

On expanding our view of global leadership to embrace human dignity

The term “global leadership” is strongly associated with economic, political, and social dominance in a neoliberal context. Degree programs using global leadership or similar monikers tend to be offered through graduate schools of business, and they usually emphasize market command in terms of ideas, information, and products. The latter point also applies to business conferences and workshops invoking the term.

However, at last December’s Annual Workshop on Transforming Humiliation and Violent Conflict, hosted by Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (HDHS), I suggested that we should reframe global leadership through lenses of servant leadership and global stewardship. I expounded upon this topic and related it to themes of compassionate justice and therapeutic jurisprudence during my short remarks (under 10 minutes), which you may access here.

Definitions

If you’re wondering where I’m going with this, it may help to define terms, and I’ll simply draw from Wikipedia:

Servant leadership is a…

…leadership philosophy in which the goal of the leader is to serve. This is different from traditional leadership where the leader’s main focus is the thriving of their company or organization. A servant leader shares power, puts the needs of the employees first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people.

Stewardship is an…

…ethic that embodies the responsible planning and management of resources. The concepts of stewardship can be applied to the environment and nature, economics, health, property, information, theology, cultural resources etc.

With these general definitions as guideposts, I would like us to conceptualize and practice global leadership in a way that emphasizes our roles as stewards of, and servants to, the health of this planet and its inhabitants. 

Google hits

Last fall, in preparation for the HDHS workshop, I did a quick Google search to see how many “hits” certain relevant terms would yield. Here is what I found:

• Search “global leadership” = ~1,060,000,000 hits
• Search “global stewardship” = ~93,000,000 hits
• Search “servant leadership” = ~57,000,000 hits

Clearly, among these terms, “global leadership” holds sway. Hence my belief that we should invoke it to advance dignitarian values, while elevating global stewardship and servant leadership in association with the core term.

Legal systems

As I further noted in my HDHS presentation, we have to apply these concepts of servant leadership and stewardship to those served by our legal systems, on a global level. After all:

• Many are ill-served by it right now.
• Our laws & public policies and their applications are not necessarily just.
• The experiences of litigation and dispute resolution can be traumatizing in and of themselves.
• Access to quality legal assistance is far from universal.

One of the answers to this is the field of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ), which examines whether our laws, legal systems, and legal institutions support or undermine individual and societal well-being and psychologically healthy outcomes in legal proceedings. I have discussed TJ often on this blog. In 2017, I helped to create the International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence, and last year I published a thorough assessment of the field, “Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Foundations, Expansion, and Assessment,” in the University of Miami Law Review. You may freely access it here.

“Members Who Inspire” profile in ABA Journal

The latest issue of the ABA Journal, the membership magazine of the American Bar Association, includes a generous profile of my work on workplace bullying and on therapeutic jurisprudence, as the latest in its “Members Who Inspire” series. You may access an online version of the article by Amanda Robert, “David Yamada is fighting to end workplace bullying,” by going here.

In addition, the ABA Journal invited me to contribute a short sidebar advice piece for legal employers on how to address workplace bullying. You may access “6 ways to fight workplace bullying in legal spaces” here.

I am grateful for Amanda Robert’s feature article and laudatory comments in the piece from Dr. Gary Namie (co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute) and Prof. David Wexler (co-founder of the field of therapeutic jurisprudence), two long-time dear colleagues whose pioneering work has inspired mine.

Published: “Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Foundations, Expansion, and Assessment”

Dear readers, my magnum opus survey and assessment of the field of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) has now been published. You may freely access a pdf of “Therapeutic Jurisprudence: Foundations, Expansion, and Assessment” (University of Miami Law Review) by clicking here. 

Here’s my abstract, which introduces the article:

Founded in 1987 by law professors David Wexler and the late Bruce Winick, therapeutic jurisprudence (or “TJ”) is a multidisciplinary school of legal theory and practice that examines the therapeutic and anti-therapeutic properties of law, policy, and legal institutions. In legal events and transactions, TJ inherently favors outcomes that advance human dignity and psychological well-being. Starting with original groundings in mental health and mental disability law, criminal law, and problem-solving courts, and with a geographic focus on the United States, TJ now embraces many aspects of law and policy and presents a strong international orientation.

This article provides a meta-level examination of the field, including its origins, core doctrinal and theoretical foundations, critical reviews, expansion into many areas of law, procedure, and legal institutions, and connections with other modalities of legal theory and practice. Furthermore, it assesses TJ’s standing and considers opportunities and challenges for the field’s expansion and growth. The intended purpose of this article is two-fold: First, to spur discussions within the TJ community about the past, present, and future of the field; and second, to provide a substantive, yet accessible introduction to TJ for those who wish to learn more about it.

Some folks might understandably ask, what do you mean by therapeutic vs. anti-therapeutic legal outcomes? Here’s a quick example: It is therapeutic that we have created laws against sexual harassment. After all, creating liability-avoiding incentives for employers to prevent and respond to sexual harassment and providing workers with legal rights against sexual harassment are good things. However, the ways in which we sometimes apply these laws, which may include wholly inadequate employer responses to reports of sexual harassment, as well as anxiety-producing, perhaps even trauma-generating, litigation, are anti-therapeutic.

TJ’s lens on legal matters helps to yield this kind of analysis, thus shining a necessary light on the ways in which our laws, dispute resolution procedures, and legal institutions advance or undermine psychological health and well-being, individually and collectively.

I hope the piece will be especially useful to:

• Individuals who would like a fulsome introduction to TJ. This includes folks with and without formal legal training.
• Scholars who seek a thorough overview of the field and abundant source listings (contained in the footnotes) for their own research.
• Members of the TJ community, for the purpose of gauging and discussing the field’s past, present, and future.

This article is a long one, clocking out at 90 pages and containing nearly 500 footnotes. Thanks to a very detailed table of contents, however, readers can easily dip into specific sections. It works as a cover-to-cover read and as a piece that can be sifted for individual sub-topics. It works well as a “textbook” on TJ for relevant courses in law and other disciplines.

I discovered TJ some 13 years ago, when my scholarship and advocacy on the legal implications of workplace bullying continually led me to questions about psychology and well-being. Over the years, I’ve become more deeply involved in this wonderful community of scholars, practitioners, judges, and students. I’ve long believed that the TJ community needs a comprehensive survey article of this type, and I hope this will be an educative and scholarly contribution.

Published: “Teaching Therapeutic Jurisprudence”

I’m happy to report that my latest law review article, “Teaching Therapeutic Jurisprudence,” has been published in the University of Baltimore Law Review. To access a freely downloadable pdf, please click here.

Therapeutic jurisprudence, or “TJ,” is a multidisciplinary field of theory and practice that examines the therapeutic and anti-therapeutic properties of law and policy, legal processes, and legal institutions. TJ has become a central framing theory for my work in drafting and advocating for legal protections against workplace bullying. From 2017-19, I served as the founding board chairperson of the International Society for Therapeutic Jurisprudence, a global, non-profit organization dedicated to public education about TJ.

The purpose of this article is to foster the incorporation of TJ into law school curricula, so that future lawyers may benefit from its insights and lessons. Here’s the abstract: 

If the field of therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) is to enjoy greater influence in the realms of legal practice and the making of law and policy, then it must expand its presence in the standard law school curriculum. This Article aspires to provide guidance and suggest resources towards that end. Part I considers the ways in which TJ can be introduced into law school curricula, including dedicated courses and seminars, single-session overviews, and clinical and skills courses. This will include a detailed discussion of my initial design and teaching of a Law and Psychology Lab, built around TJ principles and applications, which I launched in the spring of 2020 at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. Part II is a bibliographical essay discussing resources that can be used as assigned and recommended reading in courses incorporating some TJ component.