The Neuroscience of Civility:
Learn how to work with your brain and nervous system to ensure you behavior meets the civility standards of the legal profession.
In today’s high-stakes legal environments, our brains and nervous systems can get triggered by stress, deadlines, difficult clients, colleagues, and opposing counsels, and many other things.
Because we are still wired to handle anything that our brains or nervous systems read as danger the same way our ancient ancestors handled physical attacks, our brains and nervous systems' natural response to these stressors can caused us to act with incivility.
This CLE will help you understand your brain and body's natural reactions to stress that causes uncivil behavior and the ways you can work with your brain and nervous system to overcome these natural reactions.
What you will learn:
The specific brain areas, nervous system states, hormones and neurotransmitters that allow us to act with civility when we are in a natural safe place and how to return to that state more easily when we have been triggered by stress
The particular stressors in the legal practice that result in our brain and nervous systems switching into a reactive threated state that makes civil behavior much harder
The neurobiology behind how job stress and legal conflict trigger the threatened "Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Appease" state leading to reactive and uncivil behaviors
How these threatened states reduce the ability to listen, focus, trust, and collaborate, ultimately compromising legal outcomes
Practical in-the-moment techniques to stay present and civil during difficult conversations and other threatening situations that occur in the practice of law
Regular practices that help the brain and nervous system grow the capacity to handle more stress without switching to a threatened state
Tools based on interpersonal neurobiology that teach you how to help others in the room return to a reasonable civil state if they have become triggered
How to grow your capacity to handle more pressure while maintaining mental acuity, focus, and composure
Evidence-based, actionable techniques that will allow you to bounce back from stressors and return to a state of peak performance
