When was the last time you thought about forgiveness in connection with a case you’ve handled? More and more lawyers and mediators are finding it relevant to their practices, as I certainly have. I am embarking on a year-long training to be a “forgiveness coach” with forgiveness pioneer Eileen Barker.

Throughout the coming year, I’d like to share with you occasional insights into forgiveness and how different facets of it might be useful to us as lawyers and mediators. Of course, one of the most famous examples of forgiveness is that of Nelson Mandela and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (“TRC”) in post-apartheid South Africa.

After nearly 30 years of imprisonment, many of them under extremely harsh circumstances of hard labor and abuse, Mandela was able to forgive his oppressors. As President, he established the TRC, a court-like body that operated on principles of restorative justice: reconciliation and forgiveness rather than punishment. While not without its critics, the TRC model has been adopted in many other countries torn apart by internal violence as better way forward for the country than a punitive model and has had a profound influence on the recognition of the constructive role of forgiveness in conflict.

This month, I’d like to start to make all of this relevant by simply taking a quick look at what forgiveness is and is not before addressing other aspects in future articles.

Forgiveness is:

  • Releasing resentment for a wrong done

  • Letting go of blame

  • Freeing oneself from bitterness

  • Changing the present
  • Forgiveness is not:

  • Condoning a wrong done

  • Forgetting or changing the past

  • Evening the score

  • Absolving responsibility for correcting or paying for a wrong

  • Weakness
  • On January 18, I will be speaking at the MCBA’s ADR section meeting with Eileen Barker and Judge Roy Chernus more about what forgiveness is and is not and will share some specific forgiveness tools that can be helpful not only for our clients but also for ourselves. And I’ll be sharing more useful tools and insights in additional articles over the coming year.

    The ADR section meeting is January 18th, 2017, from 12:00 to 1:30 at the McInnis Park Club Restaurant. Registration and Details.

    In the meantime, here is suggested reading:

    Michael Henderson, Forgiveness: Breaking the Chain of Hate. Book Partners, 1999.
    Jack Kornfield, The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace. Bantam 2003.
    Frederic Luskin, Forgive for Love. Harper Collins Publishers, 2007.
    Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving. Harper One, 2014.