Advocates of restorative justice and therapeutic jurisprudence increasingly seek to cross-fertilise their ideas and collaborate on research and practice. The time has also come for higher education professionals who teach these subjects to share learning regarding their curricular and andragogical development. This article represents an initial effort to promote such a partnership. It reflects on the challenges facing the mainstreaming of restorative justice and therapeutic jurisprudence, and contends that overcoming these obstacles requires a much greater focus on their place in university courses. This should incorporate working together to widen the reach of restorative and therapeutic teaching, to share and co-create teaching materials, to develop andragogies that express and reflect restorative and therapeutic values, to engage in public education, and to apply these concepts where needed in university settings. By collaborating across borders and disciplines on these and on other activities, we will stand a better chance of achieving our shared goal: a more humane and effective societal and institutional response to crime, harm and conflict.
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.
