Employment Law as If People Mattered: Bringing Therapeutic Jurisprudence into the Workplace

Abstract:     
During the past 20 years, scholars and practitioners drawn to therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) have produced a substantial body of work, with mental health law, criminal law, family law, and legal education being focal points for examination under a TJ lens. Employment law, however, has been conspicuously underrepresented in TJ-inspired scholarly and law practice literature. This essay, emerging from a 2009 symposium on TJ hosted by Florida Coastal School of Law, is built on the premise that employment law scholars and lawyers, as well as the public at large, would benefit by applying a TJ perspective to the law of the workplace, and it suggests some framing concepts drawn from psychology and related disciplines to guide future research, analysis, and practice. Relational psychology, trauma theory, and social work principles are among the ideas examned. The essay also applies these ideas to the challenges of representing employees and employers, using workplace bullying as a specific scenario for discussion.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 34

Keywords: employment law, employment relations, therapeutic jurisprudence, law and psychology, workplace bullying

Accepted Paper Series