When one sees and experiences all the rights that get trampled on in court, and by so many cops and prosecutors, the temptation is repeatedly present to get angry at such situations, and to call the rights violators fascists, tyrants, and low lifes at best.

Anger, however, always debilitates. Moreover, when a lawyer operates on high vibrations and positive energy, others can feel and feed on those positives.

A few months ago while waiting for court to start, another lawyer was complaining to me about his client’s late arrival for his jury trial. The lawyer twice called him a putz behind his back. One did not even need to understand the meaning of putz to feel the negative energy seeping throughout this lawyer. This negative energy was a barrier to the lawyer’s inspiring himself and his client onto victory, and the judge and jury on the path to a favorable outcome.

Moreover, this lawyer was judging his client in calling him a putz. How did the lawyer know whether the client was stuck in unexpected traffic without a cellphone, or had been in an accident? Compassion and understanding were called for here rather than casting aspersions on his client.

Part of keeping the good flow of energy and high vibrations is for lawyers not to judge their clients. Too much of that goes on already by cops, prosecutors and judges. A lawyer who judges his or her client is akin to having muddied windshields. For a lawyer to see clearly for his/her client, s/he needs to not judge the client, and to keep those windshields clean and unobstructed.

My role is not to judge my client, but to walk and fight every step of the way with my client. Furthermore, as Publius Terence aptly said so long ago: Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto./I am human: nothing human is alien to me.Thich Nhat Hanh takes Publius Terrence a step further in his poem “Please Call Me by My True Names,” recognizing that but for his fortune in experience, resources, compassion and wisdom from an early age, he could have become the child raped by a pirate as well as the pirate who raped her, “my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.”

As we go through the day and life with positive energy and vibrations, compassion and empathy for all (and I mean all, with no exceptions), feeling connected to all, and non-judgment (in all respects, including  notjudging our own selves, our own actions, and each moment that takes place), the magic mirror will take hold for others to do the same with and for us.

All this is not about taking a syrupy, Shirley Temple-like overly optimistic view on life, but is instead about transcending the perceived boundaries in persuading, eliminating injustice, making this world a better place, and making our lives much more happy and fulfilled at the same time. Try it.