The Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law, and Politics (PISLAP) was born from a simple yet profound conviction — that human beings are motivated by more than material needs and economic interests. We are, at our core, spiritual beings, longing for connection, meaning, and a world in which we can fully recognize and affirm one another’s humanity.
Our work begins with a belief that the law — often seen as cold, adversarial, and detached — can instead become a force for healing, compassion, and social transformation. We envision a legal culture that nurtures empathy, fosters understanding, and helps to heal the divisions that lie at the heart of social conflict.
Our Origins: From the Politics of Meaning to PISLAP
PISLAP’s roots reach back to 1996, when over 1,800 activists gathered in Washington, D.C. for the first “Politics of Meaning” conference. Organized by Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, and Peter Gabel, law professor and visionary thinker, the gathering explored a radical question: What if social justice movements began not only from material concerns but from our shared spiritual longing for connection and love?
Among the participants were 50 lawyers, law professors, students, and legal workers who sensed that the legal profession had a unique role to play in this transformation. They formed the Law Task Force — the seed that would grow into PISLAP — to explore how law could reflect compassion rather than competition, and justice could be redefined as healing rather than punishment.
By 2001, this circle of legal thinkers and practitioners evolved into an independent nonprofit: the Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law, and Politics. Under the leadership of Peter Gabel and Nanette Schorr, PISLAP began hosting national gatherings, writing, teaching, and forming a growing community of spiritually engaged lawyers. Our members included public defenders, corporate attorneys, professors, judges, and mediators — all united by a shared purpose: to create a more loving and socially connected world through law.
Transforming Law from the Inside Out
PISLAP’s work spans many areas, but our guiding thread is transformation — of self, of relationship, and of system.
We are engaged in:
Transforming legal education, encouraging law schools to move beyond amoral training toward moral and spiritual grounding.
Reimagining the lawyer–client relationship, fostering empathy, authenticity, and shared humanity.
Supporting restorative and collaborative justice, emphasizing repair and understanding over punishment and division.
Transforming the practice of law itself, helping lawyers reconnect with their deeper sense of calling and moral responsibility.
At its heart, this is about reclaiming law as a helping profession — a vocation guided not by competition or profit, but by compassion, justice, and the healing of our communities.
A Philosophy of Connection and Healing
Our philosophy grows from the insight that alienation — the separation of self from other — lies at the root of social injustice. The current legal system, built on adversarial conflict, often deepens this alienation. PISLAP seeks to reverse that dynamic.
We believe that law can become a sacred public space, one that honors the inherent goodness and dignity of every person. Justice, then, is not merely about balancing rights or punishing wrongs — it is about love correcting that which revolts against love, as Martin Luther King, Jr. so beautifully put it.
This vision calls upon the legal profession to rediscover its moral heart. It asks lawyers to act not as technicians of power but as facilitators of understanding — to help clients make decisions rooted in integrity, and to see justice as an expression of our shared humanity.
Carrying the Vision Forward
Today, PISLAP’s influence can be seen across the country — in courtrooms and classrooms, in mediation rooms and community projects. Our members include judges in Minneapolis and New York, leaders of initiatives like the Georgia Justice Project and Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth, and educators at law schools such as CUNY, the University of San Francisco, and Touro Law School.
We continue to write, teach, convene, and support one another in the work of transforming the culture of law — one conversation, one case, one relationship at a time.
Our dream is simple but revolutionary:
A world where justice and love are not opposites, but reflections of the same truth.
A world where the law helps us heal, rather than divide.
A world where every human being’s sacred worth is recognized in the public sphere.
That is the vision that animates PISLAP — and we invite all who share this longing to join us in bringing it to life.