About

My name is Amanda Boardman and the Shark Free Waters blog is my “template of possibility for lawyers who feel ready to bring an enheartened awareness into their work”.*

I am holding the vision for a new integrative approach to the practice of law in South Africa – and finding practical ways to make this a reality.

In 2012 I gave birth to the Centre for Integrative Law.  Its vision is to be South Africa’s leading  consultancy for emergent thinking in integrative legal practice and innovation in legal education. The CIL provides programs, workshops and training to lawyers and law firms, focusing on new ways of practising law more mindfully and promoting emotionally competent and client-centred lawyering.  The CIL works with carefully selected thought leaders from all over the world in the fields of executive coaching, organisational development and psychology, in order to ensure that legal professionals have access to the best thinking globally in legal innovation, and lawyer actualisation.

Although most of my energy is focused on the legal profession right now, I don’t feel constrained to work only with lawyers. I believe everyone should have the privilege of journeying towards self-actualisation and reaching for FULL SPECTRUM CONSCIOUSNESS. I delight in helping others on their journey towards being the best version of themselves. I have been certified by the Barrett Values Centre as a Cultural Transformation Tools Consultant and can facilitate a range of tools that help people to measure their personal values and how aligned these are with their employer organisation’s values. I want to help people find ways to bring all of who they are to the work they do.

Full spectrum consciousness   – displaying all the positive attributes of the 7 levels of PERSONAL CONSCIOUSNESS, includes:

• Staying healthy, having financial security
• Building deep meaningful connections with friends and family that create a sense of emotional belonging based on unconditional love
• Having a sense of pride in yourself and your performance
• Having the courage to embrace your true authentic self and let go of the fears that keep you focused on your deficiency needs
• Mastering internal cohesion by uncovering your soul’s purpose and aligning the beliefs of your ego with the value of your soul
• Actualising your sense of purpose through collaboration with others who share a similar purpose
• Finding that  living out your soul’s purpose has become a way of life

 

The Cultural Transformation Tools also enable me to assist organizations in measuring their values so that they are able to take the steps necessary to create a vision-led and values-driven culture. I’m one of very few consultants worldwide who work in the intersection of organizational culture and legal relationships. I am passionate about helping forward-thinking companies  see how their adversarial and often archaic legal departments may be preventing the organization from creating the relationships it really wants with its employees, clients and stakeholders. I design new legal contracts that reflect the organisation’s mission, vision and values.

My experience is one of breadth rather than length. I can see that working in very diverse organisations has helped inform my multi-disciplinary thinking. I have worked in one of South Africa’s Big Four law firms and I have been a founding director of a small non-profit college in a rural area. I have lectured law full time at one of the biggest tertiary education facilities in Cape Town and I’ve experienced a brief stint at a start up boutique law firm. I then moved into Leadership Development work with all sorts of leaders and managers.

I combine my passion for researching the work of thought leaders in personal and organisational transformation with my ability to make this theory accessible to individuals and companies. My thinking is informed by the work and lives of Joseph Jaoworski, Ken Wilber, Don Beck, Richard Barrett, Otto Scharmer, Margaret Wheatley and Ben and Rosamund Zander. More recently in the legal space my thinking is informed by the work of legal visionaries: Kim Wright and Pauline Tesler. I consider it an enormous privilege to speak to them both regularly.

I’ve spent the last seven years overcoming the insidiously damaging belief, prevalent in the legal profession, that one should have distinct private and professional selves . You’ll find I’m pretty much the same person whether you meet me facilitating a workshop, sweating at a Bikram yoga class, enlivening a meeting of lawyers , eating dinner with friends or making friends on an aeroplane. I’d have to agree with perceptions that indicate I’m energetic, effusive and talk (a lot) about my latest thinking with regard to changing the world. I feel blessed that I have such meaningful connections with a global network of visionaries, helping to illuminate my path.

I strive to live by my values, to pay attention to all four quadrants of my life: the physical, the intellectual, the emotional and the spiritual and to ensure I’m growingconstantly in terms of both my ego journey and my soul journey.

I don’t have it all figured out by any means! But I’m loving the journey and willing to help anyone who believes I can be of service.

* the photo of me was taken in Bali in January 2013 when I was really happy and learned to be at peace BEING instead of only DOING. Still trying to remember all the Bali lessons in my day-to-day life.

*Jeff Brown – I really liked his quote so I took it and changed it a little.