Vivek and Bridgette embody all the goodness and kindness that can come from friendship and community. Warm, engaging, and real, they discuss their friendship, the communities they've cultivated, and the future of the legal profession. About Vivek and Bridgette Vivek Sankaran is a clinical professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, where he champions the rights of children and parents involved in child welfare proceedings. His work centers on transforming the child welfare system by empowering families, advancing justice through thoughtful legal reform, and building more compassionate legal institutions.Sankaran directs the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic, where students represent clients in trial and appellate proceedings. He also is the co-director of Michigan Law’s AI Law and Policy Clinic, which equips students to tackle critical justice challenges at the intersection of emerging technology, law, and ethics.Nationally recognized for both his teaching and advocacy, Sankaran is the recipient of the John W. Reed Michigan Lawyer Legacy Award from the State Bar of Michigan and Michigan Law’s Teaching Award for Support of Student Community and Well-Being. His writing—widely published—calls for deeper reflection on the values underlying legal systems, and his appellate litigation has helped shape Michigan law on the rights of families.Beyond the courtroom and classroom, Sankaran is leading a national movement to bring compassion into legal practice. After completing the Applied Compassion Training at Stanford University, he now designs and facilitates compassion retreats across the country for the legal community, including judges, lawyers, and law students.Bridgette Carr is a clinical professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, where she co-directs the AI Law and Policy Clinic and co-teaches Designing a Fulfilling Life in the Law (DFL), a course that helps law students build the skills to create meaningful, sustainable careers. She is also a faculty affiliate at the Center for Positive Organizations at U-M’s Ross School of Business.A commitment to making the law work for people in their full humanity runs through all of Carr’s work: her ongoing representation of trafficking survivors, her focus on how AI can expand access to justice, and her efforts to help lawyers and judges sustain themselves in demanding, high-stakes practice.Today, Carr brings that same human-centered perspective to her work in AI and legal technology. As co-director of the AI Law and Policy Clinic, she and her colleague Vivek Sankaran, ’01, guide law students in exploring how artificial intelligence can improve legal practice and expand access to justice, not simply by increasing efficiency, but by creating opportunities to reach the people that current legal systems have been unable to serve.Carr is equally committed to the well-being of legal professionals doing difficult, high-stakes work. Together with Sankaran, she created Designing a Fulfilling Life in the Law, a course that applies design thinking principles to help students reflect on what they want from their careers and lives and build a framework for getting there. Carr, Sankaran, and colleague Rick Barinbaum also co-led Michigan’s first Judicial Compassion Retreat, a two-day gathering where judges stepped away from their courtrooms to share the emotional weight of their work and explore how to sustain themselves in it.She has appeared as an expert on the Today Show, MSNBC, and National Public Radio, and has been quoted in the New York Times and many other news outlets. In 2014, she received the Champion of Justice award from the State Bar of Michigan. Website and Socials: https://compassionatelawproject.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Season Sponsor: Andy Gregory Law, PLLC
