Sylvia Clute

About Sylvia Clute

From the time I entered law school in 1970 to the present, my life has been devoted to justice, but I met a fork in the road in 1987. I realized that there are two fundamental models of justice, one grounded in fear that seeks retribution and revenge (i.e, the one I practiced in the courtroom) and one grounded in love that seeks healing and transformation-what I now call \"Unitive Justice.\" I left my trial practice in 2003 to pursue the vision of creating Unitive Justice as a parallel model that operates at the local level, and to be part of the worldwide Integrative Law movement that is transforming the legal system and our understanding of justice. My time is now devoted to writing about Unitive Justice and its application in other domains (including Unitive Education, Unitive Business, Unitive Spirituality and Unitive Politics), and teaching Unitive Justice theory and its implementation. This work draws upon my 28 years as a trial attorney, and the knowledge I have of how our retributive system of justice works. I now have the opportunity to draw upon the research I have been doing since 1987 on how to create a different model of justice, a model based on love. As unlikely as that might sound, the work I am now doing makes it clear that we can do this. I am working with a dedicated group of people, all committed to seeing this vision become a reality. This work lies at the intersection between various aspects of public policy and the emerging new consciousness that recognizes our connectedness-not separation and duality-as reality. We live at a unique moment in history when we are called upon to imagine, design and create fundamental institutional change on a scale equivalent to-and perhaps even more profound than- the Age of Enlightenment. Admitted to the following bars: Virginia State Bar, U.S. District Court for the Eastern and Western Districts of Virginia, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Experience

1. Adjunct Faculty Instructor, Dept of Criminology and Criminal Justice

   Virginia Union University

   Jan 2015 — Present · Richmond, VA, US

   I taught a course called Restorative Justice for Courts, Classrooms and Communities to undergraduate Criminology majors at Virginia Union University, a historic black university from January 2015 to May 2017. The course included Unitive Justice theory and circle facilitation. I am now teaching an Internship that includes Unitive Justice theory and circle facilitation. Unitive Justice falls within the larger umbrella of Restorative Justice.

Education

• Boston University School of Law

  Doctor of Law - JD, Administrative Law Concentration

  1970 — 1973

• Harvard Kennedy School

  MPA, Government, Public Administration

  2003 — 2005

• University of California, Berkeley

  MPA, Public Administration, Government

  1967 — 1968

• University of Colorado Boulder

  BA, Political Science

  1963 — 1965