Role
Paulo Karat is a Senior Lecturer at Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé Law School. Paulo teaches on the graduate SQE programmes (including Business Law, Tax, Commercial Law, Private Acquisitions and Corporate Finance). As a registered mindfulness teacher, Paulo is qualified to teach 6-week and 8-week courses to NTU students and this teaching forms part of his research work with colleagues in NTU Psychology. The Mindfulness Research Group is currently investigating the impact of mindfulness-based interventions on student outcomes and wellbeing. Paulo is interested in the application of mindfulness-informed teaching approaches to the wider Academy and is collaborating with various schools across Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé on how to integrate key principles into their teaching.
Paulo is also a qualified psychotherapist and his interest in mental health informs his doctoral research at NTU on 'psychological, emotional and cultural dysfunction in the legal sector'.
Career overview
Paulo qualified as a solicitor in 1999, specialising in intellectual property and commercial contracts, working at Freeths LLP and Addleshaw Goddard LLP. He left private practice to teach professional graduate courses at Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé Law School, whilst working part-time as a legal sector coach and in-house lawyer. He taught at NLS until leaving in 2011 to develop a start-up legal sector training software business. Having built his company to a point where it supplied over 40 of the Top 100 law firms in the UK, he had a stress-induced nervous breakdown. He returned to NLS in 2017, working part-time whilst retraining as a psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher and completing his MSc in Mindfulness Based Approaches to mental health and wellbeing at the Centre for Mindfulness Research & Practice, Bangor University.
Research areas
Paulo's research interests include measuring the impact of mindfulness interventions on students, lawyers and other professionals. He is also interested in attitudes (including cynicism) towards mindfulness within society generally and the professions specifically. His Masters dissertation 'Perceptions of Mindfulness in the UK Legal Sector' is available from the author on request. He is currently undertaking research into the impact of recognised, evidence-based 6 Week mindfulness courses on the NTU student population.
External activity
Outside NTU, as a registered mindfulness teacher at the British Association for Mindfulness Based Approaches (BAMBA), Paulo teaches mindfulness as a wellbeing, performance and resilience intervention to lawyers and to NHS groups (in particular Primary Care Trusts). Paulo is also a qualified psychotherapist (and a registered member of the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy) with his own private practice. He operates a general practice but has developed a specialism in trauma and grief therapy.