The ABA Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being (“Task Force”) was created in 2017 in response to the findings of the 2016 ABA Hazelden Study documenting the prevalence of impairment in our profession. The Task Force included the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism; ABA Center for Professional Responsibility; ABA Young Lawyers Division; ABA Law Practice Division […]
Allow me to jump to the end and tell you retirement from private practice is good, enjoyable and filled with as much as I choose. Looking back, I see how the tools I learned in recovery over the years, and the principles taught in recovery, helped me make the transition from active practice to retirement. […]
There is a national effort underway to raise the consciousness of the legal profession. Individual stories, like Payal Salsburg’s, are being promoted on social media sites like LinkedIn as part of a #fightingstigma campaign. I encourage you to read her short story – one of super success, by anyone’s measure, and of the dangers and […]
And Covid! Continues. Really? Aren’t we in the home stretch yet? Apparently not. Breaking news (that surprises no one): vaccine rollout not happening as quickly as planned/predicted… B117 Covid Mutation Bomber now looms…blah blah blah. There is an adage in long-term recovery. “If you stick with the basics, you never have to get back to […]
Something interesting happened when the world screeched to a halt and the courts closed in mid-March. The lawyers we work with as volunteers and clients did not respond as everyone predicted lawyers would.[1] Were there, and are there still, fears of financial insecurity due to the decrease in new legal matters, reductions in salary, or […]
By Robynn Moraites Lawyers Weekly called me requesting a quick one-to-two sentence quote as to how I would advise a lawyer having difficulty with sleeping. Finding myself unable to succinctly summarize what I know about lawyers and sleep, a few paragraphs later, I realized I had the beginnings of this quarterly column for the Bar […]
By Robynn Moraites Why do some lawyers find it easier to kill themselves than to admit they are unhappy and need to make a change? This may seem like an overly dramatic opening to an article about lawyer mental health, but it reflects the urgency I feel about bringing to light the importance of an […]
By Anonymous I am smart. I really enjoy using my smarts to solve problems: logic problems, crossword puzzles, strangers needing directions, my clients’ problems, my friends’ problems, and my family’s problems. But, fixing problems has a sinister side, just like any addiction, and one can develop compassion fatigue. The best way to explain “compassion […]
By Laura Mahr After six weeks of Mindfulness Meditation for Building Resilience to Stress, lawyers from the 28th Judicial District Bar have the answer… There are few things we lawyers love more than our brains. Which is why, when our brains tell us we are tired, most of us lawyers tell our brains […]
After working at the NC Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) for the past 5 years, I can say with confidence that most of what we see clinically is lawyers’ and judges’ responses to the serious difficulties of life and a career in law. Not that there isn’t true psychopathology, because there certainly is. But it is […]