Reducing Stigma to Avoid Chronic Stress & Burnout
Thursday, June 8, 4 pm Central Time
Lawyers bring intellect, passion, and skill to their work, carry significant workloads, and work long hours in close relationship with others solving difficult problems. Lawyers seek justice and successful resolution for clients and fairness, meaning, and intrinsic and external rewards for themselves. These aspects of a lawyers’ work can cause chronic stress, resulting in burnout, poor physical health, or other health challenges. The stigma attached to burnout and other physical health concerns as well as implicit and explicit bias can make it difficult for lawyers to get help. This program explores what burnout is, how our work as legal professionals contributes to burnout, and how to head off burnout, break the stigma, get help, regain our spark and enjoy our lives.
Speaker: Judith Rush, Outreach Manager, Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers
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Clients in Crisis – Helping Yourselves, Helping Your Clients
Thursday, June 29, 4 pm Central Time
The last few years have disrupted lawyers’ professional and personal lives. Attorneys may feel like their lives seem out of control and clients are affected too. Attorneys must manage their own emotions and be responsive to their clients. This program will identify normal feelings, reactions, and behaviors, and recognize when they are cause for concern. For some clients, reactions may rise to the level of impairment, including substance use, addiction, or other mental impairments. It is not a lawyer’s job to diagnose, yet a lawyer must act accordingly. What is the lawyer’s role, responsibility, and opportunity when working with a potentially impaired client? What if the issue is not with a client but with a colleague? The answers are seldom simple and never easy. This program will provide an ethical framework as well as practical guidance and resources for lawyers facing these questions.
Speaker: Chase Andersen, Case Manager, Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers