Ninth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

The legal industry has some of the worst statistics of any profession for depression, anxiety, suicide, and substance abuse. We know law school, unfortunately, is often the beginning of a descent into these terrible states. Many of the top BigLaw firms across America are now addressing these critical issues head-on, and providing in-depth training and programming to improve the mental health and emotional well-being of their attorneys. Many law schools too have begun exploring specialized programming to combat the industry’s well-being crisis. The unprecedented 2018 ABA Well-Being Pledge signals a possible turning point for the legal industry in treating lawyer emotional and mental health as critical to the profession and to career success. In order to transform the broken US legal industry, there must be an emphasis on building strong, healthy, happy, and thriving law students and lawyers from the beginning – instead of simply trying to repair broken lawyers mid-career. This Workshop will address how American BigLaw is at the front-lines of this critical movement and will explore the industry’s unique opportunity to turn well-being into a professional core competency for the benefit of the entire population.