Mental Health and Well-Being
Articles are organized by year.
Vicarious Trauma and Burnout in Law: Managing Psychological Stress to Promote Safety, Performance, and Wellbeing in Legal Practice (March 12, 2025)
James, Dr. Colin G., Vicarious Trauma and Burnout in Law: Managing Psychological Stress to Promote Safety, Performance, and Wellbeing in Legal Practice (March 12, 2025).
Abstract
This book offers solutions and is an essential resource for lawyers, law firm managers and supervisors, as well as law schools, teachers, librarians, researchers and students. It is evidencebased and fully referenced, with tools and resources for lawyers wanting to improve their psychological resilience, and workplaces intending to adopt trauma-informed systems including strategies for supervisors. It includes guides for law school curricula and strategies for law teachers, as well as skills and habits for students seeking to enhance their resilience and self-awareness in readiness for legal practice.
Employee Well-being and Productivity: The Role of HR in Building a Resilient Workforce (January 29, 2025)
D, Sowmya Sree and V, Jothi Francina, Employee Well-being and Productivity: The Role of HR in Building a Resilient Workforce (January 29, 2025).
Abstract
Employee well-being has emerged as a critical factor in driving productivity and organizational success. In today's dynamic work environment, where employees face increasing stress, burnout, and work-life balance challenges, Human Resources (HR) plays a pivotal role in fostering a resilient workforce. This paper explores the relationship between employee well-being and productivity, emphasizing the strategic initiatives HR can implement to enhance both. By analysing current trends, best practices, and case studies, the study highlights the importance of mental health support, flexible work arrangements, and employee engagement programs. The findings suggest that organizations prioritizing employee well-being not only improve productivity but also build a sustainable and resilient workforce capable of adapting to future challenges. This research provides actionable insights for HR professionals to design and implement well-being strategies that align with organizational goals.
Value-Centered Lawyering: Reshaping the Law School Curriculum to Promote Well-Being, Quality Client Representation, and a Thriving Legal Field (November 26, 2024)
Abstract
For three long and harrowing years in law school, students learn to think like lawyers, to put their clients first, to interpret the law as it stands, to deftly advocate for positions they do not believe in, and to strive for successful and prestigious careers. These lessons help them develop analytical and advocacy skills, creativity and perseverance, a strong work ethic, and ambition. But there is a darker side to these learning objectives. What law students often take away from their time in law school is that their own personal beliefs, values, and experiences are irrelevant to the practice of law. They quickly learn that they must serve clients and employers, however personally distasteful or damaging it may be to them. And they begin to measure their worth and success by the yardsticks of prestige and money. Hearing these consistent albeit subliminal messages, law students frequently disassociate from the expectations that their future careers should reflect their inner selves, and they soon find themselves trapped in jobs they consider morally taxing or meaningless. When faced with such recurring conflicts between their work obligations and personal values, or with an overarching feeling of professional meaninglessness, most lawyers experience chronic cognitive dissonance, turn to alcohol or controlled substances for comfort, or develop anxiety, depression, and a host of other emotional, mental, and physical ailments. They lose interest in their work, perform worse, and experience burnout, thus jeopardizing not only their own well-being, but also client outcomes and the stability of the legal field in the long run.
Tragically, such scenarios are the norm, not the exception. Something needs to change. This essay explores what and how in three parts. Part I examines the symptoms of an ailing legal profession. Part II traces the root cause of lawyer unhappiness and aimlessness to the law school curriculum and its shortcomings in supporting law students’ and lawyers’ burgeoning professional identities. This section challenges the choice to de-emphasize personal values in the classroom, the unquestioning and unqualified insistence on client- centered lawyering, and the system of external rewards and validation as the predominant law school narratives. Finally, Part III argues that, alongside teaching students to think like lawyers, to serve their clients, and to work hard, we also need to teach them how to fulfill a paramount duty to themselves—to choose careers, job opportunities, and clients aligned with their values and sense of purpose. This section proposes simple modifications to the legal curriculum that would promote frequent value-focused self-reflection and reinforce the perception that lawyers are not merely instruments of client service, but people with unique backgrounds, experiences, and personal values that can and should factor in building their professional identities.
Enhancing Lawyers' Well-Being and Competencies Beyond the Traditional Law School Curriculum: The Impact of Mindfulness Education on Law Students (September 19, 2024)
High rates of mental health issues have been reported among legal professionals and law students alike. Research conducted in the legal field and beyond has consistently linked mindfulness with improved well-being. Consequently, in 2019, Thomas Telfer launched an upper year credit course called Mindfulness and the Legal Profession at Western University, Faculty of Law with the intention of bolstering student wellness and providing training in skills not traditionally covered in the law school curriculum. The course-believed to be the first credit course on mindfulness at a Canadian law school-combines a daily mindfulness practice with readings and discussion on topics such as mental health, focus and distraction, emotional intelligence, resilience, compassion, mindful listening, negotiation, and legal ethics. This paper presents a qualitative study of student reflections on the course. Our analysis shows that the course had a significant impact on participants' mental health and led to growth in skills relevant to the legal profession, including improved communication skills, enhanced focus, and increased productivity. Participants also experienced greater self-awareness and an enhanced ability to attend to the present moment. Many participants expressed an intention to use the skills that they learned in the course in their professional lives moving forward and a belief that the law school curriculum should be expanded to include courses such as Mindfulness and the Legal Profession. We argue that there is value to be gained from teaching law students about mindfulness. Courses such as Mindfulness and the Legal Profession belong in the law school curriculum and are deserving of consideration by the broader legal community.
Lawyers, Trauma, and Professional Well-Being: How the Legal Community Takes Back Its Mental Health (August 1, 2024)
Gibson, Brenda D., Lawyers, Trauma, and Professional Well-Being: How the Legal Community Takes Back Its Mental Health (August 01, 2024). Wake Forest University Legal Studies Paper No. 5026587, Arkansas Law Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Accompanying a notable shift in the legal academy to being more attentive to our students’ mental health, there must be an equal (or even greater) shift to focusing on trauma, mental health, and well-being in the broader profession. “Trauma is an inevitable part of life,” and members of the legal profession are not exempt from it. In fact, data show that trauma is prevalent in the profession—in both the client and the legal professional. It is, therefore, critical to gain an understanding of trauma and its inextricable ties to the legal profession. To do otherwise would be irresponsible to ourselves, our students, our clients, and the broader constituencies that we interact with and serve. Legal professionals cannot be effective advocates if they are not well, and trauma can make us all unwell, whether we experience it first-hand or vicariously or whether its genesis is systemic or individual sources. The impact of trauma on the legal system in total cannot be overstated; as noted in the ABA publication Trauma-Informed Law, “political unrest, crimes against humanity, war, and trauma are inseparable.”
Putting the Lawyer First: Framing Well-Being in Law as an Ethical Dilemma (June 01, 2024)
Abstract
A disturbingly high percentage of our students continue to be unwell. In the most recent and comprehensive survey of law student well-being in 2021, almost 70% of law students responded that, in the past twelve months, they believed they needed to seek help for emotional or mental health problems. Embedded screening tools in the survey suggested that 34% of respondents were clinically depressed and 54% suffered from clinical anxiety. 44% of respondents reported being drunk in the past thirty days, 33% had engaged in binge drinking in the preceding two weeks, and 38% had smoked marijuana in the past twelve months. Over 80% of law students responded that they had suffered at least one traumatic event in their lives, with 70% reporting more than one such event. Nearly 16% of law students said they had thoughts of self-harm in the past twelve months, and 11% reported serious thoughts of killing themselves in the last year. These numbers are troubling and above national averages. And for most of these categories, the percentage of students reporting mental health challenges or problematic behaviors has increased since the last comprehensive study of law students in 2014.
Exploring Well-Being Practices As Part of Law Student Development of a Positive Professional Identity (2023)
Abstract
The American Bar Association (“ABA”) is now requiring all ABA-approved American law schools to provide “substantial opportunities to students for . . . the development of a professional identity,” in turn interpreted to “involve an intentional exploration of the values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational to successful legal practice.” The ABA does not define either what well-being practices should be intentionally explored or how to go about it. This Article is designed to help fill that gap by drawing on my experience in teaching multiple upper-level courses, as well as a new one-credit first-year course. An objective of these courses has not only been to help the students form a professional identity that includes well-being practices, but also to help that identity be a positive one by trying to bring out the best in them. The pedagogical idea is to encourage law students to use state Bar admission standards of character and fitness as positive aspirations, not just minimum requirements. The Character element allows student exploration of their and others’ positive character. The Fitness aspect allows student exploration of what might be the best fit in terms of a preferred professional role, as well as six dimensions of well-being: Relationships, Engagement, Vitality, Achievement, Meaning, and Positive Emotion, summarized into an acronym: “REVAMP.” Both Character and Fitness are important for law students’ positive professional identity development, as lawyers who could be strong in all six domains of well-being could still be engaged in morally blameworthy conduct. This Article will also quote from some student writing for or related to my courses, with the students’ consent, reporting how such well-being practices have been helpful.
Reimagining Lawyering: Supporting Well-Being and Liberation (December 28, 2023)
Abstract
Given the tremendous turmoil we continue to experience throughout the globe, the present moment calls on us as legal educators to reimagine how we teach and practice law to incorporate more heart-centered, purpose-driven, and embodied sources of wisdom. Our approach needs to center relationships and respect for the dignity of all human beings in mindful and wholehearted ways. This call to action brings to mind Tikkun Olam, a Hebrew term meaning “repairing the world,” which is similar to ideas in many cultures that encourage us to embrace the beauty and the brokenness, the light and the shadow in each of us, and devote our lives as much as possible to seeing and lifting up the sparks of light we find in ourselves and others.
To develop this idea of Tikkun Olam further, I offer four “Rs”: Relational Consciousness, our interconnectedness and interdependence with all beings; Radical Acceptance, seeing ourselves fully and acting with self-compassion; Realignment, the opportunity that is always present to “re-turn” or turn again toward our core values and aspirations regarding how we want to show up in the world; and Repair, concrete steps toward repairing past and ongoing harms, which is a necessary part of our responsibilities to ourselves and each other.
Toward these goals and aspirations, I have been developing a healing-centered approach to lawyering, which draws from the same collective sources of wisdom as Tikkun Olam and my previous work on “relational” and “wholehearted” lawyering. This approach also represents a framework and a set of guidelines for how we can reimagine lawyering. The six ingredients reflect a combination of perspectives, principles, and practices that can help support well-being and ultimately contribute to a culture of belonging and liberation among law students as emerging legal professionals: (1) contextualized, multi-dimensional lens; (2) relational worldview; (3) strengths orientation; (4) agency; (5) transparency and trustworthiness; and (6) safer/braver spaces.
Resilience and Well-being: A Study of Police Officers' Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Region IV-A (November 2, 2023)
Abstract
Public health emergencies, whether of natural or man-made origin, present unique challenges to law enforcement agencies. Large-scale incidents, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, strain law enforcement resources and necessitate the allocation of resources between pandemic-related duties and routine service demands. This study, conducted in Region IV-A, focused on examining the mental health status of police officers, their COVID-19 precautionary measures, perception of organizational support, and its impact on job satisfaction.
The research, carried out between February and March 2021, utilized online standardized questionnaires within a descriptive survey framework. Respondents were selected via stratified sampling, and the Pearson product correlation was employed to test hypotheses.
The findings reveal that police officers in Region IV-A exhibited mild to negligible signs of anxiety, distress, or emerging mental health issues. The study attributes this resilience to officers' determination, perseverance, stoicism, and robust organizational and community support, which have collectively mitigated job-related stress and anxiety.
Using Technology to Promote Well-Being and Foster Professional Identity Formation in the 1L Classroom (October 01, 2023)
Abstract
Critical components of professional identity are associated with self-determination theory. While all three of the basic psychological needs contribute to well-being, autonomy is considered the most important. Moreover, when student autonomy is supported, “by giving them (1) as much choice as possible, (2) a meaningful rationale to explain decisions, and (3) a sense that authorities are aware of and care about their point of view,” it leads to “(1) higher self-determined career motivation; (2) higher well-being; and (3) higher academic performance.” For the past three years, I have incorporated two simple online tools to address student well-being in my Contracts classroom: a minute of meditation and a quick retrospective board soliciting responses to three questions. While my focus was informed by the connection of professional identity formation and well-being, it was only after I started using the online tools that I realized that both tools help to address the three basic psychological needs defined by self-determination theory.
Market Citizenship, Resilience Drainage, and the Role of Private Law (September 30, 2023)
Abstract
The state’s role in the sphere of public law is relentlessly discussed and debated. By contrast, the state’s impact and duties in the domain of private law are presumed minimalist, normatively ordering it to keep interventions to exceptional situations. This Chapter uses the vulnerability theory to critique and replace this conventional, bifurcated approach of “public” vs. “private” with a more holistic idea the authors call “market citizenship.” This new concept highlights the marketplace as a crucial area of social membership and an essential source of human resilience that heavily depends on the state. Thus, when some market actors exploit powers awarded to them via private law to deplete others’ capabilities to cope with life’s challenges, a salient problem arises. This Chapter draws on the vulnerability theory’s emphasis on the state’s duty to ensure equitable resilience allocation to define this harmful behavior as a troubling pattern of “resilience drainage.” It asserts that the state has an obligation of the highest order to suppress resilience drainage and protect market citizenship for all. Through an analysis of contract and corporate law, fields of law branded “private,” this Chapter re-configures the state’s duties vis-à-vis its members’ interactions with each other in the market domain. Significantly, it also demonstrates the normative power of the vulnerability theory in both general and economic legal analysis and further enhances the theory’s force by calling attention to peer-to-peer acts of resilience drainage as a site demanding the state’s response.
An Ideal of Resilience and the Law of Torts (August 9, 2023)
Abstract
One conception of resilience holds that if individuals suffer serious setbacks, they must make their situations better off, in some non-trivial way, than before those setbacks. Individuals should, in other words, bounce back better. This paper, prepared for the Clifford Symposium in Tort Law and Policy, summarizes and extends recent work that articulates and defends this ideal of resilience and shows its uses in tort theory. Among other things, the ideal can play a role in justifying punitive damages and hedonic damages in cases of irreparable injury.
More Than Mere Lip Service: A Mansfield Rule for Well-Being (June 2023)
Abstract
Law firms’ watchword is well-being. “Never in history have organizations around the world devoted so much attention and capital to improving employee mental health and well-being. It is lamentable that these investments are not always providing a good return regarding improved outcomes.” In the legal arena, a 2021 report from the Institute for Well-Being in Law echoed this sentiment, determining that while 99 percent of law firms have some type of well-being program, these measures did little to nothing to address internal, structural issues that perpetuate the lack of attorney well-being.
Law firms cannot continue to espouse a well-being ideology that “shift[s] blame from institutions to individuals.” Unsurprisingly, fealty to the American Bar Association’s well-being pledge does not eradicate the billable-hour pressures at the root of many lawyer-well-being problems. Rather, “[w]ell-being is a team sport.” To prompt meaningful, profession-wide change, firms need to do more than prescribe stress-reduction techniques and subsidize gym memberships.
Generating a list of well-being friendly firms is a start; industry-ranking company Vault introduced “wellness” in 2021 as a category for gauging the best large and midsized law firms to work for based on associate feedback. But to make real progress, firms should take a holistic, interconnected tack to well-being and inclusion, “embed[ding] lawyer well-being as an institutional piece of their DEI efforts.” Similar to how the Mansfield Rule, a diversity initiative, sets “consideration goals” to create a pipeline to legal leadership roles, a comparable standard should be established for firms to cultivate a culture of well-being.
This Essay calls for law firms to pursue a preventative, systemic approach to well-being. Part I recounts the wretched state of firms’ well-being programs, which present individual solutions to pervasive problems. Part II describes how the Mansfield Rule’s clear criteria and extensive certification process have helped firms make inroads in diversifying firm leadership. And Part III proposes a well-being analogue to the Mansfield Rule so that firms’ well-being bite matches its bark.
Mindful Lawyering: A Pilot Study on Mindfulness Training for Law Students (April 10, 2023)
Rosky, Clifford and Roberts, C. R. Lynae and Hanley, Adam and Garland, Eric, Mindful Lawyering: A Pilot Study on Mindfulness Training for Law Students (April 10, 2023). Mindfulness (2022) 13:2347–2356; University of Utah College of Law Research Paper No. 542
Objectives: Many US law schools are now offering elective courses in mindfulness training to alleviate disproportionately high levels of anxiety, depression, stress, and disordered alcohol use among law students. To date, empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these courses has been lacking. The aim of this pilot study was to explore the feasibility and impact of a 13‐week mindfulness course, “Mindful Lawyering,” specifically tailored to law students. The primary hypothesis was that mindfulness training would be significantly correlated with improvements in well-being and mindfulness.
Methods: The design was a non-randomized, quasi-experimental study involving 64 law students. The mindfulness group was 31 students taking Mindful Lawyering; the comparison group was 33 students taking other law school courses. Outcome measures were the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale; the Positive and Negative Affect Scale; the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test; and the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire.
Results: Results provide promising evidence to support the hypothesis. The mindfulness group showed significantly greater improvement on measures of stress (p < .001, d = 1.15), anxiety (p < .001, d = . 90), depression (p = .012, d = .66), negative affect (p = .002, d = .81), disordered alcohol use (p = .011, d = .67), and mindfulness (p < .001, d = 1.32) from pre to post relative to the comparison group. The course was well accepted and feasible for law students.
Conclusions: Findings from the current study suggest that mindfulness training may occasion improvements in the well-being of law students. More research is needed to replicate these findings in larger, randomized samples of law students.
Liking, Linking, and Tweeting: Mental Health, Mentoring, and Professional Responsibility in the Age of Social Media (January 15, 2023)
Abstract
It should come as no surprise that interaction through social media and other forms of technology mediated communications (“TMC”) has grown dramatically over the last two decades. The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated this turn to technology. Communicating through some form of technology, rather than face-to-face, necessarily changes the methods we use to communicate (a smile emoji in a text replaces a smile you might give in a face-to-face discussion, for example). Studies support, however, that, in addition to changing the means by which we communicate, our increased reliance on TMC may also be changing us. Among other things, some studies show a correlation between increased reliance on TMC and increased rates of mental health challenges, such as loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Given that extensive reliance on TMC may result in negative impacts on the mental health of its users, law schools, individual lawyers, and the broader legal community should take action to monitor for and mitigate these potential harms. The need to address this problem is particularly important in the current climate, as law firms, judges, and other leaders in the profession continue to grapple with determining what work environments and communications will look like going forward in the legal profession now that Covid-19 related restrictions on in-person interactions have been lifted.
This Article explores the correlation between our ever-increasing reliance on TMC and increased rates of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. It examines the problem in the context of the legal profession, focusing particularly on the resulting potential impairment of the lawyer’s ability to maintain and establish relationships. It reflects on the potential impact of that impairment on a vital component of professional development – mentorship. Then, drawing on lessons learned from Social Presence Theory, the Article offers proposals aimed at mitigating the potential negative effects of extensive reliance on TMC.
How To Teach Business Law Students About Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, and SBF (January 4, 2023)
Abstract
American legal education is undergoing fundamental and transformative changes. COVID-19 necessitated some of this, such as the unprecedented and universal rapid pivot to remote learning in March 2019 and in the 2019-2020 academic year. Other changes, such as concerns about lawyers’ and law students’ emotional and mental health, result from recent interest about well-being. This chapter analyzes how to empower business law students to develop emotional intelligence and resilience. This chapter also proposes teaching business law students to appreciate how emotions can address business fraud and such important social problems as global climate catastrophe. Finally, this chapter presents a case study of emotions and trauma in the meteoric rise and precipitous downfall of SBF (also known as Sam Bankman-Fried), founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The aftermath of FTX’s bankruptcy illustrates emotions in Congressional hearings and the resulting episodic development of American business law reacting to business crises.
Book Review and Essay: Review: Shailini Jandial George, The Law Student’s Guide to Doing Well and Being Well and Essay: From Stressful to Mindful to Joyful: Proposing a New Paradigm to Release the Deeper Chains Binding Law Students and Lawyers to Unhappy, Unhealthy Lives (August 3, 2022)
Abstract
I am pleased to review a valuable contribution at an opportune time for law students and legal education, The Law Student’s Guide to Doing Well and Being Well, by Shailini Jandial George, hereinafter The Guide. After presenting my review, in Part II I will urge that we supplement this excellent work and others with a new paradigm for addressing the persistent problems of distress and dissatisfaction in the law, including (a) ending the unhappy marriage of stress and the law, (b) ending the unhappy marriage of superficial, unfulfilling values and the law, and (c) amending aspects of law school pedagogy that undermine the well-being and personality integrity of students. I explain how the current paradigm obstructs health and wellness benefits such as those targeted by The Guide, and why those benefits will exponentially increase if healthful practices are coupled with a new paradigm that generates flow and optimism rather than tension and stress in the study and practice of law.
'It is Okay to Not Be Okay': The 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being (June 3, 2022)
Jaffe, David and Bender, Katherine and Organ, Jerome M., 'It is Okay to Not Be Okay': The 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being (June 3, 2022). 60 University of Louisville Law Review 441 (2021), American University, WCL Research Paper No. 2022-08
Abstract
The Survey of Law Student Well-Being, implemented in Spring 2014 [hereinafter “2014 SLSWB”], was the first multi-law school study in over twenty years to assess alcohol and drug use among law students, and it was the first multi-law school study ever to address prescription drug use, mental health, and help-seeking attitudes. The article summarizing the results of the 2014 SLSWB has been downloaded over 12,000 times.
With a desire to learn what has changed since 2014 given the increased emphasis on law student and lawyer well-being among law schools and legal professionals, the authors sought and received grant funding from AccessLex Institute to implement another survey of law student well-being. In addition to assessing alcohol use, street drug use, prescription drug use, mental health, and help-seeking attitudes, the 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being [hereinafter “2021 SLSWB”] also included new questions focused on law student experiences with trauma and on concerns of third-year law students related to preparing for and taking the bar exam. Additionally, the 2021 SLSWB included a set of open-text questions asking respondents to identify actions their law schools are taking or could be taking to support law student well-being.
Section II provides a literature review, inclusive of research on law student wellness since the original article on the 2014 SLSWB was published in 2016. Section III describes the methods of recruitment, response rates, and design of the 2021 SLSWB survey instrument. Section IV provides results from the largest multi-law school study of its kind, comparing results from the 2021 SLSWB with results from the 2014 SLSWB where possible. Section V discusses the results and includes recommendations for steps different stakeholders within legal education and the legal profession could pursue to better support law student well-being. With representation from thirty-nine law schools across the country, including public, private, and religious law schools, as well as small, medium, and large law schools in terms of student enrollment, the findings of the 2021 SLSWB have implications for multiple stakeholders in legal education, including students, faculty, staff, and administrators, along with boards of law examiners.
Solving for Law Firm Inclusion: The Necessity of Lawyer Well-Being (May 11, 2022)
Abstract
Chances are, in a room of one hundred law firm partners in the United States, at most, one Black woman would be present. Statistically, if there were a Black, Latinx, or Asian woman in that room, she would be the only one. Women of color make up only 3.79 percent of all partners, counting equity and nonequity partners. The percentage of Black women among all partners has remained solidly under one percent—0.57 percent in 2009 and 0.80 percent in 2020. And so, women of color lawyers starting at law firms inevitably enter spaces that are overwhelmingly white and male—spaces where their well-being is not understood, much less prioritized. These same spaces are also home to a significant level of stress, substance abuse, and depression, rendering the law firm business ill-equipped to be welcoming and supportive. Attrition ensues and underrepresentation continues.
To evolve into truly inclusive workplaces, law firms must act to embed lawyer well-being as an institutional piece of their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. For law firms, the “racial reckoning” and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–2021, with negative impacts falling disproportionately on women of color lawyers, have only complicated diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and well-being challenges. This Article proposes that law firms take concrete steps to solidify a holistic, interconnected approach to well-being and inclusion. Part II will provide an overview of the state of lawyer well-being and the representation of women of color lawyers at law firms. Part III will explore the impact of the events of 2020–21 on women of color lawyers. Part IV will highlight and critique recent law firm efforts on well-being and DEI. Part V will chart a path forward for law firms that treats well-being as inextricable from inclusion.
Listening to Our Students: Fostering Resilience and Engagement to Promote Culture Change in Legal Education (April 18, 2022)
Abstract
In this Article, we describe a dynamic program of research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law that uses mindset to promote resilience and engagement in law students. For the last three years, we have used tailored, well-timed, psychological interventions to help students bring adaptive mindsets to the challenges they face in law school. The act of listening to our students has been the first step in designing interventions to improve their experience, and it has become a kind of intervention in itself. Through this work, we have learned that simply asking our law students about their experiences and listening carefully to their answers helps create an environment that supports academic and professional growth.
Creating Online Education Spaces to Support Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, and Wellbeing (January 14, 2022)
Abstract
The pivot to online education during the pandemic has led those who teach students at all levels to explore how to promote student engagement in online classes. While building and enhancing teacher capability with online teaching is important, given the social unrest and other political, social, and emotional challenges presented by the pandemic, perhaps especially in the law school context, expertise with shifting the teaching of legal doctrine to online modalities alone is not enough. Law teachers need to consider how they can bring an anti-racist and trauma-informed lens and a focus on wellbeing to their online pedagogy and create learning communities that are democratic, inclusive, and caring. While this article was inspired by recent events, its co-authors share a longstanding commitment to these ideas and strongly believe they are applicable across many contexts, including legal education. This article identifies approaches, strategies, and tools law teachers can use to promote equity, inclusion, belonging, and wellbeing for all learners in their classrooms, especially students from historically marginalized groups. It focuses on methods for creating community within classrooms in an online environment in ways that promote racial justice and support individual and collective wellbeing. Part I discusses the reasons the co-authors have chosen to prioritize this aspect of our work. Part II explores how we create an intentional learning community where everyone belongs, in large part through equitable design and through creating a welcoming space for learning. Part III highlights a number of additional ideas we hope will inspire readers to re-imagine their own courses with attention to the goals and aspirations of this article.
Re-Imagining Risk: The Role of Resilience and Prevention (January 10, 2022)
Abstract
Bad things happen. Chemicals, meant to lead to better living, sometimes cause cancer, reproductive problems, Parkinson’s disease, or other problems. Factories and power plants, designed to operate efficiently and safely, occasionally explode. We have largely relied on the process of risk analysis to minimize the frequency and impacts of such events. Risk analysis identifies the likely undesirable consequences from a given activity (risk assessment) and develops control measures meant to reduce those consequences to acceptable levels (risk management). Doubts have arisen about the value of conventional risk analysis, particularly in the face of newly emerging technologies such as nanotechnology and synthetic biology. I argue that that conventional risk analysis—meaning risk analysis fixated on controlling risks—should expand to systematically integrate two related principles. The first is prevention, which seeks in the first instance to avoid the risk altogether. The second is resilience, which aims build the capacity to respond to whatever does come to pass. I use three case studies to illustrate current risk analysis practices and demonstrate how integrating prevention and resilience would change those practices. Those cases are registration of a new agricultural pesticide under California law, regulation of industrial process safety under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and evaluation of the use of synthetic biology in biofuel production under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Two Standards of Repair: Restoration and Resilience (October 8, 2021)
Abstract
Compensatory damages are often understood through the lens of repair. Tort theorists differ about what the fundamental *object of repair* should be—e.g., bodies, property, interpersonal relationships, normative relationships, or something else. But repair can also be distinguished by the applicable *standard of repair* governing it—i.e., which of several reparative ideals should govern an object’s repair. Courts typically presuppose a restorative standard, which seeks to undo destructive forces as though they never happened. But this paper argues that there is an overlooked standard—i.e., resilient repair—that appears in ordinary thinking about how to appropriately respond to setbacks. Roughly, this ideal encourages repair that makes its object in some significant way better than before a given setback, without seeking to erase all evidence of past injuries. After explaining the ideal and its normative underpinnings, this paper offers resilient repair as an evaluative resource to help us rethink compensatory damages. To illustrate the ideal’s utility, the paper argues that resilient repair allows us to reinterpret hedonic damages in the face of otherwise withering criticisms, including the objection that hedonic damages denigrate disabled persons. Although more might be said for and against understanding tort law through the lens of resilient repair, this paper aims to generate interest in resilience as an ideal for evaluating private law.
What the Lawyer Well-Being Movement Could Learn from the Americans with Disabilities Act (October 7, 2021)
Abstract
In 2017, the ABA National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being published The Path to Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, a report that contained numerous recommendations concerning how the legal profession can better address the alarming rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse within the legal profession. Since the publication of the report, there have been numerous ethics opinions, bar journal reports, and articles dealing with one issue in particular: the ethical duty on the part of law firm partners and management to supervise or to otherwise take action with respect to another lawyer who may be experiencing depression, anxiety, or some other mental impairment. The organized bar’s increased focus on improving lawyer well-being is commendable. But the lawyer well-being movement has also sometimes perpetuated harmful stereotypes concerning mental health. The Article suggests that in order to more effectively improve lawyer well-being, the organized bar should look more carefully at the text of the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as the policies that underlie it.
The Law Student's Guide to Doing Well and Being Well (May 2021)
Abstract
The ABA and most state bar associations have identified a wellness crisis in the legal profession, and called for educating students on how to better cope with the challenges of law school and practice. At the same time, students must learn how to maximize their brain health so that they perform well in law school and on behalf of their clients in practice. The same way musicians would tune their instruments, or chefs would sharpen their knives, law students must sharpen their minds. This book aims to help students “do well” in their ability to learn, and “be well” in the process, by exploring the deep connection between brain health and wellness. Specifically, the book discusses:
How to cultivate the ability to deeply focus and deal with the challenges of the 24/7 digital age;
How stress affects both brain and body;
How increasing resilience helps deal with challenges and setbacks;
Why we need exercise for mental, physical, and brain health;
Why adequate sleep is important and how it can be improved; and
How what we eat affects the brain and one’s physical performance.
The Legal Brain: A Lawyer’s Guide to Well-being and Better Job Performance (January 6, 2021)
Abstract
This book addresses the lawyer well-being crisis by summarizing the studies that demonstrate that law students and lawyers suffer from high rates of anxiety, depression, burnout, substance misuse, and suicide risk; explaining relevant parts of the brain, and how stress impacts lawyer brain function; reviewing the neuroscience and psychology research that links brain health and mental strength to well-being; and providing an action plan for lawyers to enhance their well-being, optimize their performance, and improve their brain health and mental strength.
Time to Make it Personal: How Personality Testing in Law Schools Can Improve Lawyer Well-Being (January 24, 2021)
Abstract
The main argument centers around how personality testing can be used in law schools. There are multiple areas personality testing can be implemented to improve law school curriculum, such as the need for a new curriculum that emphasizes soft skills and interpersonal communications and improves pedagogy with the use of personality tests. Personality testing will help professors understand different learning styles, personality types’ reactions to Socratic questioning, and new methods of teaching different types. Additionally, personality testing can improve career services by providing law students direction toward potential career paths. Testing may also improve student services’ student wellness strategies, mentoring relationships, and team/group pairings. The final piece of the argument discusses how personality testing could be utilized on the front end of a student’s law school experience through either interviews, admitted students’ welcome packages, or orientation.
Embedding Graduate Resilience into Legal Education for a Disrupted 21St Century (January 22, 2021)
Abstract
A fundamental role of education in legal education is to ensure that graduates are adequately prepared for professional practice as lawyers. Notwithstanding this aim, it cannot be said that legal education holistically prepares graduates to cope with the complexities of the 21st Century which is characterized by significant change and disruption. Law schools have a key role in building resilience so that graduates can cope with change and disruption in their workplace and profession.
This paper commences with a critical review of the current context, scope and practice of resilience in higher education. Given its dynamic, multidimensional, context and relational nature, resilience has proven to be difficult to translate into effective educational strategies. Much of the work on resilience undertaken in higher education has focused on the provision of supports to students to transition into university and to cope within an academic setting. Narrow conceptions of resilience which focus on perseverance, as opposed to an adaptive and developmental construct, are context specific and likely to be short lived. Given the multidimensional nature of resilience, graduates may not necessarily be able to demonstrate resilience in their professions following graduation. Little is done to specifically build resilience following graduation. The general literature and practices associated with resilience in higher education fail to address how resilience can be enhanced for students after graduation so that they not only cope with the disruptions associated within their professions, but also transform their environments if they so desire.
Using legal education as a case study, the paper discusses how resilience can be enhanced for a disrupted and changing career in the legal profession following graduation. It is advanced that little has been written about how resilience can be enhanced to foster critical consciousness and social and personal transformation to enhance resilience following graduation. Concentrating on the centrality of critical reflection and dialogue, teaching and learning strategies which are grounded in critical and emancipatory pedagogies are suggested to incorporate in legal education as a means of building graduate resilience through social and personal transformation. Strategies and practices outlined in this paper are applicable to other professional degrees.
Measuring Lawyer Well-Being Systematically: Evidence from the National Health Interview Survey (August 4, 2020)
Abstract
Conventional wisdom says that lawyers are uniquely unhappy. Unfortunately, this conventional wisdom rests on a weak empirical foundation. The “unhappy lawyers” narrative relies on nonrandom survey data collected from volunteer respondents. Instead of depending on such data, researchers should study lawyer mental health by relying on large microdata sets of public health data, such as the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) administered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The NHIS includes data from 100-200 lawyers per year. By aggregating years, an adequate sample size of lawyers can readily be obtained, with much greater confidence that the lawyers in the sample resemble the true population of U.S. lawyers. When we examine the NHIS data, we find that, contrary to the conventional wisdom, lawyers are not particularly unhappy. Indeed, they suffer rates of mental illness much lower than the general population. Lawyer mental health is not significantly different than the mental health of similarly-educated professionals, such as doctors and dentists. Rates of problematic alcohol use among lawyers, however, are high, even when compared to the general population. Moreover, problematic use of alcohol among lawyers has grown increasingly common over the last fifteen years. These sometimes surprising and nuanced findings demonstrate the value of relying on more reliable data such as the NHIS.
Maintaining Young Lawyer Well-Being in a Pandemic (July 7, 2020)
Abstract
The mass experiment in working from home prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic has created a host of wellness risks for lawyers. These risks—including working from makeshift work spaces, separation from colleagues and clients, and parenting while practicing at home—disproportionately affect young attorneys. Based on interviews with young lawyers coping with the pandemic’s challenges, this article offers strategies for how young lawyers can overcome wellness risks and suggests that lessons learned from this pandemic may lead to a more well profession.
Laughing Your Way to Academic Success: Can Laughter Impact Learning and Well-Being in the Law School Classroom and are there Cross-Cultural Differences? (May 5, 2020)
Abstract
Unfortunately, the truth is that law students are unhappy and can suffer from anxiety and depression at unusually high rates. Is there anything we, as professors, can do to help with that? While what transpires in the classroom is only a small piece of the puzzle that forms a student’s psychological well-being, the answer is we can do our part in the classroom to not only relieve student anxiety but improve learning in the process. After briefly examining the findings about the mental health of law students, this article reviews: (1) research on whether humor in the classroom can improve learning; (2) research on whether humor in the classroom can decrease student anxiety; (3) research on whether there are gender differences associated with the use of humor; and (4) research on whether there are cross-cultural differences in the perception and effectiveness of humor with a special focus on China.
Mobilizing Community and Family Resilience Across Illinois (April 16, 2020)
Abstract
To mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and alleviate the pressure on medical resources, state and local governments in Illinois mandated measures of social distancing, including sheltering at home. While necessary during a pandemic, these measures have the potential to undermine the very essential social and family ties that individuals depend upon on during moments of crisis. Prior experiences with disasters teach us that the distress people experience will be due both to the pandemic itself and to the losses of communality and support that result from these disruptions. Because of persistent and widespread racial inequities and residential segregation,2 the pandemic will likely impact communities unevenly, resulting in families and communities of color, including undocumented persons, being among the hardest hit. Mobilizing community and family resilience can help promote positive coping for all, and prevent adverse health and mental health outcomes, especially for the most vulnerable. Community resilience is the sustained ability of a community to utilize available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations. This brief describes four primary sets of resources that underlie community resilience: Economic development (the level of resources, their diversity, and equity); Social capital (social support, participation, bonds, roots, and commitment); Information and communication (trusted information sources and positive narratives); and Community competence (collective action and decision-making skills, collective efficacy, and empowerment). Access to some versions of these resources are critical during a disaster. To mitigate against potential negative outcomes during the response and recovery phases over the next nine months, the primary recommendation of this brief is that Illinois rapidly launch a new Resilient Illinois Initiative that provides targeted training and support to communities and families. This initiative will build and strengthen their resilience for coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. This can be achieved through a public-private collaborative effort funded by the state, led by a community-based organization with support from university researchers, which will engage a network of community-based organizations so as to reach communities and families throughout Illinois.
Conduct Yourselves Accordingly: Amending Bar Character and Fitness Questions to Promote Lawyer Well-Being (December 11, 2019)
Abstract
A number of states have modified the questions on the Character and Fitness portion of their application for bar admission addressing an applicant’s substance use and mental health disorders. While some have eliminated the questions altogether, others continue to pose questions which authors and ABA members David Jaffe and Janet Stearns argue are overly broad and unnecessarily invasive.
Student Wellbeing Through Teacher Wellbeing: A Study with Law Teachers in the UK and Australia (December 10, 2019)
Abstract
Research confirms law students and lawyers in the US, Australia and more recently in the UK are prone to symptoms related to stress and anxiety disproportionately to other professions. In response, the legal profession and legal academy in Australia and the UK have created Wellness Networks to encourage and facilitate research and disseminate ideas and strategies that might help law students and lawyers to thrive. This project builds on that research through a series of surveys of law teachers in the UK and Australia on the presumption that law teachers are in a strong position to influence their students not only about legal matters, but on developing attitudes and practices that will help them to survive and thrive as lawyers. The comparative analysis reveals several differences, but also many similarities with law teachers in both countries reporting negative effects from neoliberal pressures on legal education programs that impact their wellbeing, performance as teachers and ability to adequately respond to student concerns.
Gandhian Way of Resilience and Wellbeing (November 25, 2019)
Kazmi, Syed Sajid Husain, Gandhian Way of Resilience and Wellbeing (November 25, 2019).
Abstract
Change is a dynamic and integrated process of our life. How a person perceives his surroundings and reacts entirely depends upon how well he is able to change as per the need of his surroundings, i.e. how well he adapts to the demands of his surroundings. How a person deals with stressful situations and makes a comeback to his normal life is termed as resilience. Mahatma Gandhi’s life was full of such extreme and demanding situations, but the way he effectively dealt with these situations is the matter of study. It was his perseverance and dedication to an unrelenting pursuit of his goal that finally led to his transformation. His concepts like nonviolence, satyagraha, brahmcharya and the concepts related to ‘Truth’ and ‘God’ can give psychological strength and mental resilience to any individual trying to cope up with the demands of life.
Lawyer Wellbeing in the (Robotic) Face of Technological Change (November 1, 2019)
Abstract
Lawyers have had to make many adaptations to their work practices as technology has advanced. Yet the rate of change continues at a frenetic pace. This chapter considers the impact of new technologies in legal practice on lawyers’ wellbeing. Labour-saving technology promises greater efficiencies, with the potential to free lawyers from routinised and dull tasks, and even the office environment itself. At the same time, in an atmosphere of competition in a diverse and changing legal services market, technology becomes yet another area with which lawyers must contend.
Lawyer Wellbeing as a Crisis of the Profession (July 1, 2019)
Abstract
This Essay explores the implications of lawyer wellbeing for the health of the legal profession. To date, the movement to improve lawyer wellbeing has been largely propelled by the need to address the negative consequences of lawyers’ poor mental health for lawyers as individuals, as well as for their clients, their employers and society. Drawing on recent studies on lawyers’ unfulfilled psychological needs, however, we propose that the conditions that give rise to lawyers’ poor mental health also reflect divergence from our ideals of the lawyer as a professional and the law as a profession. Particular facets of lawyer suffering—debilitating self-doubt, lack of autonomy, and a diminished sense of connectedness to others—reveal wellness as an issue that sits at the intersection of other fault lines within the profession. Fully addressing lawyer wellbeing thus requires holistic reconsideration of the opportunities, priorities, and values that shape modern legal practice.
The Flip-Side of the Wellbeing Coin (March 1, 2019)
Abstract
Both ancient philosophers and modern psychologists assure us that our happiness and our values are inextricably linked: true happiness and wellbeing come not from the mere pursuit of pleasure, but from living in accordance with values that give us a sense of meaning and connection with others and self. This chapter explores the relationship between happiness (defined as subjective wellbeing) and values, and the implications of this relationship for law students and lawyers, law schools and legal workplaces. Research shows that the more we enact, rather than just subscribe to, certain values, the greater will be our wellbeing. Further, the psychological factors that influence whether lawyers experience wellbeing also influence their ethical decision-making and level of professionalism. We know that law school curricula affect student wellbeing; law schools also play a critical role in supporting (or inhibiting) the development of professional values and in teaching skills to enable students and future lawyers to live out those values. After law school, workplace culture can profoundly influence our wellbeing, while also influencing whether we are able to express/enact our professional values. Evidence suggests that effective regulation can encourage legal practices to improve their ethical cultures, which in turn could improve wellbeing. We need as a profession to attend to this connection between wellbeing and values; to fulfil its role in society, the legal profession needs to be well, which means being deeply connected to values.
'Why Bother if the Students Don’t?' The Impact of Declining Student Attendance at Lectures on Law Teacher Wellbeing (2019)
AbstractThere are emerging studies in Australia on declining student attendance at face-to-face classes in law schools, particularly where the classes are recorded and recordings made available to students online. While there is some, albeit limited, scholarship on the nexus between attendance and student wellbeing, the impact of declining student attendance on the wellbeing of law teachers is largely unexplored. An empirical mixed method study at the University of Western Australia Law School was recently undertaken to seek to understand student attendance rates and the motivations underlying student attendance or non-attendance at face-to-face classes. Data collected from the teachers’ surveys and focus group discussions from the wider study provide valuable insights into the relationship between student attendance rates and law teacher wellbeing.