Resiliency & Wellness for Law Students & Lawyers

As part of Law Student Mental Health Week 2022, the ABA Law Student Division and the ABA's Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs reached out to professors, administrators, lawyers, and law-focused mental health professionals to share a word of advice to law students who may be feeling the pressure felt by many of their peers.

Anne Brafford (www.aspire.legal) created the Lawyer Well-Being Channel to support Well-Being in Law Week, which is an annual event for which Anne led the launch in 2020. The week is dedicated to heightened attention to the well-being needs of lawyers and to the growing “lawyer well-being movement.” While Well-Being in Law Week lasts only a handful of days each year, resources will be available year-round to aid lawyers and their support teams in their efforts to boost health and happiness.

In this webinar, you will learn: how stress affects the brain; how we can change the brain; how common coping strategies do not serve; and what strategies we can use instead to improve our brain’s stress resilience. You’ll then be guided in applying them to your own situation.

The ABA's Law Student Division, Young Lawyers Division, Law Practice Division, and the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, along with with authors, Jeff Fortgang and Shawn Healy, present this webinar that discusses "The Full Weight of the Law: How Legal Professionals Can Recognize and Rebound from Depression." In this webinar, Drs. Fortgang and Healy – two psychologists with Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers of Massachusetts – will discuss the high rates of depression among law students, the various contributing factors, ways of recognizing distress, and suggestions for getting help and staying healthy. Lawyers report much higher rates of depression, anxiety, stress, and alcoholism than the general public. These problems usually start, or escalate, in law school. Tune in to learn tips on how to prevent, recognize, and address depression in law school.

Material on mental health from The Student Lawyer.

Learning to cope with stress in a healthy way will make you, the people you care about, and those around you become more resilient. This website from the CDC offers resources to help.

TAO is an interactive, web-based self-help program that provides online and mobile tools to help you overcome the day to day challenges around stressors like anxiety, depression, or other concerns.