December Committee Updates
Having nearly completed our first year in existence, the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being continues to work toward increasing awareness of lawyer well-being and reducing stigma; addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion and the well-being of lawyers and law students from historically excluded and systemically oppressed populations; collaborating with bar leaders, employers, and law school educators; and identifying and understanding the well-being needs of the Massachusetts legal community. As we conclude this remarkable and challenging year, we highlight some of the positive changes for our legal profession, including increased awareness of well-being, renewed efforts to address systematic oppression of underrepresented populations, and enhanced use of technology to make legal practice more efficient and productive.
Note: We're on Instagram, follow us here: @lawyerwellbeing. If you like podcasts, you can listen, here, to an interview with our Director, Heidi Alexander, by the co-chairs of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being.
Here are our updates for the month of December!
SJC Committee Updates
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Statement. We believe that the legal profession is the strongest when its membership reflects the population it serves. Read our new DEI Statement that discusses why we believe DEI is central to the Committee's overall work, and highlights our goals to focus, communicate, and create change in order to ensure that systemically oppressed legal professionals receive equal treatment and receive the support they need to achieve equitable access to and success in the profession.
Advocacy for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. We drafted a letter to the Biden Education Transition Team to request Public Service Loan Forgiveness eligibility for private bar advocates and counsel whose full-time practices consist of appointed cases. The Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) itself, along with several other organizations and law schools joined in signing our letter. Please see https://lawyerwellbeingma.org/news/letter-to-biden-transition-team for more information. Our work was highlighted in this recent Mass Lawyers Weekly Editorial.
The Cost of Caring: Vicarious Trauma and How to Address It. On December 15, we hosted a program in collaboration with the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, CPCS, Greater Boston Legal Services, and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office on vicarious trauma with expert Dr. Madelon Baranowski. Over 500 people registered to attend. Please see https://lawyerwellbeingma.org/the-cost-of-caring for a recording and materials.
Mentorship Programs. We are collecting information to create a statewide, publicly-available database of legal mentorship programs. Please submit any mentorship programs, here. Additionally, now that we have completed a successful pilot program, we are aiming to launch a statewide mentorship program in collaboration with local bar associations after the new year. More info TBA!
Legal Well-Being Network. We invite you to attend our next Legal Well-Being Network (LWBN) meeting on February 9 from 1 to 2:30pm. Register, here. The LWBN is for interested lawyers, legal professionals, and HR professionals serving the legal community to connect and share best practices, ideas, challenges, and vision to improve the well-being of all attorneys in Massachusetts.
Loan Assistance Pilot. Over the past couple of months, we piloted a program aimed at helping to alleviate stress faced by attorneys and law students relating to repayment of student loan debt from law school. Any attorney licensed (or soon to be licensed) in Massachusetts is eligible to participate. We will extend this program through January, and thus there is still time to join the pilot, here. We currently have over 150 attorneys enrolled. We will conclude this pilot with focus groups, a survey, and an evaluation.
Management Training. Our Steering Committee Report highlights the importance of management training, since lawyers managing others without these essential skills can often result in unnecessary stress throughout any organization’s structure. We are working to establish management training programs for attorneys who are not currently receiving management training in their organization, firm, or other employment, or who may want to supplement the management training they are receiving in order to become the best managers and team leaders they can be. We'll keep you posted!
Law School Support. The Committee’s Law School subgroup has been working to prepare both (a) a guide for law students to support their own well-being, and (b) a template resource/recommendation list that each law school could send to its entire faculty both informing them about community and school-specific well-being and DEI resources they can communicate to their students, and providing some initial tips for considering well-being and DEI in course design and the classroom experience. More info TBA!
Report on Affinity Bar Town Hall Meetings. The Committee hosted individual town hall meetings with seven Massachusetts affinity bar organizations over the course of 2020, where members and leaders of each organization came and shared their lived experiences as law students and attorneys from underrepresented populations in Massachusetts. The Committee is now preparing a full report summarizing these experiences and the serious concerns raised by members of these communities about how the Massachusetts bar treats those of its members who do not come from backgrounds of privilege with respect to race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. We expect this report to be released in January or February of 2021.
Community News and Programs
Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (LCL) and the Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program(LOMAP). Join LCL's free Mindfulness & Self-Compassion 4-part series starting on January 7. Sign up, here. LCL will also launch a weekly 20-minute Yoga for Busy Legal Professionals class starting on January 13. Sign up, here.
Mindfulness in Law Society. In addition to regular MILS meetings and Mindful Monday Virtual Sits, MILS also offers Wakeful Wednesdays for law students at 5pm with Nina Farber, Director of Academic Success Programs at Boston College Law School. MILS recently profiled Laurie Cappello, Director of HR at Mintz and co-founder of Mintz's mindfulness program.
Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants Access to Justice Fund. We are all still reeling from the loss of former SJC Chief Justice Ralph Gants, whose leadership and advocacy surrounding lawyer well-being in many ways led to the work the Committee continues today. The desire to not merely honor Chief Justice Gants’ memory but to ensure that his life’s work is carried on has led to the establishment of the Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants Access to Justice Fund. The link to the Fund’s website may be found here. https://www.massbar.org/public/chief-justice-ralph-d-gants-access-to-justice-fund. Its charitable purpose is to advance access to justice, racial equity and criminal justice reform, all causes that were dear to Chief Justice Gants’ spectacular heart and which fueled his work.
Bar Association Programming. We want to thank all the bar associations for their continued programming around issues of well-being. If you'd like to have us address your members or board, please let us know!
Thank you for continued interest in, efforts in support of, and commitment to lawyer well-being in Massachusetts. Your individual and collective work is essential to make the practice of law more inclusive, sustainable and rewarding.
