Legal Well-Being News (September 2021)
Happy September! September is National Recovery Month. We want to take this opportunity to recognize the impact of addiction on the legal profession, to celebrate and support those in recovery, and to lower barriers for those struggling to get help. Events and resources are available via Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (LCL) blog, here. We also recognize September as National Suicide Prevention Month. Too many of us have lost someone we know to suicide. Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers provides an extensive listing of resources for individuals struggling as well support for family, friends, and colleagues, here.
Please see below for announcements and upcoming programs related to well-being in the legal profession in Massachusetts.
Committee Announcements
Law Student Well-Being. Developed by our Legal Education Subcommittee, the Committee has released guides to support law student well-being that are being disseminated to law students, administrators, faculty, and staff at each of the law schools in Massachusetts. Read the guides here.
Response to Affinity Bar Town Hall Report. We have convened working groups to help develop concrete recommendations to support DEI in the Massachusetts legal community. Email Committee Fellow Gavin Alexander (gavin@lawyerwellbeingma.org) if you are interested in joining a working group in any of the following specific sectors: (1) Courts, Public Agencies, and Legal Services, (2) Private In-House Legal Departments, (3) Small and Medium-Sized Firms, (4) Large Firms.
Bar Association Well-Being Toolkit. The Toolkit is now available ONLINE! We encourage you to review the Bar Association Well-Being Toolkit published in collaboration with the Mass Bar Association Well-Being Committee to help county and affinity bars incorporate well-being programming and initiatives.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resource Page is LIVE. In our work to support lawyers from underrepresented backgrounds, we have created a listing of local, state, and national DEI resources. Please let us know if you have any suggested additions!
Mentorship Resources. On our website, you can find find mentorship resources, including a Statewide Mentorship Program Database and registration information for our New Lawyer Mentorship Program.
Upcoming Programs
October 12. Legal Well-Being Network Meeting. An opportunity for legal professionals to come together to share best practices, ideas, challenges, and vision to improve the well-being of all legal professionals in Massachusetts. Register and find recordings and resources from past programs, here.
Community Programs and Announcements
Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers announces the hiring of Stacey Best as its new Executive Director. More information about Stacey, here.
Ongoing (Wednesdays). Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers offers Weekly Yoga for Busy Legal Professionals on each Wednesday at 2pm for 20 minutes.
September 29. The New England Chapter of Mindfulness in Law Society meets from 12-1pm with a presentation from Dr. Shawn Healy, Clinical Psychologist at LCL, about the unique issues around transitions from remote to in-person work, and the continued uncertainties around return to the office environment. Email Laurie Cappello at lmcappello@mintz.com to register.
September 29, October 6, October 13, October 20. The Essex County Bar Association in collaboration with Baystate Financial will offer a free financial management series, "Plan Well", for practicing lawyers. Register here.
September 27-30: ABA Equity Summit: Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Legal Profession and Beyond. ABA’s inaugural Equity Summit is a virtual nation-wide conference, with interactive CLEs, workshops, Ted-style Talks, a virtual networking component, and tour/presentation from the National Civil Rights Museum—all designed to educate on best practices and facilitate a robust exchange of insights, concepts, and strategies on the key diversity, equity, and inclusion challenges and solutions in the legal profession. View the agenda here, and register here.
October 1. The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Race Equity and Justice Coalition Meeting with Mass Trial Court Office of Workplace Rights & Complaint Director Margaret Peterson Pinkham. This meeting will dive into the process on how to report racist and discriminatory experiences in Mass courts. Register here.
January 19-21, 2022. Save the Date for The Institute for Well-Being in Law's (IWIL) first annual conference, "Redesigning The Legal Profession for a Better Future". IWIL is requesting proposals for sessions. You can find more information and submit a proposal, here.
Affinity Bar Associations. To support the essential work being done to promote the well-being of attorneys and law students from historically excluded populations, we encourage you to attend events hosted or sponsored by your local affinity bar associations. In Massachusetts, these include: Asian American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts, Hispanic National Bar Association Region I, Massachusetts Association of Hispanic Attorneys, Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association, Massachusetts Black Women Attorneys, Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association, New England Muslim Bar Association, South Asian Bar Association of Greater Boston, and Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts.
