LENGTH: 1 hr. 58 min.

Sponsored by the Idaho State Bar Professionalism & Ethics Section

Terry L. Harrell, Indiana Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program Executive Director and National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being Task Force Member, will discuss two recent studies that reveal too many lawyers and law students experience chronic stress and high rates of depression and substance abuse. The findings are incompatible with a sustainable legal profession and raise troubling implications for many lawyers’ basic competence. Ms. Harrell will detail ways to do the following: reduce the level of toxicity in the legal profession; eliminate the stigma associated with help seeking behaviors; showcase how well-being is an indispensable part of a lawyer’s duty of competence; educate lawyers, judges and law students on well-being issues; and take small, incremental steps to change how law is practiced and how lawyers are regulated to instill greater well-being in the profession.