Lawyer Well-Being

The American Bar Association has established a national task force on lawyer well-being. The purpose of the task force is to create a movement to improve well-being in the legal profession. On the first page of its first report, the task force states:

“To be a good lawyer, one has to be a healthy lawyer. Sadly, our profession is falling short whenitcomestowell-being….Studiesrevealthat too many lawyers and law students experience chronic stress and high rates of depression and substance use. These findings are incompatible with a sustainable legal profession, and they raise troubling implications for many lawyers’ basic competence. This research suggests that the current state of lawyers’ health cannot support a profession dedicated to client service and dependent on the public trust.”

The task force has made many recommendations, including:

• Leaders Should Demonstrate a Personal Commitment to Well-Being

• Legal Employers Should Establish Policies and

Practices to Support Lawyer Well-Being

• Bar Regulators should Modify the Rules of Professional Responsibility to Endorse Well-Being as Part of a Lawyer’s Duty of Competence

• Bar Regulators should Expand Continuing Education Requirements to Include Well-Being Topics

The report made recommendations for specific educational topics about lawyer well-being, including stress management, healthy eating, physical activity and better sleep. The Oklahoma Bar Association and Tulsa County Bar Association are doing their part to make attorney well-being important. The OBA rules now allow CLE credit for many programs with attorney well-being topics.

TCBA is now offering free live CLE workshops on healthy living topics for TCBA members in the convenience of their own office. “We may be the only bar association in the country doing this”, says Tami Williams, TCBA Executive Director. “We have been doing free CLE at the Bar Center for our members for many years. By delivering CLE in the law firm offices, this will save the attorneys the time of driving to the Bar Center. It will also allow the firm’s non-attorney staff to attend and learn more about wellness. Attorneys and staff from other law firms can be invited to attend. The workshops are all about audience participation, with lots of discussion, brainstorming, problem solving, and fun. The lunch hour would be a great time to present these workshops.”

The free 50 minute workshops are for 1 hour of CLE credit. TCBA members can choose a workshop on any or all of the topics below:

• Stress ◦ Prevention ◦ Coping • Sleep • Healthy Eating • PhysicalActivity • What Your Firm Can Do to Encourage Healthy Living

These CLE topics are approved for by the OBA and TCBA. The CLE on stress management qualifies for regular or ethics CLE credit, at the option of the attorney. Comprehensive written materials on all topics are provided.

Theworkshopswillbedeliveredbyoneormoremembers of the TCBAWellness Team. The team members have done workshops on the same topics for the OBA and the program evaluation comments described them as “excellent facilitators”. The wellness team members are volunteering their time for the TCBA. The team members are:

• Jill Warnock, MD, PHD, a Tulsa psychiatrist who works as a clinical professor at OSU Tulsa Medical School • Allen Barrow, a founding member of the Tulsa firm of Barrow and Grimm who established a wellness program at his firm over 10 years ago

• John Lieber, and attorney and registered nurse who has led workshops for different bar associations, including the TCBA, on a variety of health topics. Toscheduleaworkshoporformoreinformation,contact Julie Rivers at julier@tulsabar.com or contact TCBA Wellness Team member John Lieber at jlieber75@cox. net