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Join the ABA Law Student Division and CoLAP in supporting mental health awareness in the legal profession. You can buy a t-shirt or hoodie with our contest-winning design to raise awareness for the mental health of lawyers and law students across the country. Each comes in a variety of colors, and all proceeds benefit the ABA Commission for Legal Assistance Programs.
“The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.”—Arthur Fleck, "Joker" Shockingly, I found some time in my 2L schedule to see “Joker” over the weekend. It’s a gritty commentary on society,
As a first-generation lawyer, I really didn’t know what to expect from the practice of law. I wasn’t prepared for the pressure and the stress, and I didn’t know how to overcome the need for perfection and validation that I’d inadvertently nurtured through a lifetime focused on academic performance.
August 2018, on a late Thursday afternoon, I received a call asking me if I was available to come up and meet with a chief assistant state attorney. I was an assistant state attorney in Miami-Dade County, Florida, handling mental health cases, so these requests were common. I
You’re on the path to join a profession in which you will spend most of your life advocating for others. But if you hope to be an effective advocate for others, you must first learn to be an advocate for yourself. Today, on Law
For decades, virtually every state required bar applicants to answer invasive questions about their mental health diagnoses. In 2014, the Survey of Law Student Well-Being revealed the effect of this practice: nearly half of all law students were dissuaded from seeking mental health treatment for fear that such treatment would have negative
“Dear Ms. Leader, Thank you for your application. Unfortunately, at this time, we are not able to offer…" Sound familiar? Some version of this email has started to grace my inbox as frequently as the latest J. Crew discount code or law school lunch talk
If you have ever picked up a free banana smoothie or granola bar from your law school’s wellness week booths, you are not alone. Free food is great, and law schools do seem to care more about wellness than they used to, but I still find myself asking: how
October is Mental Health Awareness Month, and World Mental Health Day is October 10. We observe this month and day to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world and to increase support for wellness. This day is meant to provide an opportunity for all those affected to talk about
Last week was the first fall edition of Law Student Mental Health Week, bringing the LSD's Mental Health Day to Oct. 10 in keeping with the national observance. Lots of law schools hosted their own special events.
American University Washington College of Law hosted a YouTube Live event for Law Student Mental Health Day featuring Laurie Besden, Pennsylvania Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers Executive Director, who is in recovery.
In this webinar – "Rewiring Your Brain for Stress Resilience" with Jennifer Riggs, a neuroscience coach, speaker, and former lawyer – 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.
It was 2:30 in the morning on a Tuesday late last November, and there were seven people in my bedroom. For some people, that might be the beginning or end of a great evening. But this bedroom ensemble included two cops, two paramedics, a medic trainee, my wife – and in
It still bothers me how many “mental health” initiatives in fact focus on wellness as the main or only theme. The real truth is that while mental health and wellness are in fact both important to having a healthy mind overall, the two are totally separate concepts that could stand to be addressed as such.
Law school is a unique experience, but it is also incredibly stressful. For some transgender law students, school is more complex than just going to class and studying for finals. Some trans people, such as myself, deal with high levels of stress and anxiety in daily life aside from the struggles of law school.
There are many sources of law school unhappiness, from the massive loans to the high-stakes exams. Some of this is structural; you can’t do anything about it. But there are changes you can make to improve your law school life—not only to survive, but to thrive while you’re there.
Hey you! Yes, you reading this. We need to have a little chat. Did you know that those who work in the legal profession have the 11th highest suicide rate, according to a 2016 study done by the Center for Disease Control? In fact, women in law experience
After a quick google search of “mental health and law school,” I found an endless list of articles discussing how intensely the problems of mental health affect law students. This is crucial to raising mental-health awareness; the problems faced by law students are important to talk about. But being in law school myself, I was wondering if some people might need reassurance about how law school can sometimes make us… happy! I
Whatever coping mechanisms we learn and practice as law students will remain with us as we practice law. Law school is the perfect time to learn how to treat our bodies and our minds in healthy ways so we can be helpful and active members of this esteemed profession.
Stress during law school is kind of inevitable, so figuring out how to handle it is key not just to surviving, but thriving.
The ABA Law Student Division will address them during this year's Law Student Mental Health Week with "Rewiring Your Brain for Stress Resilience," a webinar on Thursday with by Jennifer Riggs, a neuroscience coach, speaker, and former lawyer.
The ABA Law Student Division has officially moved Law School Mental Health Day to October 10. This change affords all of us an earlier opportunity to bring our services and resources to our students.
Anne Brafford, JD and editor-in-chief of Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, has developed a Well-Being Tool Kit for the Legal Profession, available here. This free, practical toolkit offers many helpful resources for lawyers and law students seeking to improve
In 2014, a Survey of Law Student Well-Being found that nearly one in four of participating law students screened positive for anxiety and 17 percent screened positive for depression. Additionally, 6 percent reported thinking about suicide within in the last 12 months. One in five reported binge drinking twice in
Law students will be the first to tell you: law school is stressful. It’s competitive, expectations are high, and there’s a lot to do and only so many hours to do it. Now, stress can be a good thing sometimes. But too much stress—especially the long-lasting kind—is not so good. So what should you do?
Before the Bar is the blog of the ABA Law Student Division. It brings together a diversity of opinions, experiences, and voices from those associated with the law anywhere in the world and is targeted to law students, current, past and future.
Unless stated, the opinions shared by our writers do not reflect the official position of the American Bar Association.
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