Join the TBA Attorney Well Being Committee on Wednesday from noon to 1 p.m. CDT for a free webinar on how to find a therapist who fits your individual needs. The program will feature three speakers: Adam Hill, an estate planning lawyer who teaches mindfulness techniques to attorneys; Chase Pittman, a lawyer and coach at Tin Man, a Tennessee-based company focused on helping people learn leadership skills through one-on-one mentoring, education, training and consulting; and Lauren Castor, a clinical case manager with the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP). Sign up here to join the discussion.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, half a million Americans have seasonal affective disorder, a depression that occurs each year at the same time, usually starting in fall as the days get shorter, worsening in winter and ending in spring. Three-quarters of the sufferers are women, and the depression usually starts in early adulthood. Resources for lawyers include the website Lawyers with Depression, a piece from the website specifically on seasonal affective disorder and insights from Dan Lukasik, the judicial wellness coordinator for the New York State Office of Court Administration, in the ABA Journal.

One of our most powerful tools to improve health, bolster relationships and just feel better is our smile. Research shows that Americans tend to smile more and wider than folks in other countries, and according to Axios, smiles are good for our mental and physical health. Science-backed benefits of smiling include stress relief, pain relief and strengthened relationships. And according to the Wharton School of Business, smiling at work can make us appear more trustworthy and deepen bonds with coworkers. Read more about the benefits of smiling.

The law can be a very dangerous thing, University of Missouri School of Law Professor John Lande writes on Meditate.com. Although the legal system is inevitably imperfect, it does provide important benefits such as helping people solve difficult problems, making institutions function properly, and promoting justice, he says. These achievements, however, can be accompanied by vicarious trauma — feelings of trauma that affect those who engage empathetically with survivors of traumatic incidents. Lande cites an ABA Journal article that explores areas of practice where clients, and thus their lawyers, often deal with traumatic incidents. These realities need to be discussed starting in law school, and seeking help in these cases should be normalized, he says. “Lawyers are not immune from mental health issues, and struggling with vicarious trauma isn’t a personal failing. It’s simply a sign that you’re human.”

The pandemic and other recent stressful events have made empathetic communications even more necessary. Most business consultants — and certainly most workers — agree that empathy is a critical leadership skill that can forge a stronger, more cohesive and more motivated workforce. Joel Schwartzberg writes in the Harvard Business Journal about four elements that are critical for empathetic communications: listening, acknowledging distress, demonstrating care and taking appropriate action to mitigate the situation or provide comfort. Schwartzberg provides examples of how each of these elements can be employed and ends with a list of do’s and don’ts to demonstrate greater empathy.

The Institute for Well-Being in Law offers a podcast designed to introduce “cool people doing awesome work in the well-being space.” The Path to Well-Being in Law podcast is hosted by Chris Newbold and Bree Buchanan, who served as co-chairs of the National Task Force of Lawyer Well-Being. The task force brought national attention to issues of attorney well-being with its 2006 report “The Path to Lawyer Well-Being Practical Recommendations for Positive Change.” Guests include well-being pioneers from all sectors of the legal space, including legal employers, judges, law schools, regulators, bar associations, lawyer assistance programs and wellness thought-leaders.

TBA’s member benefit partner Clio is out with a piece about lawyer stress levels, including why it is stressful to be a lawyer and seven ways to reduce stress. The authors write that high stress levels in the legal profession should not be surprising: lawyers work long hours, rarely get down time and are subject to client expectations that can be unrealistic. But lawyers should not simply accept stress as part of the job. Instead, they can work to recognize symptoms and develop healthy responses to stressors. Clio has these seven suggestions: recognize you are not alone, find a workplace that supports you, create processes to manage workload, utilize technology to maximize efficiency, consider alternative fee arrangements to reduce time spent on fee disputes, utilize a paralegal when possible, and find a legal mentor to help with setting boundaries and delegating. Read more about each of these recommendations.

Stress recovery is the process of restoring symptoms of work stress back to pre-stressor levels. Experts refer to stress recovery as a skill, because knowing how and when to recover from stress requires both knowledge (what to do) and practice (actually doing it). During stressful times, we are less likely to make good decisions about food, sleep and exercise so it is important to understand what actually works for stress recovery. A recent article in the Harvard Business Journal looks at five steps that can assist in recovery: (1) detach psychologically from work; (2) take micro-breaks during the workday; (3) choose a recovery activity you enjoy; (4) prioritize high-effort activities; and (5) shape your environment for optimal recovery with exposure to daylight, fresh air and plants inside as well as taking lunch breaks and walking meetings outside. By following these strategies, we can create intentional recovery plans that will help sustain energy and performance over time.

In a recent ALM Mental Health and Substance Abuse Survey, 31.2% of lawyers surveyed felt they were depressed. That’s four times the depression rate of the general population. Why is this the case? The truth is, Gray Robinson writes in “Attorney at Work,” the same traits and factors that make a person a good lawyer can also cause depression. These include a sense of compassion, desire to fix problems, tendency to perfectionism and reluctance to accept failure. To balance these traits, lawyers need strategies for managing stress and maintaining good health, a supportive group of people around them, and a sense of humor.

It's no secret that law school can be incredibly stressful. But even at a time when the legal profession seems to be more invested than ever in mental health and wellness, “character and fitness” questions on bar applications might be deterring some law students from seeking the help they need. Several in the legal industry are sounding the alarm that law students may be forgoing mental health treatment for fear of “failing” the character and fitness portion of their bar application, Law.com reports. The situation is causing some states to consider dropping the question about mental health status from applications. In Ohio, one law student is pushing for change, saying her peers are not seeking help because they think it will affect their ability to practice law after graduation.