Mindfulness - Health and Wellness for Law Students and Lawyers: Florida Bar News TV

This week, FloridaBarNews.TV highlights how an enhanced hotline for distressed lawyers, better member benefits for attorneys looking to boost their well-being, and resources for local bars sponsoring health and wellness events are the priorities this year for the Bar’s Committee on Mental Health and Wellness of Florida Lawyers. The committee met at the Bar’s Annual Convention in Boca Raton to lay out its plans for the coming year.

This week, FloridaBarNews.TV highlights The Florida Bar’s efforts to improve the work/life balance of attorneys and how the Young Lawyers Division is preparing to distribute a comprehensive mental health survey.

This week, FloridaBarNews.TV highlights a recent Town Hall discussion focusing on the mental health and wellness of Florida lawyers. Florida State University Law Prof. Larry Krieger, who has spent a generation teaching and researching lawyer satisfaction, was the speaker Feb. 20, 2018, at the first of The Florida Bar’s Town Hall meetings addressing the health and wellness of lawyers and getting feedback on what the Bar can do to help its members achieve more personal satisfaction. With a mixed crowd of law students and lawyers on hand in the rotunda of the Florida State University College of Law in Tallahassee, Bar President Michael Higer repeated the sobering statistics about attorney mental afflictions and Krieger discussed the findings from his and others’ research.

This week, FloridaBarNews.TV takes a closer look at The Florida Bar's new Special Committee on Mental Health and Wellness for Florida Lawyers. Chaired by Florida Bar Board of Governors member Dori Foster-Morales, one of the goals of the committee is to remove the stigma associated with mental health issues, so Florida lawyers feel comfortable addressing their personal or professional struggles.

This week, FloridaBarNews.TV highlights the launch of a mental health and wellness campaign from the Young Lawyers Division called #StigmaFreeYLD. The campaign -- which has its own website, StigmaFreeYLD.com -- is designed to extinguish the prejudices that discourage people, especially competitive professionals, from admitting problems or seeking help. The YLD website describes it this way: “#StigmafreeYLD aims to end ALL the stigmas that lawyers face when it comes to addressing mental health issues — and we want ALL of you to know that seeking help does NOT make you less of a lawyer, Quite the contrary: It makes you a better, stronger lawyer.” To help the campaign gain attention, the YLD asked five lawyers who struggled with mental health issues in the past to be part a five-video series that will debut one at a time in the coming months. The intensely personal messages represent YLD President Christian George’s desire to take health and wellness in the legal profession to the next level.

This week, FloridaBarNews.TV highlights The Florida Bar partnering with the Young Lawyers Division to designate the month of May as “Health and Wellness Month” for Florida lawyers. This comes on the heels of a year when the Bar has had an unprecedented level of focus and commitment to health and wellness issues. The Bar will be promoting content related to the topic all month on every aspect of its social media, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube using the hashtag #WellLawyer. The Florida Bar has dedicated resources to health and wellness on its website at www.floridabar.org/member/healthandwellnesscenter. The YLD has a specific health and wellness page at www.flayld.org/health-wellness-month. This marks the fourth year in a row the YLD has designated May its “Health and Wellness Month.”

This week, FloridaBarNews.TV highlights recent discussions by The Florida Bar's Special Committee on Mental Health and Wellness of Florida Lawyers that centered around the need for a 24/7 hotline for Bar members and a way to remove any stigma from lawyers, judges, and law students seeking mental health services.

This week, FloridaBarNews.TV takes a look at a new report from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being titled “The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change.” The 72-page report released August 14 ....  — outlines recommendations for taking action.