Building Stress Awareness & Understanding Burnout for Lawyers

Please join us for this four-part series designed to help lawyers and legal professionals avoid burnout and increase resilience — improving individual well-being, decision-making and client service. The once-a-month sessions are designed to build skills over time. However, the series is structured so that you may attend sessions individually as well.

In the third part of the series, “Building Stress Awareness & Understanding Burnout for Lawyers,” Paula Davis will:

• Discuss the burnout basics: start with her story; how to tell the difference between stress and burnout; warning signs; and a short pulse quiz to be used with your teams, along with ideas for how to discuss burnout 1:1 or as a group
• Explore the ethical and professional implications for lawyers and legal professionals
• Explain the core six causes of burnout and the specific job resources that mitigate it. These are the deeper causes (and fixes) of burnout within organizations, and the level at which companies need to focus in order to mitigate it.
• Discuss specific obstacles for lawyers and legal professionals. Review the common triggers that prompt counterproductive thinking, along with stress producing events common to law.
• Many lawyers and legal professionals catastrophize or experience worst-case-scenario thinking. Paula will teach a short five-step process to help reframe this style of thinking with examples that are specific to lawyers.
• Lawyers and legal professionals can also be prone to overthinking or ruminating. We will talk about specific strategies to address this thinking style.
• Breakout groups to discuss and debrief
• Provide specific strategies to mitigate burnout, plus ideas to implement

The next session is:

• "Staying Motivated & Engaged in Your Law Practice" on Tuesday, February 7, 2023.

Note that you need to register individually for each session. Please scroll down for this session's registration link.

If you cannot make one of the sessions, a recording will be available to watch for CLE credit for 30 days after each live program date. Email CLE@faegredrinker.com to request access.

All sessions are led by Paula Davis, JD, MAPP, a guest lecturer for the Wharton School Executive Education programs, and also a two-time recipient of the distinguished teaching award from the Medical College of Wisconsin. All registered participants will receive a copy of Paula’s book, Beating Burnout at Work: Why Teams Hold the Secret to Well-Being & Resilience, which was the #1 best-selling title in 2021 for her publisher, the Wharton School Press.

About Paula Davis

Paula Davis JD, MAPP, is founder and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute, which partners with organizations to help reduce burnout and build resilience at the team, leader and organizational levels. Paula earned her master’s degree in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania after practicing law for seven years. As part of her post-graduate training, Paula was selected to be part of the University of Pennsylvania faculty teaching and training resilience skills to soldiers for the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness program, one of only three lawyers in the world selected and trained to do so. The Penn team trained more than 40,000 soldiers and their family members in resilience skills. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Paula is also a contributor to Forbes, Fast Company and Psychology Today. To learn more about Paula and her work, please visit the Stress and Resilience Institute website. 

Questions? Please contact Courtney Wylie.

Note that you need to register individually for each session. Please scroll down for this session's registration link.