Berks Barrister Summer 2018 - 5

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President's Message

Being at Our
Best for Ourselves
and Our Profession
Joan E. London, 2018 President

T

he concept of "wellness" is an ancient one. Think of
the Latin quotation that you learned in high school
of "Mens sana in corpore sano." This phrase is often
translated as "A sound mind in a healthy body." Although you
likely heard it, as I did, to justify those dreaded gym classes
and rope-climbing exercises, this phrase actually has little to do
with physical fitness. Instead, it is derived from Satire X by the
Roman poet Juvenal in the early second century A.D. Juvenal
admonished readers from overly seeking the material over the
spiritual. The phrase is accurately used to emphasize the need for
balance in all aspects of our lives, including, and importantly, the
need for good physical and mental health.
In 2016, the American Bar Association (ABA) established
the Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being. The Task Force was
formed in part to address the alarming results of the ABA
Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and Hazelden
Betty Ford Foundation's study of mental health and substance
abuse disorders among lawyers, and the 2016 Survey of Law
Student Well-Being, about which we learned more during the
informative presentation by Caron Foundation at our BenchBar Conference. In 2017, the Task Force issued its report, titled
"The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations
for Positive Change." According to the summary of the Report,
contained on the ABA website, the report's recommendations
contain five important themes, which are:
(1) Identifying stakeholders and the role each of us can play
in reducing the level of toxicity in our profession;
(2) Eliminating the stigma associated with help-seeking
behaviors;

(3) Emphasizing that well-being is an indispensable part of a
lawyer's duty of competence;
(4) Educating lawyers, judges, and law students on lawyer
well-being issues; and,
(5) Taking small, incremental steps to change how law is
practiced and how lawyers are regulated to instill greater wellbeing in the profession.
Continued on page 6

President London with Law Day speaker James Madison

Summer 2018 | 5


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Berks Barrister Summer 2018

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