Ch. 8 - Resilient Lawyers: Maximising Well-Being in Legal Education and Practice

Abstract

This chapter examines the research that can inform the development of human resilience in law students to enable them not only to survive law school but to thrive and enjoy their transition into the legal profession. While the research continues, many significant findings are already ‘on the table’ waiting for law schools to accept their duty of care and act in response to the high rates of clinical depression found in law students and legal practitioners. The development of personal resilience begins in early family life as a product of the meanings we give to our first experiences of adversity, the extent we learn to communicate and collaborate in problem-solving efforts and the degree we adopt an optimistic explanatory style. However there is much that can be achieved through subsequent education, training and development. As adults, our resilience arises from the integration of four domains of well-being: physical, cognitive, emotional and ethical. Physical resilience is a function of sleep, fitness and diet and is the basis on which other types of resilience depend. Cognitive resilience involves how we think, specifically our ‘default’ thinking style and decision-making response when confronted with adversity. Emotional resilience describes the nature of our affective endurance; how we feel about difficulties and problems and how those feelings inform our goals and actions. Ethical resilience – possibly the most important for lawyers – reflects the meanings we attribute to our actions as lawyers. It arises from the product of both cognitive and emotional resilience in the sense that it reflects the assimilation of our beliefs and values. Ultimately, our resilience as professionals depends on our ability to integrate our developed capacities across the four domains and law schools have a central role in teaching habits of integration that will maximise development of resilient professionals.

Keywords: resilience, legal practice, emotional intelligence, fitness, sleep, diet, mindfulness, ethics, professional identity

JEL Classification: I23, K40