Maine State Bar Association Summer Bar Meeting: How Are You Feeling? Mental Health Crisis in the Legal Field

Verrill’s Jonathan Dunitz will be a panelist at the Maine State Bar Association’s Summer Bar Meeting on June 27, at the Harborside Hotel in Bar Harbor, Maine. The panel, How Are You Feeling? Mental Health Crisis in the Legal Field, will discuss how attorneys significantly outpace the general population’s rates of depression, anxiety, burnout, substance misuse, and suicidal ideation. The ABA founded the Institute for Wellbeing in Law (IWIL) to address this issue nationally. Locally, the Maine Task Force on Attorney Wellbeing was formed this year to research issues faced by Maine attorneys and to find solutions that will keep us healthy and thriving in our practice. Jonathan Dunitz, President-elect of MSBA, Mollie Volinsky, LCSW, and Kristin Murray-James, Executive Director of the Maine Assistance Program for Lawyers and Judges, will discuss the current state of attorney wellness in the US as well as the Maine Task Force. More importantly, they will also discuss ways to destigmatize wellbeing issues, and offer practical ideas for dealing with the stressors of both work and life.