Mental Health & Substance Abuse

Looking for a program that meets your ENTIRE professional responsibility requirement? Look no further! This unique program features panels of legal ethics consultants, top lawyers and Illinois ARDC officials on six timely and practical topics relevant to your modern law practice. Complete this course and rest easy knowing you are DONE with your professional responsibility credit requirements, including mental health/substance abuse and diversity/inclusion.

Not included in IICLE® Online All-Access subscription.

Learn to identify common substance use and mental health disorders in the legal community, become aware of the leading causes of chronic stress within the legal professional, and understand ARDC and ABA rules related to attorney competence and ethics.

Lawyers, like others in the helping professions, are at risk for experiencing compassion fatigue. Lawyers who are regularly exposed to human-induced trauma, are called on to listen with empathy to clients’ stories, have high caseloads, and have a high capacity for empathy may be especially susceptible to experiencing compassion fatigue. Understand what compassion fatigue is, why lawyers are vulnerable to it, professional hazards that contribute to it, and how to become a more resilient attorney. Learn methods to enhance or deplete professionals from a systemic viewpoint as well as coping strategies to minimize compassion fatigue and increase your health and well being.

Learn techniques and strategies that will enable you (and other busy and stressed attorneys) to identify and deal with challenges in the profession through mindfulness. Mindfulness has been identified by the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism and the Illinois Lawyers’ Assistance Program (LAP) as one of the most effective ways to improve the overall wellness of attorneys. Through mindfulness, stress can be channeled and transformed into increased productivity and creative thinking. Get a practical guide for mindfulness in the profession and learn how to develop resilience to improve your decision making and judgment skills.

This comprehensive resource provides step-by-step guidance for attorneys and other professionals when dealing with the Dramshop Act.

Recognizing the demanding nature of the legal profession, this session provides proven techniques for eliminating toxic stress, balancing personal and professional priorities, and encouraging peak performance. This program educates legal professionals on the impact toxic stress has on the body and brain - resulting in detrimental consequences to health, wellness and job performance. It then provides participants with evidence-based strategies to lower stress, build resilience and thrive in their personal and professional lives.

This program completes your ENTIRE 6-hour professional responsibility CLE requirement, including new credit requirements for diversity/inclusion and mental health/substance abuse.

In this program, an attorney and an experienced clinician specializing in behavioral health issues share their perspectives on the significant challenges for individual attorneys struggling with substance abuse problems and the impact of the prevalence of substance abuse issues on the legal profession as a whole. In addition to a further understanding of an attorney's obligations under the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct, this session offers practical tips for supporting struggling colleagues and provides an overview of the treatment process and how it works.

This year's Workers' Compensation Institute will focus on Practicing in the Post-COVID Era. Review recent cases; get an update on CompFile; and learn about Medicare Set-Asides and new procedures at arbitration and on review before the Commission. Get virtual practice tips, including how to take effective doctors' evidence depositions via Zoom. You won't want to miss our most in-depth work comp program of the year!

Registration includes post-event access to the online on-demand recording.

Begin with the unique stressors of long hours, soaring law school debt, a highly competitive job market, client demands and expectations (and Court-Mandated treatment for mental health), lack of work-life balance, changing legal paradigms, and the "modern law firm" technology learning curve. Add to that list the most recent changes and adaptations associated with the Coronavirus where small and large firms have had to address the evolving needs of both hard and the soft skills of legal professionals. It is no wonder that the ALM survey released in March of this year, found that 31.2% of the more than 3,800 respondents feel they are depressed, 64% feel they have anxiety, 10.1 % feel they have an alcohol problem and 2.8% feel they have a drug problem. Lawyers and law firms poised for keeping a competitive edge recognize the value in and necessity of incorporating a mental health professional to meet the needs of the individual attorney, the group practice, and the client toward optimal career satisfaction, productivity and profitability. Learn how to incorporate this professional resource, because it is no longer an option not to.