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Path To Well-Being In Law Podcast: Episode 9 – Chief Justice Paul Reiber

20 min read

Path To Well-Being In Law Podcast: Episode 9 – Chief Justice Paul Reiber

Paul L. Reiber was appointed to the Vermont Supreme Court as an Associate Justice in October 2003 and Chief Justice in December 2004. In 2010 he served as Chair of the Vermont Commission on Judicial Operations resulting in historic legislation that unified the state court system. He now Chairs the Vermont Justice Reinvestment II Working Group, and Co-Chairs the Chief Justice Task Force for Children and the Vermont Commission on Well-Being of the Legal Profession. He is the immediate past president of the Conference of Chief Justices, 2018-2019 Chairman of the Board of the National Center for State Courts, and involved in several other efforts devoted to access to justice and the rule of law. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the American Law Institute and active in his local chapter of the American Inns of Court.

 

Transcript:

CHRIS NEWBOLD:

Hello and welcome to episode nine of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being podcast series, the path to well-being in law. I’m your co-host Chris Newbold, executive vice president of AlPS Malpractice Insurance and as you know, our goal here is simple, to introduce you to interesting leaders doing awesome work in the space of lawyer well-being and in the process build a nurture of national network of well-being advocates intent on creating a culture shift within the legal profession. Once again, I’m joined by my friend, Bree Buchanan. How are you today, Bree?

BREE BUCHANAN:

I’m doing great. Hello, everyone.

CHRIS:

Awesome, and today we’re going to continue our march around the states and many of the states have really taken charge in the well-being movement, engaging in initiatives, commitments and success and we’ve previously on the podcast talked to leaders in Virginia, in Massachusetts, in Utah and today we turn our attention to the Green Mountain State, otherwise known as Vermont and we’re very excited to welcome our friend and fellow National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being member, Chief Justice Paul Reiber to the podcast. Bree, would you be so kind to introduce Chief Justice Reiber to our audience?

BREE:

I would be delighted to do so and it’s a real honor. The chief, you can imagine, very distinguished individual, but as you will hear over the course of this podcast, a really delightful human being and that wasn’t in the bio, so I just had to add that, so I’m going to give you [crosstalk 00:01:41]-

CHIEF JUSTICE PAUL REIBER:

Thank you. That’s very nice.

BREE:

… The official bio. Paul Reiber was appointed to the Vermont Supreme Court as an associate justice in October of 2003 and a year later as a chief justice in 2004. In 2010, he served as chair of the Vermont Commission on Judicial Operations, resulting in historic legislation that unified the state court system. He now chairs the Vermont Justice Reinvestment II Working Group and co-chairs the Chief Justice Task Force for Children and the Vermont Commission on Well-Being of the Legal Profession and we’ll hear more about that in a few minutes.

He most impressively, I think, there’s many impressive things, but he is immediate past president of the Conference of Chief Justices. He is the 2018-2019 chairman of the board of the National Center for State Courts and involved in several other efforts devoted to access to justice and the rule of law, which includes his sitting on the board effectively at the National Task Force. He is a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the American Law Institute and active in his local chapter of the American Inns of Court. Chief Reiber, welcome to our podcast. We’re so delighted to have you here today.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Thank you so much, Bree and Chris. Thank you, it’s a pleasure to join you here.

BREE:

And, a question we ask, we’ve sort of a tradition here of asking each of our guests at the very beginning about their… What is behind their passion for the lawyer well-being movement? What brought you to this work? Because you and I have been working on this together for, I’d say, three years and I know that you are very passionate about this, so if you could talk a little bit about what brings you to this work.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Well, it’s a good question and I’m glad you asked it. I was not a trial judge before I came to the Supreme Court. So, I was appointed directly out of private practice and I was a trial lawyer in private practice and I think as is not uncommon among members of the bar who engage in the same kind of practice. As I told the Vermont Bar Association when I spoke to them the first time about this subject a few years ago, I said, “All of us have got challenges in our lives, but in particular those of us who practice law and those of us who go to court, many of us suffer from anxiety and depression and substance abuse.”

And I said, “And, I have checked off all of those boxes.” So, I had a very personal real world interest in this and was excited when a report came out several years ago, which presented to the Conference of Chief Justices at our annual meeting in Philadelphia and a resolution was passed there and I came home back to Vermont and we immediately started to address it.

CHRIS:

It’s interesting that I think you came back and I think that your first probably act was to begin a dialogue about developing a commission on the well-being of the legal profession there in Vermont.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

That’s right.

CHRIS:

Talk to us about how that got started, what your role was [crosstalk 00:05:30].

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Right, all of us have got close friends that we collaborate with and brainstorm with on different issues and a good friend of mine who was on the trial bench at the time and has now joined me on the Supreme Court is Bill Cohen and Bill and I had practiced together. He also was a trial lawyer. We were in the same firm, had offices down the hall from each other, shared cases, tried cases together. Good friends, have known each other for a long time and I brought it to Bill and I’ll tell you who else, Teri Corsones, who was then and is now the executive director of the Vermont Bar Association, and another great guy both of you may know, Mike Kennedy who is our bar council here in Vermont and really is a terrific contributor in many, many ways to the well-being of the profession and the four of us sat down together that fall and I want to say it was the fall of 2017, but I’m not exactly sure. It was right after the report the National Report issued-

BREE:

Right, that was fall of 2017.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Okay, and we met two or three times. One of the things that I thought was very important, we all thought was important, was not only that we get a project started, but that we make sure that we had the full and unequivocal support of the entire Vermont Supreme Court, my colleagues on the court. And so, we outlined a program that we wanted to pursue. Essentially, by forming a commission that simply mirrored exactly the outline that was provided in the National Report. We did that, we put it in writing, presented it to my colleagues on the court. They were enthusiastic and supporting it and the court eventually issued, and I don’t mean this to suggest there was a delay, but the court issued what we call a charge and designation, which is an administrative document that reflected on the need for this effort to be undertaken, reflected on the fact the National Report had issued, recited the resolution that the joint conferences of chief justices and court administrators had passed earlier that year in Philadelphia as I said.

And then, concluded that an effort need to be made here in Vermont to evaluate this concern that we all shared about mental health, substance abuse among members of the bar. And so, we began that process with a commission that was formed under the charge and designation the entire court signed off on.

Bree Buchanan:

And, Chief, that charge and designation, by the way, is on the National Task Force’s website lawyerwellbeing.net.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Oh good.

BREE:

We’ve actually offered that up to other states at times who are trying to figure out how to get it started in their own state, how their own Supreme Court have the authority, I guess, to move forward. And so, it’s been a useful document and a sample for other courts.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Well, I’m glad to hear that, Bree. I wasn’t aware of that. One of the things I thought was very important was that we put a timetable on the effort. And so, we called for the commission that we formed to report back to the court I think it was within 12 months, by the end of 2018 with specific recommendations and in fact, we can discuss this down the road as well, but we have renewed that charge and designation by the way as a result of the fact that the first charge expired on its own terms.

CHRIS:

There’s a couple of things, Chief, that I just love about what happened. First of all, Vermont, I’m guessing it’s a lot like Montana where these smaller bars, it’s just very easy to know lots of people, right?

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Yeah.

CHRIS:

And, to bring people to the table because you really did jump out in front of the movement, so to speak, in terms of… The report was released, but that was a call to action that you answered and we needed states like you to answer that call. That was such an important part of the growth of the well-being movement because you guys just kind of took the baton and ran.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

You know, Chris, there’s sobering… Not meaning to make a pun, sobering things that are going on that really are very important for us to pay attention to. There’s suicides, there are lawyers who are suffering from depression, anxiety, substance abuse. There was a front page… This is one of the things that motivated me by the way. In the front page article, you both may remember, in the business section of the Sunday New York Times about that time, about the summer of 2017-

BREE:

Absolutely, yeah.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Profiled a young father very, very successful lawyer in California who had two homes, as I remember it, including a home in, I think Nevada or one of the Western states, but lived in California, a very successful guy with a young family, two young kids and committed suicide. This is really a problem. I’ll tell you something, you say we got out in front of it. It’s not exactly you suggest that. Between the time that my court issued its charge and designation and the day I gave a speech to the bar in March of 2018 about the importance of this problem, we lost two lawyers in this state, two lawyers in this small state.

This is a problem that we cannot allow to languish. We have to bring attention to it, we have to bring our best efforts to trying to make sure that people understand this is something that has to be addressed.

BREE:

And unfortunately, there are so many people when I get up and speak and talk to people in the audience about the issue of suicide, there are so many people, if you’ve been in the profession for very long at all, you know someone or know of someone-

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

That’s right.

BREE:

And, the only silver lining to that situation is that it has spurred a lot of changes in the profession.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Bree, the first time you and I met was when telephoned you on your honeymoon, if you don’t mind me bringing this up, I hope you-

BREE:

You called me in New Zealand.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

In New Zealand. I got your number and you said, “Who is this guy trying to get a hold of me?” And, I was on a panel, I think with Shaheed maybe down in Miami at the University of Miami Law School.

BREE:

Judge David Shaheed.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Great guy, great, great guy and Jaffe was there was well.

BREE:

David Jaffe.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

David Jaffe, our friend from American University Law School and we were there talking about this problem to a group, a very broad cross section of people by the way, and I remember telling them that our profession has changed, it has changed, it already has changed, and of course, we need to continue on this trend, but when I started practicing law back in the 70s and I mentioned this, lawyers I know, including myself by the way, would mark a trip to a court in another city 60 miles away, let’s say Burlington, Vermont, by the number of beers that you would consume on the trip.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

All right? So, we would say, “Oh, I’ve got to go to court.” Now, I’m not suggesting that we’d necessarily drink before the hearing, although many lawyers did, believe me, but it was the trip home. “I’ve got to go to court in Burlington this week, that’s a two beer trip,” somebody would say. This was very commonplace in my state and alcohol… There was a bar in my home of Rutland, Vermont called the Carriage Room and I’ll bet there’s a story similar in many, many other locations around the country. Lawyers would try a case down the street and go to the Carriage Room and wait for the jury’s verdict and the clerk of the court knew where to find you.

You call the Carriage Room if you want to find Paul Reiber because that’s where he’s hanging out drinking with his buddies. That’s the way it worked. So let me say, I gave up drinking many years ago because of the finally recognizing the problem. It was beginning to dominate my life. We had two kids in high school, I was drinking wine with dinner every night. My wife doesn’t drink, she never has. It was not right and I felt like I was letting my family down and I gave it up and I’m pleased to say that, but this was very, very common among the trial bar in my state and I suspect that’s not a unique story.

CHRIS:

Chief, let’s talk a little bit about the state action plan. So, you brought the constituencies, the stakeholders together, you guys got to work. I love the notion and I love the recommendation that you’re making to others who embark on this to set it up in a time frame basis [crosstalk 00:17:07]-

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Right.

CHRIS:

[crosstalk 00:17:07] let the clock start ticking in terms of what we needed to do, yet you really came out, and again, we’re going to publish this in conjunction with the podcast on the National Task Force site, but your state action plan is really a phenomenal roadmap for recommendations and opportunities to advance well-being. I’d love for you to talk a little bit about what you’re most proud of that’s come out of that process on the state action plan front.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Well, I’ll tell you, to be honest, what I’m most proud of are the number of lawyers who have stepped forward to contribute to this effort. We had, as you know, Chris, several different committees that we formed, again, following the outline of the National Report, so we had a law school committee that was chaired by the dean of… We have one law school in Vermont, great guy named Tom McHenry. He’s the dean and he chaired that committee. We had a lawyers committee that actually was co-chaired by an attorney from Burlington who essentially represented the large firm sector of the state and then a woman from the Northeast Kingdom part of Vermont who represented, if you will, the small firm segment of the state.

We had a regulators committee, we had a judges committee that my friend Bill Cohen chaired. These are people who… And, they each had, by the way, several volunteer lawyers and with the dean’s situation, students and faculty, who stepped forward to participate in the effort, and the thing I’m most proud of is the fact that all of these people put themselves out, spoke publicly about the importance of this and brought their perspective on moving the ball forward with regard to addressing the real needs that I think the attorneys have and the judges by the way. I don’t mean to leave judges out. I think the bench is a very important part of this and the student body, the students as well, law students as well.

BREE:

Absolutely, and what I’ve seen just across in states is where the people who come to the table to work on this project find it so fulfilling. Lawyers care about the legal profession and one another, and so to be able to take affirmative action and step forward and do something about a problem that we all see, maybe not on ourselves, but over the course of our career and actually take some positive action. I’m wondering, out of the state action plan… That’s the name on the document that came out from your work.

Some of the states have like a report and yours actually has a state action plan. Can you talk about some of the pieces in that action plan, the recommendations that you made that stick out?

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Yeah, absolutely. The recommendations included, and these are things that we’ve actually done as well through the court’s interventions, we amended the comments to rule 1.1 of the Vermont rules of professional conduct to acknowledge that maintaining a lawyer’s well-being is an important aspect of maintaining competence in the practice of law. We amended the mandatory continuing legal education rules to require at least one credit hour per reporting period of attorney wellness programming.

We promulgated rule changes to create a bar assistance program within Vermont’s professional responsibility program, those are changes that actually we just adopted and will take effect in, I think it’s February 1 and I think importantly as well, we extended, as I alluded to earlier, the commission and commission’s charge and designation and called upon the commission to annually review the progress of the state action plan and to report back to the Supreme Court on its progress, something that the first annual report under the renewed charge and designation issued just earlier this year in June.

So, that the focus is to attempt to bring life to the work in a way that acknowledges that there is no off/on switch to fixing this. It’s not a matter that you simply… What we’re talking about are problems in the human condition. These are behavioral problems, problems that need to be addressed through a thoughtful, respectful, empathetic means that help people along and bring them to a better understanding of their situation and feeling better about where they are and in particular about the practice of law.

CHRIS:

I think the thing that’s really exciting about what you have done there in Vermont is obviously, you took the National Report and used that as a template to build state-based, engaged lawyers around the committees. Again, for all our audience, this is about a 100-page report and it’s chock full of… In each of the committee areas, the judges committee, the bar association, the regulators, the law school, legal employers. I know you’ve made some progress on the lawyer’s assistance program front [crosstalk 00:23:53]. Again, I play the small role from the professional liability carrier.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

You sure did. You did and thank you for that.

CHRIS:

And, it’s really interesting because I think each one of those committees have both identified and begun to enact recommendations. There’s five to 10 recommendations in each area, so if you’re looking for ideas about what Vermont’s done. Again, Vermont’s a smaller state, obviously less than I think 5,000 lawyers and so-

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

That’s right.

CHRIS:

This is a really interesting template for a lot of other rural states out there that I think face similar issues in terms of either geographic distance or just demographics of the profession and I think our office was a little bit different when you get to the smaller bar size.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

And, the bar size does make a difference, the office size. We have a lot of sole practitioners in the state, small firm profiles in the state, and this is a problem that crosses all boundaries, large firms, small firm, and people have taken… The evidence is that people are taking this seriously and really I think putting effort into addressing the needs that we’ve got.

CHRIS:

Excellent. This is I think a good time for us to take a break. Let’s hear from one of our sponsors. This is an awesome conversation and I just love what’s going on in Vermont, and so we’ll be back right after the break.

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BREE:

Welcome back, everybody. This is Bree Buchanan and we have our guest today Chief Justice Paul Reiber of the Vermont Supreme Court and we’re having a wonderful, very candid conversation here today. And so, Chief, we’ve heard about the process of developing the state action plan for Vermont and it’s been about two years, I believe, since that was published, coming up on… I think the date on it is December 31st, 2018.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Right.

BREE:

What has been the trajectory of the well-being movement in Vermont since its publication?

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Well, one of the things I’d like to do is sing the praises of the Vermont Bar Association. Teri Corsones, and the leadership, the board, the president, these folks have been extremely instrumental in keeping the news of the need for lawyers to address this alive. We are seeing it’s a little bit difficult to put your finger on it given the virus and the fact that face-to-face meetings have suspended for the last several months, but the bar association had their regular meetings and we have an independent bar association by the way. It is not connected to the court. It’s not within the court, but they have specifically identified wellness seminars for everyone of their meetings that they’re offering, which is terrific.

In addition to that, Mike Kennedy, terrific Mike Kennedy and Teri Corsones in the VBA are publishing regularly in the Bar Association Journal a story about a lawyer in Vermont who… I forget the title of it, but it’s basically about how to maintain balance in your life, how to… They profile an attorney who has a great road running program that they follow and profile that. Somebody else who is very involved in art in a way that, it’s a project that helps them maintain balance in their life.

This is I think very, very important to keeping this issue fresh in people’s minds and in addition to this, Mike tells me that some of the larger firms actually are bringing him in to speak to their lawyers during the noon hour. Again, this was before the pandemic, to provide them with ideas and incentive for maintaining balance in their lives. So, I’m very, very pleased about the work of the bar in this respect and I give credit to the folks that are really carrying the heavy load on it.

CHRIS:

It sounds like there’s been a real commitment on behalf of, again, all the players involved to just keep this issue front and center because it’s, again, if we don’t tackle it, nobody’s going to tackle it because it’s the life, that’s the profession that we’re currently in and there’s certainly room for improvement there.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Well, years ago I met with a great trial lawyer out in Salt Lake City about reforming the civil rules in my state, something that they had done in Utah and were very successful with and I had this lawyer’s name who spearheaded the project and I had lunch with him and I said to him, “Francis, tell me, how can I do this back home in Vermont?” He said, “What you need is a guy like me.” Because he was the one who really pushed it through. He was a trial lawyer and he headed the thing up.

Well, I would tell you that I’ve got people like Teri Corsones and Michael Kennedy who writes a blog the two of you may be aware of, which is really excellent and frequently addresses wellness issues. Mike is just a champion in this regard, so we have real heroes in this respect and I think this is one of the keys to making this work is to find people who are willing and have a genuine interest in committing to addressing this problem.

CHRIS:

Well, let’s not negate your role from the head of the judiciary. Again, I think I’m making an observation I think is true, which is when we have seen judiciary engagement on well-being, the wheels of progress and the wheels of success and creativity and initiatives has really flourished. So, I’d love for you to just talk about, again, your role from the chief justice perspective and then I know how much this issue has also caught hold as something that’s being discussed amongst the Conference of Chief Justices.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

It is, yeah.

CHRIS:

Which is really, I think, impressive in terms of your… As leaders of our profession, you’re contemplating and appreciating just how important this is to the health and well-being of our profession and out ability to serve society.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

I think it actually is remarkable how the interest… This has sparked an interest for reform if you want, in this area in terms of some of the rule changes that I’ve mentioned that we’ve made here and simply embracing the need to bring the problems to the forefront and talk about it and get people’s attention on it, it has, across the country. I see colleagues, chiefs in other states, one after another who have formed these commissions. I’d like to remember, as a matter of fact in that regard, my friend Ralph Gants who passed away suddenly about a month ago, was a chief justice of the SJC in Massachusets.

BREE:

Right.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Ralph had started, before he died, and I attended his memorial virtually actually, but of course that was put on by Northeaster University Law School, a really wonderful tribute to him, but he had started a project just like this. We had talked about it. As a matter of fact, he and I were on a panel at a New England Bar Association meeting a few years ago, along with Paul Suttell from Rhode Island and we all talked to the members of the New England Bar about this and the interest that we all shared in promoting this in our respective states and Ralph had done great work in this regard in bringing it forward with the Massachusetts Bar, but I see it… Hawaii, Mark Recktenwald is the chief out there.

Mark has started a project. He and I talked about that. It is really taking hold across the country and I think it is a recognition of the need for sea change from those days I mentioned. Back in the 70s when I started practicing law, and the trips, the court, and I think everybody is recognizing that this is a moment that we need to change our perspective and I’m really pleased to see it.

BREE:

It’s really encouraging and it makes you feel like it’s the right idea at the right time the way it has taken off and-

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Isn’t that true?

BREE:

Yeah, and on the homepage of our website, the lawyerwellbeing.net, if you scroll down, there’s an interactive map where you can see all the states that are taking this on and it’s just such a delight every time we can go in and highlight another state where a Supreme Court or a state bar has taken this one and done a multi-stakeholder initiative and I think there’s 32 or 33 states, so-

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

That’s terrific.

BREE:

Absolutely. Chief, before we go, I don’t want to pass up all the opportunity to ask you about just any lessons learned in this process. Any lessons learned that you can pass on to other states, maybe other Supreme Court justices or just people, state bar leaders that are thinking they want to start their own well-being task force or something similar? What would you share with them?

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

You know, Bree, I think picking up on what I said a few moments ago, I think a key to getting it started is identifying two or three people in your jurisdiction who are thoughtful in this direction and interested in this direction and begin to put together the seeds of a project like ours and then build it and build it in a way that it has the force and the authority of the Supreme Court, something I would imagine is available in every jurisdiction once they have attention brought to the issue.

I think the people, and identifying the right people is extremely important, but the other thing I would say is don’t wait. You can’t wait. There are people who are dealing with these problems, they need help. We need to be in the forefront of helping them. We are in a profession that has susceptibility, great susceptibility to these issues and as leaders, we need to tackle those issues. So, don’t wait, identify the key people who can help get the project off the ground and then engage your court to support the effort into the outset.

CHRIS:

One final question that I would ask you is, as we think about where this movement goes, I live in the business world and we’re always talking about what our key success indicators are and how do you think about the well-being movement in the health and the vibrancy of our profession? I’m just kind of curious to your perspective on, how do we measure success in terms of getting to a point that we feel better than obviously we are today in knowing that there’s a long road ahead of us, but how do we measure success?

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

You saved the toughest question for the last, Chris. That’s not fair. How do we measure success? Huh? That’s a tough question.

CHRIS:

It’s a little off-script [crosstalk 00:38:13]-

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

No, no, no, no, that’s all right. I don’t mean that. That’s a tough chore. I think part of what we do is we make sure that we’re accountable for the work that we start. I don’t like the idea of just starting a project like this and letting it mature on its own schedule, on its own timetable and then not having some accountability back to an authority like the Supreme Court. It doesn’t have to be I suppose, but I think that the court and the justices can play a very important role in that regard.

So, accountability and putting people on a time I think are very, very important in terms of trying to find success, but measuring success, boy, I don’t know what the answer to that is. I have a feeling that there is success in this regard just because of the work the two of you have done and obviously the success that you’re having in bringing this word out to the profession, but data, I don’t know. I don’t know how you would do that.

I think the problem is, I mentioned, it’s part of the human condition and it is something that we all struggle with in a fashion in our own personal lives and it’s not something, like I said before, that you just can turn the switch on and off. So, I think it’s a very important problem that we have in front of us and we have to keep talking about it.

CHRIS:

For sure.

BREE:

Absolutely.

CHRIS:

Well, thank you so much, Chief Justice Paul Reiber of the Vermont Supreme Court. You’ve been a leader in our movement and I know that you just brought an idea home and I got things rolling, but these are the small steps that lead to the big steps that lead to a ripple effect that ultimately allowed Vermont to go out front and start to pave the way to a pathway toward a recognition that to be a good lawyer you have to be a healthy lawyer and that ultimately our ability as a profession to be able to deliver to society is premised on perhaps speaking about the way that we attack the profession in just a little bit of a different way.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Well, thank you both for what you’re doing.

BREE:

Thank you.

CHIEF JUSTICE REIBER:

Much appreciated.

CHRIS:

Absolutely. All right, so we will be back in a couple of weeks with another well-being guest and until then, stay well out there. I know we’re in the midst of the pandemic and I know we are at a point now around the country where numbers are as high as they’ve ever been, which again, I think creates more challenges when it comes to both the administration of justice, but also the health and well-being of lawyers and probably time for us to bring in a couple of guests to actually talk specifically about how COVID has impacted the well-being of lawyers, so stay tuned for that on the horizon and until then, be well. Thanks for joining us.

BREE:

Thank you.

 

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BREE BUCHANAN, J.D., is Senior Advisor for Krill Strategies, LLC, a position she came to after her tenure as Director of the Texas Lawyers Assistance Program of the State Bar of Texas. She serves as a founding co-chair of the National Task Force on Lawyer Wellbeing and is immediate past Chair of the ABA Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs (CoLAP). ________________________________________________________________________CHRIS L. NEWBOLD is Executive Vice President of ALPS Corporation and ALPS Property & Casualty Insurance Company, positions he has held since 2007. As Executive Vice President, Chris oversees ALPS business development team, sales strategy and is ALPS’ chief liaison into the bar association community, where ALPS is endorsed by more state bars than any other carrier regardless of size.

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In episode three of the new podcast, Path to Well-Being in Law, co-hosts Chris Newbold and Bree Buchanan check in with lawyer well-being pioneer...

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Path To Well-Being In Law Podcast: Episode 11 - David Jacobs & Jeff Bunn

16 min read

Path To Well-Being In Law Podcast: Episode 11 - David Jacobs & Jeff Bunn

Stressed? Overwhelmed? You are not alone, especially as a lawyer. Left unnoticed, too much stress will negatively affect your ability to think and...

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