Grief and Its Many Facets – A Primer for Lawyers

Presented in cooperation with the NJSBA Putting Lawyers First Task Force and NJLAP

“Ours is a hard and demanding profession. We have all read the statistics about the incredible number of attorneys who are depressed and anxious and too many of us have friends and colleagues who face these challenges every day…We are a profession in crises.”
– NJSBA Putting Lawyers First Task Force Report

While 51% of New Jersey lawyers feel enthusiastic about being a lawyer, many experience anxiety, depression or grief, according to a 2022 survey conducted by the NJSBA Putting Lawyers First Task Force

Often, grief as a life experience becomes an even more complicated challenge given the incidence of high levels of distress experienced by lawyers.

Join us for a program that will explore different facets of grief for lawyers, both as a universal human experience and as encountered in the lives of clients, colleagues, and community. We will summarize current grief research, including the way grief creates certain neurochemical changes in the brain. We will provide you with examples that illustrate challenges of lawyering in the face of grief and vulnerabilities involving executive functioning, interpersonal relationships, physical and mental health. The scope of grief will be expanded to include discussions of unique types of grief such as grief related to large scale events, burnout or to losses that are not recognized. We will conclude by providing you with practical skills that will help you increase emotional awareness and resilience so you can focus.

You are not alone. Whether you are suffering from grief or want to know how to assist a colleague, log in for a frank, helpful, practical seminar that will provide you with practical steps to take and ways to help yourself or others in the profession.