This workshop will take a deep look at the stigmatization that attorneys experience when they struggle with mental illness, and work toward a better understanding of how members of the legal community – including law students – can address their mental health appropriately without being stigmatized for doing so. Members of the LGBTQ+ legal community who face mental health challenges know that it can be even harder to “come out” as having mental illness as it is to come out as LGBTQ+. The panel will explore how the lessons that this community has learned about bias – both unconscious and intentional – and about micro- and macro-aggressions can also be applied to the mental health arena; we will also discuss the ways in which LGBTQ+ attorneys with intersectional identities are at higher risk of not having the support they need for mental health challenges, and also face higher penalties for admitting those challenges. We will discuss the vicarious trauma that so many lawyers suffer, and how that particularly impacts members of the LGBTQ+ community who advocate full-time for other LGBTQ+ people. The panel will address both the practical and the ethical issues that arise when attorneys sublimate their mental health issues, and will suggest ways that everyone can work toward destigmatizing mental health challenges for the end goals of being healthier, happier, and better advocates for our clients.

Download CLE materials here.