The Legal Bench
The Legal Bench
Lawyers Helping Lawyers
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Lawyers Helping Lawyers is a professional resource available to all lawyers, judges, and law students experiencing challenges with substance use disorders, mental health illnesses, and/or stress-related issues that affect their professional and personal lives. Collins & Lacy President/CEO, Christian Stegmaier, interviews two of the leaders of the program, Beth Padgett and Frances Brown Anderson.
https://www.scbar.org/for-lawyers/networking/committees/lawyers-helping-lawyers/
Recognized nationally, Collins and Lacey offers both civil and criminal defense services for insurance carriers, captives, private businesses, and individuals from Columbia, South Carolina with legal news and information. This is the Legal Bench.
SPEAKER_02Good afternoon. This is Christian Stegmeyer, President and Chief Executive Officer of Collins and Lacey, and we are delighted today to be joined by Beth Paget and Francis Brown Anderson of the South Carolina Bar's Lawyers Helping Lawyers. And the reason why we're here today talking about this is uh in in May, we're recognizing and uh making sure that we uh emphasize the uh importance of mental health as it relates to the practice of law. Uh this is a special month uh as it relates to um putting a focus on that. So, ladies, thank you for for being with us today. So we had the opportunity to talk a little bit before uh we got going, but Beth, you've been with the bar at this point for 15 years. That's correct. And talk a little bit about what you're doing, what your role is now, and and where you're coming from as far as that goes.
SPEAKER_00I'm currently the director of lawyers helping lawyers, and I've been in that position for about two years. Prior to that, I was co-director, and then prior to that I was assistant director. Um Robert Turnbull had was the first director of lawyers helping lawyers when it became uh a commission of the Supreme Court, and then at at the time that it became a commission of the Supreme Court, they um designated that there would be a staff member. And that person was Robert Turnbull, he was the director, he was there alone for uh about 10 years. And then um after the help task force, which was the help educate the legal profession task force that was put in place by order of the Supreme Court, they uh in in that one of the things they found was that Robert needed some help. And I was the person who came on at that time, and the emphasis then was to begin the um mandated CLE, continuing legal education, own mental health, substance use, and later also stress-related issues were were added to that, and also to create a presence in the law schools. So the first um first 10 years uh that I was here, I did most of the speaking and um development of CLE and also spent much of my time in both of the law schools here in South Carolina.
SPEAKER_02And uh you talk about uh being spread kind of thin. How many members of the bar are there now?
SPEAKER_00About 17,000.
SPEAKER_02Wow. So you all have got your work cut out for you.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Well, we're we're in better shape now. We have more. We have more staff members. We're more than one and a half, we're two and a half.
SPEAKER_02Now, Francis, you're a graduate of the law school.
SPEAKER_00That's correct.
SPEAKER_02And uh and when I say the law school, uh the University of South Carolina School of Law. Correct. Um and you fin you told me you finished in 2004? I did. So what is your origin story? How did you get from graduating law school uh to where we're sitting here in uh 2026?
SPEAKER_03Well, it is an interesting story how I how I came to be here today. Um I did clerk when I got out of um law school and then moved to Atlanta for about 10 years, where I prosecuted in um Cobb County first and then in uh Gwinnett County at the DA's office. And I enjoyed that. Um, but my husband was at a big, very large law firm in um downtown Atlanta, and we decided that that was not um where he was meant to stay, and that we would like to come back to Columbia. We're both from this area. I grew up in Windsboro, South Carolina, but we're both from this area. So um we came back here, and I will say, I'll stop here. Um I do share openly, and I believe um Beth will speak to this as well. Um, I've been in active um recovery from alcohol um addiction for a long time now, um, long-term recovery. I was in recovery when I started practicing law. I then found that I did relapse during my practice of law, which is quite interesting in and of itself. And I'm I like to be able to speak to attorneys about that because I can speak to the stress that is, you know, the practice of law. But um I have been, you know, sober again now for a long time. And so I was staying at home with our two children. Um, we have a 10-year-old and a six-year-old, and I was at home with them, but really missed uh using my brain in a different way than being a mom. Um and so I actually met Beth um in one of our 12-step meetings because um that is the the way that I uh choose to stay sober the way I got sober and the way I stay sober. Of course, it's not the only way. There are many ways to do that, but um, I do believe in the 12-step program. So I met Beth in there, and um she approached me and said, I I heard you used to practice law. And I said, Yeah, I I I did do that, you know, in a former life. And really, we just got started, we talked from there, and um she kind of told me what she was looking for and convinced me to come aboard, and it's just been the perfect fit for my life and um and everything, uh kind of what I've lived and um my values and the things that I find important. Um it's just really been a great fit for me. And so has just being with Beth has been a great fit.
SPEAKER_02Well, needless to say, I I appreciate uh your courage uh being able to to share and relate that to uh to our audience and probably more importantly from a day-to-day basis, um having people who are in a population that are a greater threat for all of the things that that threaten their mental health, to have that first poor person story, to have somebody be able to say, I've walked that walk. Uh let me tell you there's light on the other side of that. Um so certainly I I d definitely want to get more into that because obviously when we talk about uh May and and mental health as it relates to uh folks in the in the legal field, lawyers and paralegals and things along those lines, we know this that in 2024 Bloomberg Law had a study uh in conjunction with the ABA and uh uh put out some statistics that I think would jerk a knot in anybody when they're taking a look at it. When we talk about anxiety, approximately 55 percent of lawyers uh that were asked reported anxiety to some extent, um, compared to roughly 18 percent of the general uh population. Uh when we talk about depression, uh roughly 29 percent of those surveyed reported symptoms of depression, uh which is nearly three times the national average. And then uh one thing that we talk about and learn about and hear about a lot is this this notion or idea of burnout, and that nearly half the lawyers that were surveyed reported feeling burned out from time to time uh with junior associates and women at the higher uh at the highest risk. And something I thought about uh when you were uh witnessing for us and telling us a little bit more about your experience, um I'll tell people that, especially on the litigation side, I've never done any transactional work or haven't prosecuted. Um, but I can tell you from litigation, it is not a family-friendly sport. Um and um it's easy to say, get your mind right, you know, get your get your self-disciplined to this, but all the forces that are in play um can create circumstances where people just number one lose that control over the ability to control the circumstance and need that help. Lawyers helping lawyers uh is r really important by virtue of the fact that it is that resource where the problem was identified and there's a pathway to that help. So talk a little bit more, um, just touch for a second, because I'd like to think I I spent a lot of time traveling around the country and talking to lawyers from all sorts of different places, but I think that I'd like to think that South Carolina is on the forefront with this type of programming. So, what was the original origin of lawyers helping lawyers? Um, and w where are y'all today as far as the programming and what's available?
SPEAKER_00Okay. Okay. Um All across the country, the the program started out uh pretty much as a 12-step program for attorneys. And the people who headed up the pro they were all volunteer in the beginning, say 40, 50, 50 years ago, and there was a a head volunteer who um was always a male, um, and he would have uh uh a team of volunteers who were also male and they were middle age and older. And at the time they thought that the problem that they would um needed to solve was the number of of alcoholic attorneys there were who had not found their way to recovery. So the we um in in AA, I too am a member of AT of um of AA long-term recovery, and um one of the things and that you know about if you're a part of AA is you know what a 12-step call is, and that is when they're assuming that you have um completed your first time through the steps of AA. And step twelve is that you continue to spread the message to other alcoholics, which means if somebody calls you in the middle of the night and says, hey, so-and-so is um needs to go to the emergency room and he needs a couple of AA folks to take him over there, then you know the head volunteer would call up as a couple of his buddies, and you would go and pick him up and take him to the emergency room and then hope to get him to an AA meeting as soon as he detoxed. And that's what the programs looked like for for a long time. Um and then uh I I believe I read just the other day that Kentucky was the first state to have an actual um lawyer's uh assistance program. That's LAP, is we we refer to them as LAPS lawyer assistance programs. Can't remember if they were lawyers helping lawyers or lawy lawyers concerned for lawyers or lawyers caring about lawyers. That's what they were all named in the beginning. And then um over time, probably the first thing that happened was that they realized there was more work that that than you would expect a volunteer um to to handle. And so they um um developed uh they became either a separate nonprofit, a part of the court, or part of the state bar. And then um started to add a little staff and um let's see. And also started to to realize that there were women, there were female attorneys who were also drinking too much and who because of the stresses of the profession and also because of genetic predisposition, that they too were becoming alcoholic. We don't use that term anymore. We say the person has a severe alcohol use disorder if if they would reach that level or a moderate alcohol use disorder, but back in the day it was an alcoholic. And then slowly um, but not without controversy, slowly and with a fair amount of controversy, they also started to um take care of their lawyers and seek out attorneys who were dealing with depression and anxiety. So um in the past, when by the time I came 15 years ago, we were already serving clients, lawyer clients who had um depression and anxiety. But that was added on. Um right now we couldn't imagine not serving somebody who had uh depressive disorder or anxiety disorder that can cause as much distress and cause as much um devastation really in their practice as um is alcohol use can. So um very a lot of the symptoms are are the same. You can't show up, can't answer the phone, um, can't see your way through to organize and organize your work and focus your mind on it.
SPEAKER_02So I think uh you know before I went to law school, I have a I got a graduate degree at the School of Public Health here at the university in uh public health administration, but uh my first year I was in a lot of classes, folks who were studying epidemiology, health promotion, things along those lines. And so I've always had kind of uh an interest in anything involving health just because of that education. That's what I did before I went to law school. And uh when we talk about incidents and prevalence, especially as it relates to prevalence, the the prevalence, I think, as it relates, this is my suggestion just based on observation and the stories where I hear, but the prevalence of folks suffering from anxiety, uh from depressive-related disorders, who are lawyers, who are paralegals, um, I think is underreported, uh much larger uh than probably what we recognize or realize. And I've got kind of a list of some things I want to talk about, but um Francis, I can't think I'm am I I'm not dreaming that, am I? I mean, I mean it's uh the problem is more pervasive than we want to even acknowledge or recognize.
SPEAKER_03I believe that it is. I believe that those who are called to law school or to practice law, I think a lot of us have a lot of things in common. And one of those things is perfectionism. And um, you know, going along with perfectionism comes, I think, in innate sense to try to have everything be just a certain way. And if it's not and you're not in control, there's a a lot of anxiety around that. And that can also lead to depression. And then, you know, if you don't have the best coping skills, a lot of people, um, I say this when I'm speaking, uh, a law school was a really great place for an alcoholic to hang out because there was a lot of drinking in the early 2000s when I was in law school. Um, and so I think it just kind of one thing feeds into the next. And I think lawyers as a as a profession were afraid to be honest with our coworkers, with um our family, with our friends, with maybe a lawyer assistance program and say, hey, I I have I have a problem and I need I need some help. I think as lawyers, we think we we are the helpers and we take care of others and we get the job done and we go into the courtroom or we handle the transaction. And sometimes it's hard to give up that control and say, I need help. Of course, there's still um there's still stigma around um addiction and around um depression and anxiety and mental health, which we um work to combat every day, that stigma. But um, yes, I think that it's way underreported again. Speaking to the confidentiality of lawyers helping lawyers and these lawyer assistance programs, we we do all very much pride ourselves on how confidential we are. Um we're just not interested in getting lawyers in trouble. That's not what we do. And we really want to see lawyers before they reach that state. It's so important to us because that means maybe, you know, the client doesn't get hurt, maybe the family doesn't get hurt. We just we hope so much that they could they can understand that we do take confidentiality very seriously and um and are here simply to help and not to turn anyone in or get anyone in trouble. And honestly, when lawyers do get in trouble, part of our job now is to go with them and and to speak on behalf of them or to to support them if they get in trouble and and need need someone there.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you you talked about some of the uh certainly when we talk about substance abuse, that's that's a big, big conversation. Um and of course now we're we're chatting a little bit about anxiety and and uh depression, but you know, I think about the the the things that create that perfect storm. Um and I I I'll check off some things, but I'll I'll just give you a personal experience. I had the good fortune of being appointed by the Speaker of the House to the Judicial Merit Selection Commission this last year. And there are all these criteria for folks who are running for judges. And one of the things or one of the elements and probably the one of the one of the key elements that are really being examined now is temperament. And uh like I said, litigation is not a family-friendly sport. There is this enormous pressure to have no mistakes ever. Uh you talked about that perfectionism pr the perfectionism trap that there's whether it's self-imposed or otherwise, this zero tolerance. And you know, you like you said, you you started practicing a better part of 20 years ago. I'm a little bit ahead of you. I started in in 2000. And I've been in some courtrooms where like if you had a trapdoor and you could hit the button or do where you could f um go go through the floor and just be able to get out of there. I've I've had that instance probably about five times. And you know, from time to time the lawyer may might deserve that, and then some other times um it's just maybe the judge is having a bad day. And uh the thing I can tell you from the screening uh this last year is there is a particular sensitivity now about who we're electing to judicial positions, about what their temperament is, um that they that we know we live in a state now that has gone from two and a half million in 1970 to five million fifty years from now. The courts are filled with litigants, everybody is busy, everybody's under pressure, but we can't lose sight of the humanity that everybody possesses. And it's really easy to fly off the handle, it's really easy to lose your emotion, it's really easy to uh get on to somebody. And and like I said, sometimes the lawyers have done some things in some cases where they probably do need a talking to. But I have seen every lawyer who's listening to this have seen completely disproportional responses. And um I don't think I'm being I don't think I'm using generalities here, but you've got different audiences who are listening to that. And it's not even judges uh and and lawyers, it's lawyers how they treat one another on the phone, on emails, in court. Um you've got the men versus women dynamic, you have the old versus uh new dynamic, you've got uh folks from all sorts of different walks of life who might be first generation lawyers, um, who didn't grow up around all this, who are just doing the best they can. Um and all of these interactions, it can just um snowball one after the other to where people, you know, from a depression standpoint, from an anxiety standpoint, they get to the point where it's like, I don't know if I can take it. And this is notwithstanding the fact that they've spent three years getting educated, uh the better part of$200,000 to be educated, they're ready to just walk away and sell pharmaceuticals instead. Um and so um Bef, talk a little bit about m some of the messaging that you're able your office is able to to get out there. Uh maybe talking with judges, uh, maybe talking with senior lawyers about you know, you your tone means everything. The way you treat uh others means everything. And to be mindful of the fact that in these days and times, people are getting it from all sides and and you know the way we treat one another uh and the way we don't treat one another, it can just um just exacerbate the anxiety that people possess.
SPEAKER_00I think that the best way to um to answer that is to talk about what the um what the foundations are of the education that we provide for attorneys judges and law students and over the past year after Francis got here we've really we started um using the concept of a wellness wheel and her presentations include uh a wellness wheel the chart and discussion about um what it means to be a a human who's who's as fit as possible and who could could go to get up in the morning be happy about that and be um looking forward to a day within their profession and then whatever the evening brings when they when they get home to their families. So one of the main and I'm not a lawyer and and and I maybe I see lawyer things about the profession and when I see those things they just seem anti-wellness to me I guess is a good way to put it we know now through uh twenty or so years of research that one of the ways to be to be healthy um in all the ways not just mentally but emotionally and also physically is to be what it's is to have good healthy connections to other people and that doesn't mean just your family members or just your friends but it means that we really need to um step up our games and our connection to all the people that we interact with during the course of a day.
SPEAKER_02So what does that education sound like you know uh to some extent you know uh it gets down to being very basic love your neighbor do unto others uh that kind of thing but um how how how are you all teaching that about just being good humans?
SPEAKER_00Okay um and so part the connection kind of initially was to keep people from being lonely because loneliness is an epidemic is an epidemic among lawyers a few years back maybe right before the um pandemic there was a and I I read it in the um Wall Street Journal but I can't remember who did the survey but lawyers were found to be the loneliest of all the professions and makes perfect sense I believe when you look at all of the the aspects of the practice of law if it's adversarial. It starts off um in law school where you know you don't really want to help somebody study because if you if you love the eighth grade you'll love the first year of law school That's good. So so some of it is just about fixing the loneliness but then there are all other sorts of of factors that come in and that improve your health by just being by by being more mindful of the connections you're making throughout the day or and the connections that you're not making throughout the day as a lesson to how you can have a better day tomorrow. But it changes our neurochemistry when we have positive interactions with with other people. So we don't just need friends to do us favors and to you know be a good neighbor so that they're you know they're not making too much noise at night for us to sleep but we need to say kind things to one another to think kind things about one another to notice when we're drifting into to negativity and judgment about other people that are that are we're sharing space with. And we um I teach I have taught mindfulness to lawyers and to law students over the past 15 years. So part of it is just learning how to be aware so that we're paying attention to what we're doing moment by moment as much as we as much as is humanly possible and then to and when we can do that when we can really notice where we are and who we're with then we can go a step further and say oh and I'm am I being kind? How could I add some kindness here? How can I be the one who maybe makes this a better situation and circumstance for everybody.
SPEAKER_02So I I I love hearing that uh Francis let me ask you this from a practical application standpoint uh you talked about your experience as a prosecutor obviously in that circumstance you're talking about people's liberty correct um and uh and at in our firm it's all civil liability and you know our exposures run from the very modest to the multiple millions of dollars and obviously any time a lot of money is involved that kicks up the stress level for the clients, for the insurers, uh for the litigants, for the lawyers. So uh you know we can we can talk about being mindful of one another and we can and we can talk about wanting to be as kind as we possibly can but how do we apply that in a real world setting where people's liberties are at stake or if you get it wrong you could cost a client you know millions upon millions of dollars in exposure or bad publicity or all those things to where you know as the lawyer you're feeling all of that very much personally.
SPEAKER_03I know for myself when I'm speaking to attorneys and doing CLEs and thinking about it when I did practice what was important and what I think is important first thing that Beth touched on is the connection and I think not isolating yourself and and trying to get out and not be as lonely for me you know a lot of prosecutors have I had trial partners and they were my go-tos they were my you know everything we bounced everything off of each other and they you know they knew what was going on with me whether it was professionally sometimes personally if I needed to share that um but definitely reaching out to others maybe in your office or um you know someone that you trust that you feel you can speak to um that connection part is so important I think um and also understanding when we're talking about um negativity and we're talking about being negative to others I also relate that to yourself because I think it really starts with self. And I know when I was practicing law it really whether I won or lost it kind of formed who I was so obviously you know I didn't didn't didn't lose very often you know maybe once or twice. I didn't know but I remember it became the story that I told myself I am a loser. I lost this trial that means I am a loser or I won this trial so now I am a winner when really neither of those things are true. What what I talk about a lot right now um is self-compassion. And there's a book with that title by Kristen Neff. And I talked to lawyers about that because really we're neither losers nor winners. We're just humans having a human experience and I remember when I used to talk not just about whether I'd win or lose to myself but also the negativity just on a daily basis about the most random things. And you know it really wasn't until I had kids that I realized um I would never speak to my daughters the way that I speak to myself and um so it's not so I decided it was not okay to speak to myself that way. And I talked to lawyers about that and I get a lot of people nodding their heads saying yeah I talk really negative about myself or to myself that self-talk will kill you. It'll kill you it really will. And so what I've learned is that I have to and sometimes I do this I mean I can be riding down the the street in the car and I will literally say out loud to my myself no I'll maybe I'll have a loop going in my head saying something negative and I'll say that that's just not correct. That's not right. No, that's wrong. That's just wrong information Francis. And so I think it really begins with us and then we extend that to others and it's hard to teach people because we're not you know we're meeting these people where they are and some of them are seasoned trial attorneys and some of them are just getting out of law school or you know they already have maybe this huge career. And so for us it's just about are you are you really checking in with these like Beth said the wellness wheel and these different aspects of your life are you thinking about all of it holistically and are there places where we can look at the wellness wheel without judgment but are there places where you could do better and I'm talking a very small percentage better and you feel you feel better. And that's where I also like to hammer home when it comes to speaking that attorneys in South Carolina all judges all attorneys they have five free counseling sessions and we we've um we've um we're with CuraLink now with this we're partnered with them and they have wonderful providers all around the state and so I say use it even if you are feeling okay or you know you don't have to feel terrible to call a therapist and again with the confidentiality we we don't get people's names. When Beth gets the reports she doesn't get anybody's name we're not interested anyway. People may think we are but we actually aren't we're too busy to be interested in who's calling we just want to know that lawyers are you know lawyers or judges are calling and and and why not check in with someone it's it it's analogous now tell people about from a mental health standpoint you go to the dentist every six months you go to the doctor once a year it's just it's another mechanism of maintenance it's it's another form of maintenance.
SPEAKER_02And I I love that notion. Yeah I love that notion. Beth let me ask you when we talk about loneliness I'll I'll talk I'll ask you from like two different perspectives. When I think about the lawyer who is lonely uh Francis was telling us that she was from Windsboro which is a beautiful little town but it's a small town and there are like three lawyers in in in in Windsboro. When you think about um probably the vast majority of lawyers that are practicing in South Carolina I joke around with people. We have 26 lawyers in in in our firm and if you went to Atlanta that's not a big deal uh that makes us the 24th largest law firm in South Carolina. So most of the practitioners in South Carolina are one or two person law firms, maybe a little bit bigger, but not not 10, 15, not across the street the law firms are across the street from us. So the bigger the platform probably the the bigger the resource is if somebody in my firm is having issues we see that there's accountability and we do something about that. But if you're just the solo practitioner and you're just grounding it out in your little house on uh in Windsboro to me that's a very lonely circumstance. How do we as a profession, how does the bar, how does your office make sure that these folks just know about these resources. So that that's that's the first instance of of loneliness I want to talk about.
SPEAKER_00Okay one way is we are we put this information in the eblast or communications puts it in the eblast so it goes out electronically probably twice twice a month. And then we also um since we we gained Francis uh we have been able to do more traveling and more CLEs and also um have been partnering with other parts of the bar, other departments in the bar and when they go somewhere then we go with them. So like Young Lawyers division or the even with Supreme Court traveling traveling with the Supreme Court over the past year. So yep. So we get to go to a big reception because you go to well um you were in Lawrence or Clinton? Uh-huh and we've been to to Aiken that's not a tiny town but still the lawyers from the surrounding areas were there because if you get a chance to to be at a um at a at a reception with the Supreme Court you will go. And so we we make sure that we try to get two of us to be at each one of those events so that we can hit everybody in the room and give them cards that have the um iPhone numbers on them but also have the number to call for the five week counseling sessions. So um we made a a a big impact over the past um two years that Francis has been here and those um of those events keep showing up on the books. So we're doing that more and more yeah we think so we hope so yeah uh based on increase in volume I'd say absolutely yeah so uh kind of the second instance uh that I think about too as well is probably from a senior leader standpoint.
SPEAKER_02You're in a firm um it's one thing when you're a first or second year associate there's a lot of esprit de corps because you've got other folks in the same boat with you as far as that goes uh but as you go along in an organization and as you become more and more responsible I think about this a lot there are sixty people that are employed by this law firm and while I'm not the only equity partner in this firm uh I've got a lot of responsibility for it and uh it gets to be where the conversations become less and less because your peer group is getting smaller and smaller. And so I think about people who are mu my colleagues at other law firms where it's not necessarily 25 lawyers, but it's maybe 10 lawyers or five lawyers where they're the captain of the ship and it's all on them as far as that goes. What what have been some of the conversations that y'all have had with people who are similarly situated who ultimately not only do they have a lot of responsibility from a practice standpoint, but they have a pretty sizable business responsibility too because if I lay awake about it at night I think about all the mortgages that are dependent upon Collins and Lacey revenue and uh everybody's kids that need to go to college and you know that that fans out to where there's probably 200 people in our equation. And me and my partners we're responsible to make sure that happens. That doesn't overwhelm me. I think I've got pretty good strategies for that. But I think there are probably other people who when they really get into their um deepest thoughts about it they're they're they get really worried about those kinds of things. So what kind of conversations have you had with people that m might be similarly situated?
SPEAKER_00Well to use us as a resource is probably number one.
SPEAKER_02There we we provide CLEs but we also are prepared to um do a series different series for attorneys and for firms and we would love to be asked to do that more more frequently so if I call Beth and say Beth we really want to top touch on topic X, these are some of the things that we would like to cover is that something that y'all offer?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And that's worth the price of admission just knowing that so just say the word yeah that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00A four week session a six week session or maybe you know spread it out um however it works for for them without losing any of the impact of the program. For instance self-compassion that um with with Kristen Neff as the the author and developer of that program and also the researcher we don't do anything that doesn't have really solid research behind it from a major research university. And Brianna Sir who is our counselor we now have a counselor on staff and she is a she's a younger um counselor she just got out of graduate school herself a couple of years ago so she's the age of many of our law students and first and second year lawyers so she's been phenomenal with them but she's also trained in the the process of teaching um self-compassion through the in the the way as it was developed by Krista Neff. It's a phenomenal program um and we would love to we we we also have a linting library so good to know we and we have though those books many other books we also have a workbook that goes along with that the workbook would be what we would use with a group of attorneys if we were asked into a firm and so um there are there's several sets of skills within that program that they're taught and you know we um even when we just provide a one hour CLE we give a little bit of practice or of a skill so that somebody can have a an aha moment in the CLE so that they um get enough of a taste of it they play around with it maybe on the way um back to their house that evening and think oh my gosh there's something to this and then we get a few calls the next day asking us if we can mail them one of the books and we do. So um so that that was that's one program in particular. We have just um hit on another program that we are we're sure that we're going to build into a program that we offer too it's called um born to flourish is the name of the book. Again just um decades of research behind this and that's just how humans f flourish and they've broken it into four categories for well they haven't done it the research did but there are four things that have a set of skills four concepts that have sets of skills that we can learn so that again we're just prepared for for a good life and um and we can't wait. We're uh we've we're all three reading that book right now and starting to use various parts of it in our lives and we're gonna have um that program surely before the summer's over we'll have it ready to go.
SPEAKER_02Well you hit on something there Crosby Lewis who was an old school lawyer who lived in Fairfield Council who lived in lived in Fairfield County he told me I was a very ambitious associate young partner. I worked all the time and I remember being in California one time on a phone call with him about a case we had and I was over there trying to work on some discovery and he was asking me. He was very interested in me and he said you know just remember it's a marathon not a sprint and I think the fact that y'all are creating those kinds of strategies for people to you talked a little bit about the the notion of perspective. Keep it in perspective I I'll tell myself sometimes I'm in a you know I'll get into a case where it's there's a lot of animosity but for whatever reason or a lot of adversarialness. It's like six months from now this is going to be a distant memory. So just just keep it in perspective. I told you all before we got going we could talk about this for several hours but um I do I do want to maybe kind of conclude I want to give you all a chance here. Francis if if if there's something that you want to to say or kind of the take-home message from your perspective about what you're up to and what this program is all about you and a message you would want to give to anybody listening to this what is it that you what you'd want to relate?
SPEAKER_03Well one thing I wanted to say just very briefly um af when Beth was speaking um she came to me about six months ago and said you're gonna take a mindfulness based stress reduction course and I said no I'm not not gonna do that Beth. I said I I can't calm my brain down long enough to do that. You want me to meditate and she said yeah you're gonna do this we're gonna you're gonna we're gonna look at Duke and and that's where you're gonna do it. Well Duke had already started their course. So then we look at Brown University and so I ended up doing a um mindfulness based stress reduction um course at Brown University. So of course now I say am I V League educated and so um anyway but one of the things that I talk about in our in one of the CLEs that I give is how important and it all bringing up the um self-compassion as well as this born to flourish it's all comes back to mindfulness. And I talk to attorneys about you know the apps out there that you can download and um do a five minute guided meditation and it it just makes such a difference in your life and and to say you know it's all about your breathing it really is. And I I actually love the simplicity of that and sometimes I will be in I was up in Greenville um a few months ago at this huge convention center and there be convention center there were about 850 attorneys in the room and I was giving a C L E and I I got to mindfulness and was talking about this this course that I took and I, you know, I had my heels on and my suit on and I just sat criss a pant suit and I just sat down crisscross applesauce and said the Let's talk about mindfulness, you know? And so I don't know. There are things that I didn't know anything about and that I would never would have learned in law school that I do now that, you know, I it is not my path to go back and practice law, and I know that. But I think I would uh be a very, very different person and a very different practitioner if I if I were to go back out and practice law. But I think also the take-home message for people that I want them to hear, number one is our judiciary is getting on board big time, and we are very excited about that. We were asked by um Chief Justice Kittridge if we would come and speak to um the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. And um we did that a few months ago. I created a PowerPoint about um the judiciary and um just the stressors of the judiciary and how they are, you know, can handle that and how not to handle it and secondary trauma and things like things such as that. And you know, every single um person in that room was listening and asked questions and have they have followed up with us to say thank you. They have now, we've got several justices that have reached out and said we're doing, we want to do more. We have been asked to speak at the judicial conference in October for all the judges. And so I really think when you were speaking about like managing partners, and I think about not just managing partners, I think about our Supreme Court and our court of appeals and it coming from the top down, and how when you have attorneys that you're responsible, you know, they see you and you're taking care of yourself and you're making choices that are healthy for yourself, or they see our judiciary who are making choices or taking care of themselves or saying, hey, there are these five five free sessions and I've used mine this, you know. I think that that is really important. I think that sends a really strong message without really saying anything at all. So um I'm very, very excited about that and where we're going with lawyers, helping lawyers in terms of the judiciary, um, and just being able to get out into the community, like Beth said, as many places as as we've been able to travel. I'm very excited to meet different attorneys and just let them know that we're here. What we do offer, which is not just five free counseling sessions, call us if someone you know is in trouble. Call us, not just if it's you yourself. We get a lot of calls about other about colleagues or friends. Um, and so we'll hear from people's colleagues, friends, hey, I was in court and I don't think so-and-so is doing okay, or maybe they were in court and somebody smelled like alcohol. You know, don't, you don't have to wait until that's happened four or five times. Call us after the first or second time that you have been in court and that person has smelled like alcohol. Um, we are very, we are very aware because Beth and I are both in recovery, we are not going to call that person up and start saying, hey, we heard you're drunk in court and we we gotta come talk to you, or we're gonna do an intervention right now and you're out of here, buddy. I mean, you know, we are very aware about how to approach them appropriately so that hopefully they understand we're there to offer help. Help, this is what help looks like. Please take this help. And so, and and if not now, then maybe in a few months. Um, but that you know, there are a lot of great things going on at Lawyers Helping Lawyers, and those are just a few of the things I would love people to know.
SPEAKER_02I'm very encouraged by that. And we were talking, I mean, everybody who's listened to this, when they see the advanced sheets, people have had classmates who have just crashed out, and you think, Man, have I just known about that? And wherever they were practicing, indubitably somebody did know about that. That's correct. And and this this idea of being able to be proactive and helping just be human with one another, look out for folks. Um, I love I love hearing that. So thank you for sharing that. Uh Beth, what's your take-home message?
SPEAKER_00Um And I'm gonna jump off of that and say that uh when somebody calls in about a colleague, we very often help them uh f figure out what to say. Like we like to kind of leave them with a script, like like say this and don't say that. And and also to let them know that um and and one of the reasons why we're traveling the state is to all is to find more volunteers. We have volunteers in most areas of the state, um, a lot in the the big cities and not as many out in the rural rural areas.
SPEAKER_02How many volunteers now do you think?
SPEAKER_0055. We have 55. And and we want we want we want somebody to be able to get to every lawyer who might need us in 30 minutes or less than 30 minutes. So um that's our goal. Then we'll get it down to 15 minutes. But um so and we couldn't we couldn't do this work without vol volunteers. We get um we get too many calls. And um and and they're wonderful. And so uh a shout out to the volunteers, lawyers helping lawyers. And um, but yeah, we will no matter what kind of help you need, like we can help you figure it out. Just let and we and we don't use your name. We'll never tell your colleague that that you called and reported them. Um we we've been doing this for a long time. We figured out, you know, we just say, you know, we've heard from some folks that maybe you're not okay. And um also I want to thank the lawyers who have received those calls and have been kind and accepting of our offer for help. Um and for the most part, the calls are well received. So um uh we love our work. That's another thing.
SPEAKER_02Um it's almost like a different form of ministry, and I appreciate that y'all are called to do that. Thank you. Very kind. Well, Beth Paget and Francis Brown Anderson, uh South Carolina, the South Carolina Bar, lawyers helping lawyers. Appreciate the good work that y'all are doing. Thank you for joining us on the legal bench.
SPEAKER_03Thank you. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01You've been listening to the Legal Bench from the attorneys at Collins and Lacey. For more information about the nationally recognized law firm, visit Collins and Lacey.com.