CFP: Mental Health and the Legal Profession

This just in:

The University of Louisville Law Review is pleased to invite article proposals for its annual Symposium, which will occur on February 25 and 26, 2022. The event will be held in person in Louisville, Kentucky, but a virtual option will remain available for those who are unable to travel. This Symposium is titled Mental Health and the Legal Profession. It will highlight not only the mental health crisis that exists in the legal profession, but also how the legal profession can assist those who are connected to the criminal justice system and experiencing mental illness. The Symposium aims to offer possible solutions the legal profession can embrace to address mental health concerns and spark positive change in the legal community and culture.

The Law Review will partner with the Louisville Bar Association’s Health and Wellness Committee to host selected authors to present their articles during an in-person, all-day Symposium open to the public on Saturday, February 26, 2022. David Jaffe, Associate Dean of Student Affairs at American University and zealous mental health advocate, will be the keynote speaker during this event. Authors will be assigned to panels and given twenty minutes to present their articles, followed by a brief question and answer period. The Symposium will be preceded on Friday, February 25, 2022 with a business casual cocktail hour and dinner to welcome the authors and keynote speaker, as well as kick off the Symposium. These events are intended to bring together law students, law faculty, lawyers, and judges from around the nation to discuss the future of mental health, the practice of law, and the judicial system.

Submissions on the following topics are encouraged: prevalence of mental illness in the legal profession; barriers to seeking treatment and possible solutions; compassion fatigue; vicarious or secondary trauma; mental health resources available to members of the legal community; mental health issues caused/exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic; mental health access, equity, and/or justice; limitations of current mental health laws and policies; therapeutic jurisprudence; problem-solving courts; treatment diversion programs; how the legal profession can uniquely assist those experiencing mental illness in terms of intervention, treatment, and/or advocacy; possible ways to reduce disproportionate rates of incarceration and recidivism in those who are connected to the criminal justice system and experiencing mental illness; how mass incarceration implicates the mental health issues of those incarcerated; lack of sufficient mental health treatment for those incarcerated; or any other topic related to mental health and the legal profession. The editors actively seek diverse, intersectional viewpoints and innovative scholarly approaches that address timely issues. Although the Symposium is not a historical or comparative project, the editors welcome articles with historical or comparative features.

The Call for Papers is open now and will close on October 15, 2021. Interested individuals should submit an abstract of roughly 500 words or a full article to the Senior Symposium Editor, Meredith Harbison, at [email protected]. The Law Review will choose submissions to present at the Symposium and subsequently publish. Selected authors will be notified by November 5, 2021. The editors and members will work with authors over the winter and spring of 2022 to prepare and edit the articles for publication. First drafts will be due no later than January 1, 2022. A second draft will be due no later than February 18, 2022, which will allow the Symposium editors to prepare for the events held on February 25 and 26, 2022. Finished articles of approximately 5,000 words will be due no later than March 12, 2021, which will allow authors time to incorporate feedback offered by students, representatives of nonprofits, and local practitioners in the field at the Symposium. All selected articles will be published in the University of Louisville Law Review’s third issue of Volume 60 in late spring of 2022.

Comments

[Ediberto Roman]

Good post, Dan. Thank you! It is obviously an important subject. Indeed, it seems trendy these days to focus on mindfulness--in that arena, I am somewhat of a skeptic. I have found some proponents to make the matter a bit gimmicky and perhaps are not even all that mindful.