Press Release  Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being Issues First-Year Report

BOSTON, MA — The Supreme Judicial Court Committee on Lawyer Well-Being today released its First-Year Report, which provides a summary of significant activities and milestones accomplished by the Committee to date.

Established in January of 2020, the SJC Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being is charged with planning and overseeing efforts to enhance the well-being of lawyers, judges, and law students in the Commonwealth. As the Committee began its work, its goal was to implement the recommendations set out in the final report of the original SJC Steering Committee on Lawyer Well-Being, which was submitted to the SJC in July 2019. In its first year, the Committee moved forward to implement a series of the report’s recommendations while also responding to the many new challenges posed by COVID-19 and prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to address systemic racism and oppression of underrepresented and historically excluded communities.

The Committee is currently comprised of 16 members and two co-chairs, appointed by the Supreme Judicial Court. Co-chairs are Hon. Margot Botsford, former Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court, and Attorney Denise Murphy, current President of the Massachusetts Bar Association. Committee members represent various perspectives in geography, legal practice, gender identity, sexual orientation, and racial and ethnic diversity, as well as one physician with experience in physician well-being work and services. The Committee also has an appointed group of advisors whose members are the Executive Director of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, Bar Counsel, General Counsel of the Board of Bar Overseers, and the Executive Director of the Board of Bar Examiners.

In March 2020, the Committee hired its first full-time Director, Attorney Heidi Alexander, former Deputy Director of Massachusetts Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, to lead implementation of the report. In November 2020, Attorney Gavin Alexander, one of the original Committee members, began a fellowship sponsored by Ropes & Gray LLP serving as the first full-time Committee Fellow supporting the work of the Committee as a whole while focusing on the intersection of well-being and DEI in the Massachusetts legal profession.

For more information about the Committee’s work, visit its website at www.lawyerwellbeingma.org.

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