1. Rubber Band Girl
A Critical Consideration of the Concept of Resilience in Law and Legal Education
Paula Baron, La Trobe University

2. My purpose

3. The relationship between resilience and lawyer well-being

4. What do we know about resilience?
Definitional and conceptual uncertainty
Does resilience require positive growth or only successful adaptation?
Initially an act of rebounding, recoiling or springing back
There are now many definitions in a variety of disciplines – Meredith identifies 104 in the psychological literature alone.
Should we distinguish between capacity for resilience and demonstration of resilience?
Is it an attribute or a process?
How do we measure resilience?

5. Is resilience a quick-sand term?

6. Resilience and the Legal Profession
Now considered a ‘must have’ graduate attribute for law students;
Very commonly identified in professional publications and law society web sites as a key to well-being;
Popularity fostered by Segilman’s work and linkages to neuroplasticity.

7. But the association between resilience and lawyers is not straightforward
Lawyers have been found to have unusually low levels of resilience vis a vis the general population;
Lawyers with high levels of resilience vis a vis their colleages are MORE likely to leave the legal profession;
Resilience has been implicated in bullying behaviours in law firms.

8. Is resilience a “bullshit” term?
Systemic problems in the legal profession
-But individualised solutions
‘“Resilience in law” is a phrase often thrown around in the legal profession, which aims to make lawyers aware of the high rates of institutional depression but does little to offer practical solutions and strategies to the issues that give rise to such workplace health problems’.

9. Concluding thoughts