Understanding how grief shapes lawyers and the practice of law
Monday, October 26, 2026
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
via webinar only
Can't make the webinar or rebroadcasts?
Want online CPD available 24/7?
Subscribe to Courses On Demand, our comprehensive online resource with 4,000+ videos and 6,300+ papers from CLEBC courses. This course will be added to Courses on Demand approximately 30 days from the original course date.
Who should attend: All lawyers and members of the legal profession
Learning level: All levels
While grief is commonly associated with the death of a loved one, legal professionals experience many forms of loss throughout their careers and personal lives. Relationship changes, career transitions, identity shifts, difficult professional decisions, and other significant endings can all evoke grief. Simply put, grief is the natural response to any meaningful loss.
Grief is a universal human experience, yet for lawyers and other high performers, it is often overlooked, misunderstood, or pushed aside. The very qualities that contribute to professional success—resilience, perseverance, long hours, high standards, and the drive to keep moving forward—can also make it difficult to recognize and process loss.
When grief remains unrecognized or unresolved, it can affect both personal well-being and professional performance, contributing to stress, emotional exhaustion, reduced effectiveness, and burnout. At the same time, the culture of the legal profession—which often values emotional stoicism, perfectionism, and relentless productivity—can create barriers to acknowledging and processing grief in healthy ways.
This practical and thought-provoking webinar explores how legal professionals can navigate grief within the realities of legal practice. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how grief presents in high-performing professionals, why it is often misunderstood, and how developing grief literacy can strengthen resilience, well-being, and connection with others.
Participants will learn to:
- recognize the many forms of grief and loss experienced throughout legal careers and personal life
- understand how grief may present differently in lawyers and other high performers
- explore different grieving styles and their impact on healthy grief processing
- identify how legal culture can create barriers to acknowledging and working through grief
- develop practical strategies for processing grief while maintaining professional responsibilities
- learn how to effectively support colleagues, clients, friends, and family members who are grieving
- discover how meaning-making and values-based action can help foster healing, growth, and resilience after loss
Law Society of BC CPD Hours: 1 hour (this course will include a minimum of 1 hour pertaining to professional responsibility and ethics, client care and relations, and/or practice management)
Course Instructor
Jayne Rossworn, JD, MACP, RCC — The Lawyer Mindset, Vancouver
| |
|
| Webinar |
$0 |
|
CLEBC is proud to offer this course free of charge.
Registration includes an electronic copy of the PowerPoints.
|
CLEBC Program Lawyer*
Kayla Wrolson
kwrolson@cle.bc.ca
*non-practising