Struggling with your mental health is difficult. Representing individuals who struggle with their mental health can be complicated and rife with difficult discussions. Through this three-hour presentation, Chelsea M. Donaldson, a noted expert on mental health and experienced veterans attorney, will walk through a variety of scenarios of representing people who struggle with their mental health, how to effectively communicate with someone in crisis, and end with a discussion on how to manage an often unwieldy support network while still keeping your oath to your client.

What You Will Learn
After completing this program, participants will be able to:

• Conduct effective conversations with individuals who may be in the throes of a mental health crisis.
• Identify warning signs of those who may be in a mental health crisis.
• Apply different communication strategies to different clients depending on their symptoms, including over the phone.
• Integrate support systems into representation while simultaneously managing attorney-client privilege.

Who Should Attend
Attorneys who work with those most likely to experience a mental health crisis (people in extreme poverty, veterans, LGBTQ+ youth, or other vulnerable populations) will gain insight in how to hone their practice to be more effective in terms of communication.

PLI offers full scholarships, registration fee waivers, and discounts to attend PLI programs for attorneys, paralegals, law librarians, and staff working for nonprofit/legal services organizations; pro bono attorneys/volunteers (providing no-fee legal assistance to clients individually or through a nonprofit organization); government attorneys; judges and judicial law clerks; law professors and law students; retired attorneys; independent/freelance paralegals; unemployed attorneys; and others with financial hardships. Learn more here.