Seminar Details:
- Date: March 22, 2024
- Time: 9:00 AM – 3:45 PM
- Location: IN PERSON – Criminal Justice Center
1201 Franklin St, 20th Floor (Ceremonial Court)
Houston, Texas 77002 - CLE: 6.00 CLE / 3.00 ETHICS
Overview:
This seminar focuses on lawyer wellness. Stress can affect our health, finances, relationships, and clients. Discover strategies to overcome compassion fatigue and manage difficult clients. Learn how addressing your own needs can help you comply with ethical obligations. There are a multitude of resources available to lawyers. Learn practical tips on how to manage a successful law practice with minimal stress.
We often forget to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first. This seminar is aptly named for Donald Davis in the hopes of reaching out to lawyers who give their all to their clients while experiencing difficulties balancing their own lives with the practice of law, and/or who may be struggling with personal issues such as depression, addictions, or health problems.
Topics:
- Managing Stress and Anxiety
- Recognizing Vicarious Trauma and Fighting Compassion Fatigue
- Ten Tips for Lawyer Wellness
- Dealing with Difficult Clients
- Dealing with the System
- Tips from the Bench
- Effective Practice Management
- Planning for your Financial Future
Registration:
- $25 includes lunch, course materials, 6 hours CLE including 3 hours ETHICS
- Open to all lawyers :: Register by March 15 to guarantee lunch
- Agenda
Co-sponsored by the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association and CDLP, a project of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, partially funded by the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas. Scholarships available. Questions? contact Christina Appelt
Special thanks to Staci Biggar, Allison Mathis, Melissa Schank and the TCDLA staff
REGISTRATION HAS ENDED
Donald Davis (1956-2000)
Donald Ray Davis graduated from Grambling High School, Louisiana. He received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Kansas in 1977 and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Ohio College of Law in 1980. Donald joined the Harris County District Attorney’s Office where he remained until 1985. He became the Chief Prosecutor in the 178th District Court. He then joined Connie B. Williams and Richard W Wilkinson, Jr. in private practice where he excelled in criminal defense work. Attorneys Lott J. Brooks Ill and Diana Olvera later joined him in practice.
He carried a heavy caseload including at least 30 capital murder cases where he secured life sentences for 11 defendants. In 1994, Donald was rated one of the Top 12 Criminal Defense Lawyers in Houston, Texas. In the 20 years that Donald practiced law, he built many firm and lasting relationships among his peers. His trial skills and quiet and courteous competency was unrivaled at the criminal courthouse. Eventually the life he spent defending the accused had taken its toll. In 2000, overwhelmed by back to back murder trials, Donald took his own life.
This seminar is aptly named for Donald Davis in the hopes of reaching out to lawyers who give their all to their clients while experiencing difficulties balancing their own lives with the practice of law, and/or who may be struggling with personal issues such as depression, addictions, or health problems.
In 1994, The Houston Chronicle polled 137 Harris County judges and prosecutors asking this: “Please write down the names of six Harris County attorneys you would not mind representing you in the event someone arrested you for a felony offense.” Donald Davis made the Top 12: Colleagues polled on the top attorneys (chron.com)
A Word from Mark Bennett:
We never know everything that lies behind a man’s decision to end his own life. In the case of Donald Davis, I think that it’s natural for us, in our adversarial relationship with the judiciary, to blame them. I’m good with that. They worked him like a rented mule, and maybe if they had given him a chance to come up for air between trials, he would still be with us today.
The defense of people charged with crimes can be isolating and brutalizing. We are charged with protecting society’s most hated from the consequences, usually, of their own mistakes. Whether we care about our clients or not (and I think most of us usually do), we take it personally when we are not able to help them as much as we feel we should be able.
At the same time, most of us are sole practitioners, physically isolated from our brothers and sisters fighting the same fight. Nobody but us cares about us, but we don’t always heed the flight attendants’ admonition to put our own oxygen masks on first. Our health suffers—we suffer from depression, from alcoholism, from sedentary lifestyles, from poor diets and from divorce.
But if we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t take care of the people whom we are charged with defending. It is with that in mind that HCCLA many years ago put on the first “dealing with the practice” seminar. We named it in honor of Donald Davis, so that his life would not go unremembered, and his death would not be in vain.
The seminar is about helping yourself and your fellow criminal-defense lawyers so that we can all be better lawyers and have better lives. Thanks for attending.
