Wellness Toolkit: Emotional Intelligence
As noted by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, “legal professionals are at higher risk of experiencing stress, anxiety, depression and substance use than are other professionals”. We also know that many claims result from wellness issues. As such, CLIA recognizes the importance of promoting wellness for the profession.
To help, in 2025 CLIA compiled numerous wellness resources into an Online Wellness Toolkit. The focus of the Toolkit is based on the findings of the National Study on the Health and Wellness Determinants of Legal Professionals in Canada prepared by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, the Canadian Bar Association and the Université de Sherbrooke.
Our online Wellness Toolkit houses resources to assist you in detecting warning signs in yourself and others, provide more information for those in higher-risk groups, and tools to deal with risks specific to the legal profession. One specific topic is Developing Skills to Preserve Health, such as Emotional Intelligence. Resources include:
This resource includes the benefits of good emotional intelligence skills, how enhancing your emotional intelligence can make you a more effective lawyer, how to test your emotional intelligence and five practice tips for building emotional intelligence.
Why Lawyers Need to Be Taught More About Emotional Intelligence (International Bar Association)
The evidence suggests that emotional intelligence (EI) – the ability to engage with your own and others’ emotions – is highly useful for lawyers in numerous ways. The author investigates how EI can help lawyers and the current degree of interest being taken by law firms and companies in developing lawyers’ EI.
How Emotional Intelligence Makes You’re a Better Lawyer (American Bar Association)
An interview with Ronda Muir, author of “Beyond Smart: Lawyering with Emotional Intelligence”, which includes chapters on the business case for EI lawyers, ways EI builds more successful law firms and law departments, how to achieve an EI workplace, as well as EI assessments and worksheets.