Work Place Trauma-Coping Strategies for defense attorneys

Minnesota Association of Criminal Defense presents a very special CLE:

Work Place Trauma-Coping Strategies for Defense Attorneys: Featuring a guided meditation by Mike Millios; 1.5 ELIMINATION OF BIAS CREDITS APPROVED

In person capacity of 30, register by Sept. 15. by emailing: mike@milliosmw.com

Zoom available, unlimited. Suggested donation of $10 to Karuna Community MN: www.karunacmn.org

Mike and Benjy will share their stories of trauma and healthy coping strategies as defense attorneys.

• How do you recognize trauma in yourselves and your colleagues?
• How can we better support ourselves and our colleagues?

In 2013, Mike discovered that yoga and mindfulness tools significantly helped his mental and physical health after years of unhealthy trauma management due to compassion fatigue and post-traumatic stress stemming from Army service and work as a criminal defense lawyer/public defender. In 2017, Mike began training in mindful resilience, meditation, and yoga to help his community. Mike has been guiding wellness and mindfulness workshops for caregivers and client focused professionals since 2018. Mike launched Millios Wellness (milliosmw.com - check out the new resources pages) in 2021 to offer individual and group coaching services. Mike founded Karuna Community Mn (karunacmn.org), a Minnesota non-profit, to share mindfulness tools with people who are incarcerated or in treatment. Mike is currently wrapping up his legal practice as he is set to start as the Community Mediation Minnesota Executive Director this month. Mike can be reached at 612-272-4989 or mike@milliosmw.com

Benjy Schirm is a true believer who has been working in Public Defense carrying a caseload of 150-330+ felonies at a time for the past 5 years. Before law school he was an award-winning Actor, Director and Choreographer Off-Broadway, internationally, and regionally in Boston, Denver and Grand Rapids, Michigan. He focuses his practice on a holistic approach with a dynamic presentation of his client's humanity in the face of the churning gears of justice. On April 1^st, 2022, a client, upon receiving a guilty verdict at the end of a week-long CSC 2^nd trial, cut their throat open at counsel table in the courtroom. Benjy was entirely unprepared for this moment.  He hopes to impart his thoughts on the traumatic moments we all have or will experience in working in criminal defense work and how to adequately prepare oneself for the inevitable onslaught. He is building out a wellness resource center website for the public defenders of Minnesota and has thrown himself into creating a purpose and a positive out of his crippling experience. This talk is the beginning of the work showing through the darkness. Benjamin.schirm@pubdef.state.mn.us

This CLE features a live time guided meditation and has been approved for elimination of bias credits.