Montana CLE Requirements

Stress can cause serious harm to one’s health, or even death. Approximately 120,000 people die every year as a direct result of work-related stress, and over 75% of physician visits pertain to stress-related issues. Over the years, stress has been normalized in the legal ecosystem, with success and achievement outweighing balance and wellbeing. Chronic stress can have a dangerous impact on attorney wellbeing and competence to practice law, but there’s a movement within the profession to change all that. In this presentation, we’ll take a humorous look at stress and burnout in the context of attorney competence and explore the concept of attorney wellbeing. We’ll then use a self-mastery framework called the “Elements of Self” to explore individual techniques and practices for reducing stress, achieving wellbeing, and maintaining competence.

All police must comply with the U.S. Constitution. When they don’t, the harm police cause is unjustified, and its impact can be far reaching. In this presentation, we introduce you to the major issues that arise in representing people harmed by police during an “arrest, investigatory stop, or other seizure.” We will take a practical look at the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable seizures, and the primary vehicle for addressing excessive police force—42 U.S.C. § 1983. In doing so, we will explore Fourth Amendment excessive force caselaw, including the doctrine of qualified immunity, and touch on the hot topic of police bodycams.

Legal writing is perhaps the most important tool of the legal profession. Nonetheless, attorneys regularly violate ethical duties in their writing, and those violations go undetected. Systemic unethical legal writing impacts the entire legal profession, as well as those we serve and the community in which we practice. In this presentation, we examine seven common ethical issues in legal research, writing, and advocacy in the context of litigation. We examine the ethical duties of competence, diligence, and candor as embodied in the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. And how do tacos factor in? Well, you’ll just have to see—it just might guac your world!

Over the past several years, there has been a trend toward scrutinizing DWI breath test technology. In a 2019 investigative study, the New York Times discovered what DWI attorneys have known for a long time: that breath tests are “often unreliable.” In this presentation, we will explore some foundational issues in defending a “breath test” prosecution. Core concepts will include Henry’s Law, Beer’s law, and the variable of temperature. This presentation isn’t meant to make you an expert in the area, but it will introduce you to some core issues involved in beating bad breath.