Wellness for the Legal World
What We Do
Legal professionals spend careers shepherding clients through their darkest moments, navigating a system that often compounds their harm. This work demands a steep price: chronic stress from relentless deadlines, sleepless nights replaying cases we can't shake, and the weight of stories that follow us home.
Professionals often talk a lot about billable hours. The thing about bills for stress? … They always come due.
How We Help:
CLE, CME + CEE accredited courses to support your ongoing licensure requirements.
Trauma-Informed Programs and Certification Courses for attorneys, judges, court interpreters
1:1 Professional Coaching provided by Physicians, Psychologists, Attorneys, PhDs and Trauma Experts
Who We Help
-
Leaders + Managers
Leading through uncertainty and rapid change while bolstering high-performing teams
-
Law Firms + Judiciary
Carrying the weight of every case and client story. The legal field is facing tremendous upheaval.
-
Employee Relations + HR
Caught between the harm and helping in every workplace. Holding the line when systems fracture.
Burnout Gets Blamed
And burnout is not the (only) problem
The Irony Explains Itself: Professionals who dedicate their lives working in a system to protect others adn society often lack the strategies to protect themselves from the harm inherent in their work.
The Cost of Ignoring Professional Burnout: High turnover, compromised client care, substance abuse, and careers cut short. This is not just exhaustion - it is talented attorneys leaving the profession, impaired judgement in critical moments, court interpreters numbed by everything they have heard - and a legal system weakened by the very people it depends on.
The ripple effects touch every case, every client, every courthouse.
The Attorney Wellness Project helps to provide what has been missing: practical education, ongoing support, and proven resources in service to those in and adjacent to the legal profession.
Meet the Team
-
Kiana S. Joersz, JD, TIPC, SCP
Principal & Founding Partner
-
S. Tennaile Timbrook, JD, TIPC
Principal & Founding Partner
-
Kemia M. Sarraf, MD, MPH, CCC, TIPC
Principal Advisor + Lodestar CEO
-
Ann V. Deaton, PhD, PCC, TIPC, CTPC
Director, Faculty Development
-
Michael Forlenza, PhD, MPH, PCC, TIPC
Director, All Of Us Program
-
Antoinette DuBois Ayers, CPCC, RCC, TIPC, CTI
Director, Training
-
Greg Pawlson, MD, MPH, FACP, AGSF
Senior Faculty
-
Kerri Lockhart, MD, FAAP, TIPC
Director, Client Engagement
-
Sunny Nakae, PhD, MSW, TIPC
Director of Professional Development
-
Jean Johnson, PhD, RN, FAAN, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Ken Jenkins, MA.S, ACC, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Floyd Carlson, MS, ORSCC, TIPC, CNTC, PCC
Senior Faculty
-
Lynn Black, MD, MPH, CHWC, TIPC, CEC
Senior Faculty
-
Michael Hersh, MD, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Dianne Rizzo, RN, PCC, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Kate Deaton, MS, PCC, TIPC, CPCC, OTR/L
Senior Faculty
-
Liz Peintner, MSW, PCC, CPCC, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Stephanie Byerly, MD, CLC, ACC, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Lydia Johnson, MD, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Laura Berenstain, MD, FASA, ACC, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Steve Wendell, PhD, ACC, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Debbie Beardslee, RN, BSN, TIPC
Senior Faculty
-
Ann-Gel Palermo, DrPH, MPH, TIPC, ACC
Senior Faculty
-
Kelly Hurst, Ed.D., M.Ed, TIPC
Director of Data Analytics
-
Eliza Humphreys, MD, MPH, TIPC
Associate Faculty
-
Ashlea Winfield, MD, MSPH, TIPC, TMMC
Associate Faculty
-
Jill Wener, MD, TIPC
Associate Faculty
-
Eliotte (Ellie) Hirshberg, MD, TIPC
Associate Faculty
-
Julia Huber, MD, TIPC, ACC
Associate Faculty
-
Ivy Grisham
Administrative Assistant
-
Rikeesha Phelon, MA, TIPC
Associate Faculty
-
Neil Gordon
Director of Communications
-
Suzanne Maxwell, PhD, PCC, TIPC, CTPC, CTIPC, WBECS, CCIC, CCM, ACC
Associate Faculty
-
Joseph Goldstein, BA
Senior Associate
-
Tyler Moore
Technology
-
Maiysha Claireborne, MD, TIPC, MCNP
Associate Faculty
-
Jo Deaton, MS, APRN-BC, TIPC
Associate Faculty
-
Sookyung Suh, PhD, TIPC
Associate Faculty
-
Samuel Collins, BS
Special Assistant to the COO
-
Luis Rodriguez, JD, LLM, TIPC, MS, USArmy COL (Ret.)
Senior Faculty
-
Lawrence Henderson PhD, MSHRD, PCC, TIPC
Senior Faculty
Billable hours won’t pay for your wellbeing.
Understanding Our Difference
-
You wouldn't hire a consultant who's never worked in your industry. Why accept leadership training from them?
RWS operates on a foundational principle: meaningful guidance requires shared experience. Our teams have spent decades in fields like yours—law, medicine, military leadership, federal service, corporate operations and HR. Our work with your organization genuinely moves the needle, leadership development through impactful national cohorts, team restoration for complex dynamics, and HR programs for modern workforce challenges. The difference isn't just expertise—it's credibility earned in the arena.
-
Leadership through the Lens of Legacy. The best leaders don't just achieve metrics and outcomes. They develop the people around them to lead through whatever comes next.
This requires more than traditional executive training. It demands insight from those who've led through genuine uncertainty—who understand what breaks teams, what restores them, and what builds resilience and culture that lasts.
-
Coaching is not therapy, and great coaching can be incredibly therapeutic. One-on-one coaching with 40+ experienced professionals who understand your unique pressures.Coach with professionals who genuinely understand the pressures of your profession.
-
Great leadership isn't just developed—it's forged in connection with peers facing the same impossible challenges.
RWS creates these crucibles deliberately. Our national leadership cohorts bring together emerging leaders across sectors for programs that blend tested wisdom with contemporary challenges.
-
Leadership development from people who've actually led. Team restoration from people who've repaired their own. Executive coaching from people who've done your job.
Restorative Workplace Solutions bridges the gap between traditional consulting and real-world credibility. Our consortium includes attorneys, physicians, military leaders, federal agents, neuroscientists, and PhDs—all with decades navigating the same high-stakes environments where you're building your leadership. We offer embedded 1:1 coaching worth the investment, leadership programs taught in impactful national cohorts, team restoration for fractured dynamics, and HR development for the modern workforce paradigm.
“This was the most valuable training I’ve taken in the past decade, possibly in my career. We immediately set our entire agency on the path to procurement to get as much of this as our budget will allow. This is what has been missing ”
Client Impact & Success
“The small-group discussions with other attorneys were invaluable. A year later and we all still keep in touch. ”
The depth of content exceeded my expectations. By far the best CLE I attended in the past few years, and was one that I registered as a one-off. Original and authentic and compelling speakers. — Criminal Defense Attorney
“I’m surprised by the sheer number of actionable tools packed into three days. The guide provided will serve as a long-term resource throughout my career.”
“They really understood the secondary trauma we interpreters experience each time we are working. I left with more hope ”
“The originality of this curriculum really stood out. ”
I feel like I have been gifted 5 new best friends. The small cohorts have been so impactful, and being led by someone trained as a psychologist was a counterbalance we found intimidating at first, and then she was one of the absolutely best parts of our time together.
Our group gets together once a month still.
“What impressed me most was the faculty’s credentials - and everything they did for us was centered on what we needed. ”
“I’ve changed how I lead my team. Understanding the symptoms of secondary trauma in a workplace context shifted how all of us work together and we are in a more positive place.
”
This entirely reframed how I view employee disengagement not as lack of interest, but as possible stress or trauma.
— HR Director
REACH OUT & CONNECT
Spend some time with us to see if we are the right fit for your team
