Bree Buchanan

JD, MSF, Senior Advisor for Krill Strategies

Bree Buchanan is founding co-chair of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being and is a co-author of its groundbreaking 2017 report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change. Ms. Buchanan is chair of the ABA Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs (2017-2020) which works to ensure assistance is readily available for those in the legal community experiencing issues related to substance use or mental health issues.

As director of the Texas Lawyers Assistance Program from 2013 until retirement in 2018, she worked with individual lawyers experiencing these issues, and with legal employers who were seeking resources and support for their staff. Her tenure with that program followed a two-decade legal career which included positions as a litigator, lobbyist and law professor. She is now Senior Advisor with Krill Strategies, Inc., providing consultation on issues related to lawyer well-being and impairment for major legal employers.

Ms. Buchanan is a frequent speaker for international and national law-related organizations, as well as global law firms on strategies for lawyer well-being and impairment. In 2018, she was awarded the “Excellence in Legal Community Leadership Award” by Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. She has shared her own story of recovery as a featured guest on podcasts in the United States and Canada. Ms. Buchanan’s writing has appeared in Law Practice Today, Judicature, The American Lawyer, and Family Lawyer Magazine, as well as Lawyer Health and Wellbeing: How the Legal Profession is Tackling Stress and Creating Resiliency (Ark Group, 2020).

In 2018, she graduated from the Seminary of the Southwest with a Masters in Spiritual Formation, where she honed a deep interest in the intrinsic link between meaningful work and personal well-being, as well as in assisting individuals with vocational discernment. Ms. Buchanan tends to her own well-being by engaging in a regular meditation practice, cycling, rowing, and being willing to ask for help when she needs it.