Ruth Pearce

I spend part of every month in the homes of people who are about to lose the right to make their own decisions. The rest of it I spend with lawyers who are quietly running out of room.

Those two things are closer than they look. Both are about capacity — what a person can still do, what it costs them, and who notices before it is too late.

I am admitted in North Carolina and California, hold a JD, and serve as a court-appointed Guardian ad Litem in Chapter 35A incompetency proceedings. I speak to the legal profession about where energy goes and what it costs when nobody is counting.

I also spent six years recovering from burnout in a project management career. I am not going to make that the headline, but it is why none of this is theoretical to me, and it is why the talk is not about doing more.

Credentials

JD (valedictorian, Purdue Global Law School) · PCC, International Coaching Federation · PMP · MSc Economic Theory, LSE · BSc Economics, Bath · Admitted NC and CA

Be Hopeful, Be Strong, Be Brave, Be Curious (Wiley, 2024) · Be a Project Motivator (Berrett-Koehler, 2018) · Five LinkedIn Learning courses, 176,000+ learners · Co-author, peer-reviewed research with the VIA Institute

Attribution

The framing of legal wellbeing as a professional competence obligation rather than a wellness nicety is mine, developed with Prof. R. Lisle Baker. The framing of an ethical duty to stay healthy is Tashiana Williams’, and I credit it to her.