Mission Statement
To provide confidential spiritual care and support tailored specifically to the pressures of the legal profession. We walk alongside legal professionals as they navigate mental health challenges, grief, disruptive life events, stress, ethical challenges, and burnout, while cultivating emotional and spiritual wholeness.
Juris Care Partners works with people regardless of age, race, creed, religious (or no religious) beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, marital status or socioeconomic status.
Confidentiality
Maintaining a safe, non-judgmental, and strictly private sanctuary for all who seek support.
Compassion
Walking alongside legal professionals in times of personal crisis, grief, and professional strain.
Integrity
Fostering moral clarity, ethical decision-making, and alignment of personal beliefs and professional duties.
Purpose
Helping individuals find meaning and purpose in their professional and personal lives.
Confidentiality
Maintaining a safe, non-judgmental, and strictly private sanctuary for all who seek support.
Compassion
Walking alongside legal professionals in times of personal crisis, grief, and professional strain.
Integrity
Fostering moral clarity, ethical decision-making, and alignment of personal beliefs and professional duties.
Purpose
Helping individuals find meaning and purpose in their professional and personal lives.
Our Approach
First and foremost, we meet you where you are, in a safe, private and non-judgmental space. Chaplaincy is known as a “ministry of presence,” where we listen first and walk alongside you as you process whatever challenges life has presented you with. We don’t claim to have all of the answers, but we can assist you as you seek meaning and purpose in the midst of life’s struggles. Prayer is offered to those who desire it, but it is not mandatory in these settings. Most of all, we provide compassion and empathy during periods of heightened stress, distress, anxiety or grief.
Juris Care Partners is nondenominational, and we work equally with people of all faiths (or no faith at all). Spiritual care does not promote religion or spiritual practices or impose beliefs on people. Rather, we provide opportunities for people to express their values and needs and empower them to work through their current situation. Our chaplains do not proselytize or evangelize, rather we support people within their own faith traditions.
Importantly, we serve people of all ages and at all stages of a legal career. Examples could include:
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- Law students experiencing stressful competition for grades, passing the bar, and finding the right job (or any job).
- Young attorneys trying to learn the ropes of practicing law and finding an optimal work/life balance.
- Legal professionals in mid-life who may be experiencing burnout, looking for a change in jobs or questioning their career path.
- Older attorneys and judges dealing with age-related physical or mental health issues and potentially facing the challenges of retirement.
At every stage of the career cycle, legal professionals and those in training to work in this field may encounter challenges to their well-being, and we are here to walk alongside those who seek spiritual care as they address those challenges.
Why Juris Care Partners?
The law is widely regarded as one of the most stressful professions, due to a unique combination of high stakes, relentless workloads, and adversarial environments. Lawyers constantly navigate heavy emotional burdens and face immense pressure to be perfect in an unpredictable field. Pressures come from both clients and employers. All of this takes its toll: the American Bar Association (ABA) and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation landmark study found that 28% of lawyers experience depression, 19% experience anxiety, 23% experience symptoms of stress, and 21% have problematic alcohol use. Furthermore, studies indicate that 10-12% of U.S. lawyers contemplate suicide—nearly triple the rate of the general population.
The ABA National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being defines attorney wellness as a continuous process of thriving across six foundational dimensions or pillars: occupational, intellectual, physical, social, emotional, and spiritual. Juris Care Partners was formed to address the need for this last pillar of attorney wellness by providing free, confidential spiritual care and support to attorneys, judges and law students. Spiritual care focuses on helping legal professionals find and recognize meaning, purpose and values in both their work and personal lives. At Juris Care Partners you can have a private, confidential session with a chaplain who has also been a long-time practicing lawyer, thus bringing a unique combination of extensive experience in the legal field and a spiritual orientation or perspective on life in the law.
Legal professionals are among those in greatest need of mental, emotional and spiritual support, but they also can be the most reluctant to seek it, fearing that doing so will show a weakness or vulnerability that is not acceptable in this field. While many laudable efforts are being made to destigmatize the seeking of help, at Juris Care Partners we understand and are deeply committed to confidentiality in our interactions with those we work with. We provide a safe, non-judgmental space for the sharing of whatever burdens our clients are carrying.
About Our Attorney Chaplain
Bruce Donaldson
Bruce Donaldson spent nearly 40 years practicing law, the last 32 at a large, national Am Law 100 firm based in Indianapolis. Over the course of his law career, he worked in the areas of real estate, civil litigation, corporate, employee benefits, municipal finance, and public-private partnerships. Bruce also has represented clients on a pro bono basis in the criminal justice system. Bruce retired from his law practice at the end of 2023 and turned his attention to a call to chaplaincy that he felt drawn to a few years prior to his retirement.
Since retiring Bruce has been trained and licensed as a chaplain with the International Fellowship of Chaplains. He also has been ordained as a lay minister for this work by his local church. He serves on the board of directors of the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic in Indianapolis, where he also provides spiritual care to the attorneys, staff and clients at the clinic. In addition, he serves as a volunteer with the Indiana Judges and Lawyers Assistance Progam (JLAP).
Bruce understands through first-hand experience how challenging and stressful working in the legal profession can be. Beyond that, like all of us, Bruce has gone through difficult life events that challenge mental, emotional, spiritual and even physical health. He has a special place in his heart for those who are struggling with life’s most difficult challenges, and a desire to bring comfort, support and hope into these situations. He provides his services at no charge as a way of giving back to the legal community that he worked in for so many years.
While Bruce will not impose his own religious beliefs on those he works with, he is motivated and sustained by his faith, having found that spiritual grounding is the most critical element to his own well-being. His favorite quote that summarizes why he chooses to do this work is: “We love, because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19.