Dual Professional Backgrounds for Clinical Work with Lawyers

Edward Honnold, JD, LICSW draws on his extensive experience practicing law, and his clinical training and experience, in consulting with lawyers on professional and personal issues.

• Lawyers as People: Ed had a successful legal career in the private sector and in each of the three branches of federal government in Washington D.C. In the second phase of his professional life, he decided to work with other lawyers on an individual and personal level.
• Career Change: Ed pursued a new career that would enable him to help lawyers improve their personal and professional lives, undergo personal and career transitions, enhance emotional and physical health, and achieve their personal and professional goals.
• Masters Degree: While continuing to work as a lawyer, Ed earned a Master of Social Work (M.S.W.) degree in 1992.
• Clinical Licensure: Ed became a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW). For the past 18 years, he has been in private practice as a career consultant and psychotherapist, counseling lawyers on a wide range of interrelated career transition and personal issues.
• Lawyers as Clients: Drawing on his clinical training as well as his extensive professional experience as a practicing lawyer, Ed has advised hundreds of lawyers on a full range of professional and personal issues. Ed’s clients include both partners and associates in many private law firms; lawyers in senior levels of government, including the Justice Department and other Executive Branch agencies; Members of Congress, including their spouses and family members, and senior Congressional staff; chief executive officers and general counsels of trade associations and other non-profit organizations; and in-house corporate lawyers and entrepreneurs.
• Training and Coaching: Ed provides training programs to lawyers, as well as on-site individual career coaching to partners and associates in major law firms.
• Consulting for Business Groups: Ed has consulted on organizational development issues for a Washington, D.C.-area trade association, and he has provided individual coaching to trade association senior executives.
• DC Bar, Lawyer Counseling: Ed has served on the Executive Committee of the Lawyer Counseling Program of the District of Columbia Bar.
• Speeches and Presentations: Ed has made numerous presentations, as principal speaker and panelist, before sections of the D.C. Bar, national specialty bar associations, students and faculty of Washington-area law schools, Executive Branch agencies, and staff of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives.
• Successful Clients with Differing Objectives: Lawyers seeking counsel from Ed are often highly successful, with well-developed skills and impressive credentials. They may wish to develop themselves professionally or overcome personal obstacles to achieving greater success. Other clients, despite their success in law, are dissatisfied with their achievements or with their personal lives. They may decide to reassess their professional direction or pursue an alternative career.