What is Wellness? The Role of Human Values JONATHAN CROWE * There is a burgeoning literature on wellness for law in Australia and other jurisdictions, including several recent edited collections. 2 It is now common for Australian law schools to offer formal well- ness programs for students. A growing number of law firms em- ploy wellness specialists and offer wellness programs for employ- ees. This attention to wellness for law is undoubtedly warranted. There is, however, significant uncertainty about what exactly well- ness means in this context. Academic discussions frequently refer to markers of psychological distress in law students and legal prac- titioners, suggesting that wellness consists primarily in eliminating these symptoms. There has also been some discussion of the com- ponents of a positive understanding of wellness, mainly focusing on the psychological literature. My aim in this talk is to build on these discussions to offer some suggestions about how the notion of wellness in law is best under- stood. The talk begins by exploring some existing views of wellness in the academic literature. I suggest that wellness is not best un- derstood either as the absence of psychological distress or as the presence of life satisfaction or positive affect. I then outline an al- ternative understanding of wellness that centres around the role of basic values in human flourishing. Wellness, I argue, consists in participating in the various dimensions of human flourishing in a bal- anced and integrated way. One advantage of this account is that it draws out the fundamental challenge wellness in law poses to ex- isting models of legal education and practice. I therefore conclude with some comments on that issue. * Professor of Law, Bond University. This is an edited version of a keynote address presented to the National Wellness for Law Forum at Bond University on 15-16 February 2018. 2 See, for example, Rachael Field, James Duffy and Colin James (eds), Promot- ing Law Student and Lawyer Well-Being in Australia and Beyond (Routledge, 2016); Caroline Strevens and Rachael Field (eds), Educating for Well-Being in Law: Positive Professional Identities and Practice (Routledge, 2019).