A therapist panel built for California litigation boutiques.
A private-pay clinical channel for founding partners, COOs, and trial teams at 20 to 150 attorney boutiques in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Orange County. Per-seat pricing. Matched clinicians. No firm visibility into who has engaged with care.
A clinical channel scaled for the California litigation boutique.
This page is for founding partners, COOs, and operations leads at 20 to 150 attorney litigation boutiques in LA, the Bay Area, and Orange County who are scoping a private-pay therapist panel for trial teams. If that is you, the rest of this page is the briefing document.
CEREVITY operates as a clinical network with direct relationships between the network, the clinicians, and the contracting firm. There is no third-party broker layer. Trial-team members are matched, not first-served. Scheduling and intake run through CEREVITY infrastructure. Care is private-pay, out-of-network, and structurally outside the firm-sponsored benefits stack by design.
Pricing is per-seat, scoped to the size of the eligible attorney population and the shape of the engagement, so a 28-attorney boutique and a 140-attorney litigation shop can both contract on terms that match their headcount. Our clinicians are independent licensed professionals, many of whom have worked with California litigators before and understand the rhythm of motion practice, deposition seasons, and trial weeks from inside their consulting rooms.
The boutique litigator is not the workforce-wide profile your EAP was built for.
California litigation boutiques are small enough that anonymity inside the firm is structurally impossible, and large enough that the partner-led firms in your space already compete for the same trial talent. Both realities shape what a therapy channel for this audience actually has to do.
Trial-team litigators present with a recognizable clinical profile: cyclical acute stress that maps to filing deadlines and trial calendars, secondary traumatic stress from sustained client contact in personal-injury, employment, and white-collar matters, performance-tied anxiety in the run-up to oral argument, and the specific isolation of carrying a docket that the rest of the firm cannot see inside of. These are not workforce-wide concerns the EAP roster was built to address.
Headcount matters in the other direction too. At 40 attorneys, the firm's HR function is one or two people, the EAP is a line item nobody touches, and a partner who books a session through a firm-sponsored channel will be recognized at intake by sight. That structural problem does not get solved by adding more EAP seats. It gets solved by moving the channel outside the firm-sponsored stack.
What changes when the channel is built around the boutique litigator: California-licensed clinicians with trial-bar familiarity, intake that the firm never sees, session formats long enough for depth work between trial weeks, and per-seat economics that a 28-attorney firm can defend in a partners' meeting.
What CEREVITY clinicians treat across boutique trial teams.
The clinical scope is built around the presenting profile of California litigation boutique attorneys, not the workforce-wide profile an EAP is built for.
Trial-week acute stress
The compressed schedule of a verdict week produces a clinical signature that most general therapists recognize but do not treat at trial pace. The cyclical nature of it is part of the work.
Secondary traumatic stress
Plaintiff-side personal injury, employment harassment, and white-collar defense involve sustained exposure to client trauma. Repeated contact produces measurable secondary stress that the lawyer often normalizes.
Deposition and oral-argument anxiety
Performance anxiety at the high end. Many senior litigators have managed it for decades without ever naming it. Treated differently from generalized anxiety.
Origination pressure at boutique scale
At 30 or 60 attorneys, the people generating the book are also trying the cases. The pressure to feed and protect the practice is its own clinical issue when it stops being seasonal.
Founding-partner isolation
Founders of California boutiques often carry firm-management weight that nobody at the firm is positioned to share. The isolation of that role is treatable, but only if the channel is built for it.
Associate retention burnout
Senior associates in boutique litigation work the same hours as BigLaw at a fraction of the support infrastructure. The burnout profile is similar; the recovery resources usually are not.
Post-trial depressurization
The cycle of all-consuming engagement followed by sudden depressurization after verdict has a clinical signature. Most trial lawyers learn to manage it; some never do.
Substance-use risk patterns
The ABA Hazelden study finding of elevated problematic alcohol use among litigators in the first ten years is treatable, but it requires a channel a junior attorney is willing to use.
Three session formats, each chosen for the work.
Most benefits programs offer one session length. CEREVITY offers three, because different kinds of clinical work need different amounts of time. The choice is made between the clinician and the litigator, not by what a payor will reimburse.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care here.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour can hold.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution.
Because CEREVITY operates outside the insurance reimbursement model, session length is set by the clinical work, not by what a payor will reimburse. That is the structural reason all three formats can exist on the same network, and the reason post-trial integration work can happen in a single 3-hour block instead of being rationed across six 50-minute sessions.
Ready to scope a boutique-tier briefing?
Briefings are scoped to your firm and your headcount. We respond personally within 48 business hours with proposed times, per-seat pricing context, and any prepared materials relevant to the shape you are evaluating.
Request a briefingHow a litigator is matched.
Matched, not first-served. Here is the process that produces the match for a California boutique litigator.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. Operated by CEREVITY, not a broker.
Intake is reviewed by CEREVITY's clinical leadership against the network's active capacity, current licensure footprint, and modality availability. The step that does not exist in an EAP.
A specific clinician is matched to the litigator. They receive the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
Scheduling runs directly through CEREVITY infrastructure. No phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed cap.
Capability comparison for California Litigation Boutiques.
An evaluation framework on the dimensions that matter when scoping a trial-team-tier offering for litigators. Both models have a place; they are designed for different populations.
| Dimension | Typical EAP | Executive-tier platform | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between firm and contractor roster | Single-vendor platform, W-2 or contracted pool | Independent clinical network with direct relationships |
| Clinician assignment | First contractor to reply with availability | Algorithmic matching on intake-form inputs | Clinical review by network leadership |
| Intake and scheduling | Phone handoff to clinician's line | App-based intake and scheduling | Network-operated intake, direct online scheduling |
| Session formats | Standard 50-minute; capped session counts | Standard 45 to 50-minute sessions | 50-minute, 90-minute, and 3-hour formats, no cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable concerns | Workforce-wide, executive tier as upsell | Built around California Litigation Boutiques presenting issues |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy | Generalist therapy with some specialty | CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, matched at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density | National telehealth, roster variance | All 50 states via telehealth |
| Payment model | Firm-sponsored, in-network | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private-pay, out-of-network, partnership agreement |
| Firm visibility | Aggregate, broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement | Administrative reporting only |
| Right fit for | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing with executive add-on | California Litigation Boutiques, end-to-end |
What the firm sees, and what it does not.
For a trial-team-tier channel to function, the participating litigator has to trust that engaging with it does not create visibility into their care. CEREVITY is built around that requirement.
- Confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals.
- Aggregate utilization at the partnership level, where contractually appropriate.
- Invoicing and eligibility reconciliation.
- Nothing tied to a specific named litigator's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named litigator has scheduled, attended, or engaged.
- What clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned.
- Session notes, treatment plans, or diagnostic information.
- Any attendance detail at the individual level.
Clinicians are independent licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. Protected health information is held within the clinical infrastructure, and the agreements governing it are defined in writing before the partnership goes live.
Clinical records, session content, and individual engagement data sit inside the clinical platform. The administrative layer the partner interacts with is structurally separate from the clinical layer.
Eligibility lists are maintained on the partner side and confirmed at the point of intake. Administering eligibility does not require the partner to receive clinical information back.
A Business Associate Agreement is executed where the partnership structure requires it. The partnership agreement defines the administrative reporting scope in writing before the partnership goes live.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a trial-team-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first litigator in care.
A 60-minute kickoff with your team and CEREVITY's partnership lead. We confirm the partnership shape, the eligibility model, the administrative reporting scope, and the internal owner. The BAA, where applicable, is executed.
Your team provides the eligible-individual list. CEREVITY confirms it against the network and establishes the verification path at intake. Only eligibility confirmation flows forward.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, trial-team-appropriate comms template explaining the benefit, the privacy posture, and how to access intake. Designed to be received without stigma.
Eligible individuals begin intake on their own cadence. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days. By day 30, the partnership is operational and a quarterly review cadence is in place.
The business case for the boutique managing partner.
Three axes the managing partner, the COO, or the executive committee can defend in a partners' meeting. The numbers will vary by firm; the structural argument does not.
Senior associate retention is the boutique's binding constraint.
At 40 or 80 attorneys, the loss of a fifth-year litigator is not a workforce attrition event. It is a docket event, a client-confidence event, and a partner-track signal. A clinical channel built for the realities of California boutique litigation pays for itself across very few prevented departures.
Trial performance is the firm's product.
A senior litigator running below clinical capacity does not show up in the firm's billable report. It shows up in jury selection, in cross-examination, and in the quality of motion drafting in the run-up to trial. Recovery of clinical capacity flows directly into the work product the firm sells.
Lateral recruiting in a regional talent market.
California boutiques compete for laterals against each other and against the LA, SF, and Orange County offices of the AmLaw 100. A named, confidential, partner-tier mental health channel is a differentiating signal in that market and a defensible answer in a partner-track conversation.
Questions litigators and their teams ask first.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are independently licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. The handling of any protected health information, and the specific agreements that govern it including any Business Associate Agreement, are defined in writing in the partnership agreement before the partnership goes live, scoped to your firm's structure.
Pricing is scoped to the size of the eligible attorney population and the shape of the engagement. A 28-attorney trial boutique and a 130-attorney litigation shop contract on different terms because they have different eligibility populations and different utilization expectations. The briefing call is where we identify the right structure, and the cost falls out of that.
No. Administrative reporting only. The firm receives confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals and aggregate utilization where contractually appropriate. The firm does not see whether a specific named attorney has scheduled, attended, or engaged, what clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned. This is contractually scoped before the partnership goes live.
No. CEREVITY is a structural complement to both. Most boutiques keep their EAP in place for workforce-wide coverage, refer attorneys with substance-use or impairment issues to the State Bar LAP where appropriate, and add CEREVITY as the trial-team private-pay channel for ongoing depth-oriented work.
Intake runs on CEREVITY infrastructure, not through a firm portal or HR system. An eligible attorney submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, and scheduling parameters. The firm receives no notification that any specific person has done so.
The network includes California-licensed clinicians and operates across all 50 states via telehealth. A California-based litigator is matched to a California-licensed clinician unless the attorney requests otherwise for scheduling or modality reasons.
First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of intake, depending on modality requirements and scheduling parameters.
Through a briefing call. Use the form below or email [email protected] directly. Briefings are scoped to your firm; we respond personally within 48 business hours.
Tell us about your boutique. We respond within 48 business hours.
Briefings are scoped to your firm. Share your headcount, your offices, and a few details about the shape you are evaluating, and we will respond personally with proposed times, per-seat pricing context, and any prepared materials relevant to a California litigation boutique partnership.
The structural argument on this page is based on the firsthand experience of CEREVITY clinicians who have served on EAP panels, combined with widely-published industry estimates of EAP utilization and California Litigation Boutiques-specific data where cited. Specific contractual scopes are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before any partnership goes live.
