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Paula T. Edgar, Esq. is the CEO of PGE Consulting Group LLC, an organizational strategy firm providing training and educational services to promote professional development and DEI. As a sought-after keynote speaker and facilitator, Paula develops customized programming for attendees, integrating personal branding, relationship building, and business development into each event. Additionally, she hosts the Branding Room Only podcast, which features career stories and strategies on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. As a civic leader, Paula is active in numerous organizations and social justice initiatives, including serving as a New York City Bar Board Officer, a Commissioner of the American Bar Association's (ABA) Commission on Women, and as a past President of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association (MBBA). She was also a 2015 Council of Urban Professionals (CUP) Fellow and a Trustee of the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation. Having written for and been featured in publications, including the New York Times and Bloomberg Law, Paula has received awards like the Ruth Whitehead Whaley Service Award and the Ms. JD “Women of Inspiration” award. As an attorney, she practiced employment and workplace discrimination law for the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Paula has developed the Engage Your Hustle method, which teaches professionals to elevate their endeavors by asserting themselves boldly. In this episode… Law is a relationship-based profession. Because people are at the core of what you do as a lawyer, being approachable, likable, and REAL can be the key to growing the connections that lead to success and enjoyment. That means being professional, of course, while still showing up as your authentic self. Through adversity and unimaginable loss, former practicing lawyer and DEI advocate Paula Edgar has remained authentic and evolved her leadership skills to forge connections and promote inclusivity. She maintains that authenticity is a scale presented on various levels depending on the situation. You must identify an ideal level of interaction and engagement and present yourself accordingly through a crafted elevator pitch. Observe how your audience responds and leverage emotional intelligence to adjust your interactions. If executed correctly, your personal brand should inspire inclusivity and a sense of belonging. Join us for this episode of The Lawyer's Edge Podcast as Elise Holtzman welcomes highly energetic guest Paula Edgar, a former practicing lawyer and the CEO of PGE Consulting Group LLC, to chat about building a personal brand by being boldly authentic. Paula reveals how adversity has shaped her leadership approach, offers advice for lawyers who want to build their own unique brands, and shares practical tips for fostering genuinely inclusive environments.
On this episode of Our Curious Amalgam podcast - a special collaboration with the Antitrust Law Section's Women.Connected Committee - we explore the prevalence of sexual harassment in the legal profession, why it persists, and the damage it causes. With expert insight from Jane Pigott, we learn why sexual harassment isn't just a women's issue, discuss the consequences for the organizations and individuals involved, and highlight available resources and tool kits as well as what else we can do as a community to implement changes going forward. Tune in to learn more and to be part of the effort to end this pressing issue. With special guest: Jane Pigott, R3 Group LLC Related Links: Women Lawyers on Guard, Still Broken: Sexual Harassment and Misconduct in the Legal Profession IBA, Bullying and Sexual Harassment in the Legal Profession National Women's Law Center, #metoowhatnext: Strengthening Workplace Sexual Harassment Protections and Accountability Harvard Business Review, Why Sexual Harassment Programs Backfire And What to Do About it ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, Zero Tolerance Program Toolkit Forbes, ‘What Was He Thinking?' Inside The Mind Of A Sexual Harasser Hosted by: Jana Seidl, Baker Botts LLP and Kellie Kemp, Co-Chair of Women.Connected
All about Ilyce Shugall:Immigrant Legal Defense and Bio: here Op-Ed with the LA Times: Why I resigned as an immigration judge Get involved with the ABA Commission on Immigration!: hereSponsors and friends of the podcast!Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli and Pratt P.A.Immigration, serious injury, and business lawyers serving clients in Florida, California, and all over the world for over 40 years.Docketwise"Modern immigration software & case management"Joorney Business Plans"Business-critical documents for every stage of your journey"For 30% off use code: REVJOORNEY30 Want to become a patron?Click here to check out our Patreon Page!CONTACT INFORMATIONEmail: kgregg@kktplaw.comFacebook: @immigrationreviewInstagram: @immigrationreviewTwitter: @immreviewAbout your hostMore episodesCase notesTop 15 immigration podcast in the U.S.Recent criminal-immigration article (p.18)Featured in San Diego VoyagerDISCLAIMER:Immigration Review® is a podcast made available for educational purposes only. It does not provide legal advice. Rather, it offers general information and insights from publicly available immigration cases. By accessing and listening to the podcast, you understand that there is no attorney-client relationship between you and the host. The podcast should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed attorney in your state.MUSIC CREDITS:"Loopster," "Bass Vibes," "Chill Wave," and "Funk Game Loop" Kevin MacLeod - Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Support the show
Amanda Parker, PhD. Dr. Amanda Parker is a writer, researcher, and educator from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has a PhD focused on critical race studies in education and society and speaks regularly at national and international conferences where she presents her work on the intersection of race and gender, building solidarity, and raising critically conscious children. Dr. Parker is the Director of the Equity in Justice Program at the State Bar of New Mexico. In this role she is fostering community relationships, leading educational efforts, and building programs to address equity and inclusion for judges, lawyers, and law students. She collaborates with the Equity in Justice Commission and other entities that are working together on reform. She lives in Albuquerque with her daughters.Gavin Alexander, is an experienced and passionate advocate and thought leader in the areas of mental health, well-being, and diversity, equity and inclusion in the legal profession and beyond. He is an attorney and Certified Corporate Wellness Specialist, and he currently serves as the Wellness Director of Jackson Lewis P.C., a law firm with over 950 attorneys and over 60 offices across the United States. Before joining the firm, Gavin served as the firstever Fellow of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Lawyer Well- Being. Gavin shared his own personal experiences with depression and near-suicide in Depressionto Dedication: How Chief Justice Gants Saved My Life and Catalyzed Ongoing Advocacy forMental Health in the Legal Profession, 62 B.C. L. Rev. 2759 (2021), and “Trailblazing TowardBetter Mental Health & Well-Being in Law: Q&A with Gavin Alexander, Well-Being Advocate,”Thomson Reuters Practical Law (Apr. 26, 2022), and he regularly speaks at law firms, law schools, conferences, courts, bar associations, and other legal institutions. Gavin studied Theater and Mathematics at Wesleyan University, and he graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 2012. After law school, Gavin clerked for Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. From 2013-2020, Gavin was an associate in the corporate department of Ropes & Gray LLP's Boston office.Gavin has served as a Co-Chair of the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association and as a board member of the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association. Presently, he serves as a member of the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being, as a board member and the DEI Chair of Lawyers Depression Project, and as a board member of Leadership Brainery. He also serves on the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs' DEI Committee, ABA Legal Opportunity Scholarship Fund Committee, Institute for Well-Being in Law DEI Committee, Boston Bar Association DEI Section Steering Committee, and the Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants Access to Justice Fund Advisory Committee. Gavin was named one of the Best LGBT Attorneys Under 40 by the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association in 2017, selected as one of Mass. Lawyers Weekly's 25 “Up & Coming Lawyers” for 2019, featured on the Mass. Super Lawyers “Rising Stars” list for 2018-2020, and inducted as a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 2020. In 2021, he received the Mass. Association of Hispanic Attorneys' Leadership Award, where he was described as “by far one of the most committed allies in the areas of inclusion, equity and social and racial justice,” and in 2022, he received the Kevin Larkin Memorial Award for Public Service from the Mass. LGBTQ Bar Association.Disclaimer:Thank you for listening! This episode was produced by the State Bar of New Mexico's Well-Being Committee and the New Mexico Lawyer Assistance Program. All editing and sound mixing was done by BlueSky eLearn. Intro music is by Gil Flores. The views of the presenters are their own and are not endorsed by the State Bar of New Mexico, Jackson Lewis P.C., the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, or any other group or organization with which any of the presenters may be affiliated. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment or legal advice. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
On the last episode of our The Life of a Lawyer Start to Finish series, we discussed Retirement with Ida Abbott. In this episode, we move on to the final rung of the ladder: The Aging Lawyer: Exiting Gracefully. Host Craig Williams is joined by Tish Vincent, LMSW, Esq., Chair of the ABA Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs, as they spotlight the aging lawyer. Craig & Tish discuss senior lawyers, possible warning signs of cognitive decline to look out for if a co-worker is suffering, how to approach, and where to go for help if you or a colleague are experiencing warning signs.
On the last episode of our The Life of a Lawyer Start to Finish series, we discussed Retirement with Ida Abbott. In this episode, we move on to the final rung of the ladder: The Aging Lawyer: Exiting Gracefully. Host Craig Williams is joined by Tish Vincent, LMSW, Esq., Chair of the ABA Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs, as they spotlight the aging lawyer. Craig & Tish discuss senior lawyers, possible warning signs of cognitive decline to look out for if a co-worker is suffering, how to approach, and where to go for help if you or a colleague are experiencing warning signs.
In this episode of On Record PR, Gina Rubel goes on record with Roberta “Bobbi” Liebenberg, senior partner at Fine, Kapan and Black, to discuss steps law firms can take to achieve better diversity within their organizations. Learn More Bobbi is a senior partner at Fine, Kapan and Black, a law firm in Philadelphia. She is also a principal in The Red Bee Group, a women-owned consulting group devoted to helping clients attain DE&I objectives. In her law practice, Bobbi focuses her practice on antitrust, class actions, and complex commercial litigation, representing both plaintiffs and defendants. She has devoted considerable time and effort throughout her career to the advancement of women in the profession. She has researched and co-authored groundbreaking, widely cited empirical studies on the underrepresentation of women litigators as lead counsel, the disproportionately high rate of attrition of senior women lawyers, and the effect of the pandemic on women lawyers. Bobbi has served as chair of numerous organizations devoted to gender equality in the profession, including the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, the ABA Gender Equity Task Force, the ABA Presidential Initiative on Achieving Long Term Careers for Women in Law, DirectWomen (the only organization devoted to increasing the number of women attorneys on corporate boards), the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar Associations' respective committees on women in the profession, and the Pennsylvania Interbranch Commission for Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness. In recognition of her professional accomplishments and contributions to gender equality for women lawyers, Bobbi has received numerous prestigious awards and honors, including the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession; the Sandra Day O'Connor Award and Sonia Sotomayor Diversity Award from the Philadelphia Bar Association; the Lynette Norton Award from the Pennsylvania Bar Association; the Florence K. Murray Award from the National Association of Women Judges; the Hortense Ward Courageous Leader Award from the Center for Women in Law at the University of Texas School of Law; the Martha Fay Africa Golden Hammer Award from the ABA's Law Practice Division; and Lifetime Achievement Awards from Corporate Counsel and Inside Counsel, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Legal Intelligencer. She was named by Pennsylvania's Governor as a "Distinguished Daughter of Pennsylvania,” and The National Law Journal named her as one of the “50 Most Influential Women Lawyers in America” and one of the “Elite Women of the Plaintiffs' Bar.”
This past summer, the American Bar Association overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging Congress to make private rooms and bathrooms, along with other small-home touches, a prerequisite for nursing homes to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding. In this episode, Mary and Marla take a closer look at the work of the longtime director of the ABA's Commission on Law and Aging, Charles Sabatino, and his conversation with Susan Ryan and Alex Spanko. Mary gives us a closer look at the ABA Commission on Law and Aging and their mission. She also highlights the key points of the resolution. Sabatino talked about incentives, so Marla gives us a quick history lesson in the term “carrot and stick” and also discusses the research behind incentives versus punishments. Marla also digs into grassroots advocacy, and we provide information on how YOU can support the ABA resolution and be part of the change needed in long term care! Learn more about The Power of Incentives: https://fs.blog/2017/10/bias-incentives-reinforcement/ Learn more about the ABA resolution here: https://thegreenhouseproject.org/resources/aba-private-rooms/ Learn more about Grassroots Efforts: https://www.thoughtco.com/grassroots-movement-definition-and-examples-5085222 Check out all of GHP's advocacy efforts and learn how you can get involved: https://thegreenhouseproject.org/resources/advocacy/ Read Charlie's article – Eight Advance Care Planning Lessons That Took Me Thirty Years to Learn: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_aging/publications/bifocal/vol_34/issue_6_august2013/8_lessons_in_30_years/
This past summer, the American Bar Association overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging Congress to make private rooms and bathrooms, along with other small-home touches, a prerequisite for nursing homes to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding. To learn more about this attempt to overhaul the landscape by radically changing the financial incentives at play – as well as the ABA's future plans for nursing home reform efforts— “Elevate Eldercare” welcomes Charles Sabatino, the longtime director of the ABA's Commission on Law and Aging. In addition to the resolution and a similar plan currently before Congress, Sabatino talks about his history with eldercare reform movements, and how he thinks progressive groups with a variety of different policy prescriptions can work together toward the common goal of real change. Learn more about the ABA resolution here: https://thegreenhouseproject.org/resources/aba-private-rooms/ Keep up with the ABA Commission on Law and Aging: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_aging/ Check out all of GHP's advocacy efforts and learn how you can get involved: https://thegreenhouseproject.org/resources/advocacy/ Read Charles Sabatino and Charlene Harrington's call for structural change for long-term care: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_aging/publications/bifocal/vol-42/bifocal-vol--42-issue-6--july---august-2021-/policy-change-to-put-the-home-back-into-nursing-homes/ Show notes/call to action: Learn more about The Green House Project: www.thegreenhouseproject.org
Manar Morales is a national thought leader on women's leadership, diversity, and workplace flexibility. She serves as President and CEO of the Diversity & Flexibility Alliance – a think tank dedicated to helping organizations create inclusive cultures that advance diversity and flexibility to attract and retain top talent. Manar is a frequent speaker on workplace flexibility, diversity and inclusion, women's leadership, and individual strategies for success. Manar began her career as an employment litigator representing clients in all aspects of labor relations and employment law. She has litigated in federal court, before federal administrative agencies, and in arbitration. In addition, Manar served as an adjunct faculty member of Georgetown University where she taught classes in Labor and Employment law and Entrepreneurship. Manar serves on many Boards and Commissions; she is a Washington Advisory Council member for Commonsense Media, a member of the President's Council of Cornell Women, a liaison to the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, and a Trustee of the Board of St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School. What you'll learn about in this episode: The five myths about flexible work How to create a collaborative work culture How flexibility in the workplace drives diversity, talent, and productivity What can employers do to increase diversity and flexibility What must happen to allow flexibility to work How work flexibility contributes to burnout Resources: Website: https://dfalliance.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/diversity-&-flexibility-alliance/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dfalliance Twitter: https://twitter.com/dfalliance Harvard Business Review Article: 5 Myths About Flexible Work Implementing Flexibility Manar Morales is a national thought leader on women's leadership, diversity, and workplace flexibility. She is the CEO and Founder of the Diversity & Flexibility Alliance. In this episode of the Intentional Greatness® podcast, Manar shares how to properly implement and maintain flexibility in the workplace. She also discusses common myths about work flexibility and ways that flexibility can benefit both employers and employees. Shattering Myths Many organizations think that flexibility works theoretically, but are concerned that introducing flexibility at work will ultimately lead to negative outcomes. Manar explains the top five myths that people believe occur from flexible work. These myths are a loss of culture, collaboration, connection, contribution, and control. She shares insights on why these myths are not true, and how she's seen the opposite occur during the pandemic. Setting Boundaries To reap the benefits of a more flexible work environment, some boundaries must be set in place for both employers and employees. While things like casual wardrobe, background distractions, and camera optional meetings may have been acceptable during the pandemic — they will not continue to be as we move forward in a flexible working world. Manar explains how employers can create policies and processes to allow their employees to have flexibility while still maintaining a professional structure.
CHRIS NEWBOLD: Hello, and welcome to the National Taskforce on Lawyer Wellbeing Podcast Series, the Path to Wellbeing in Law. I'm your co-host, Chris Newbold, Executive Vice President of ALPS Malpractice Insurance. As you know, our goal here on the podcast is simple, to introduce you to interesting leaders doing incredible work in the space of wellbeing within the legal profession. In the process, build and nurture a national network of wellbeing advocates, intent on creating a culture shift within our profession.CHRIS: Once again, I'm joined by my friend, Bree Buchanan. Bree, we're 10 episodes into the podcast. They said it couldn't, it would never happen, but we are here, what a milestone. I'm curious what your impressions have been thus far within the podcast experience.BREE BUCHANAN: Yeah, hello, everybody. I think it's been great. One of the things I've enjoyed so much is being able to really get to know and dive with some of these people who are really leaders in the wellbeing space, and get to know them a little bit more. We get to interact with them by Zoom or email, but this is a really unique opportunity, so it's been great. I can't believe we already have 10 episodes in the can, so to speak. Time flies, so this has been great.CHRIS: It has, and like you, I like the fact that we get to have more in depth conversations with what I would call the movers and shakers of the wellbeing movement. It really allows us to delve into some issues a little bit deeper than we could probably do through CLEs or some other forums.CHRIS: So, well let's shift to our topic today. We shift the conversation a bit to one of the foundational bedrocks of the wellbeing movement, and that's our lawyers assistance programs. We're very excited to welcome our friend and fellow taskforce on lawyer wellbeing member, Terry Harrell, who resides in the Hoosier state of Indiana. Bree, I'm going to pass the baton to you because you've known Terry for a considerable amount of time and have worked with her on a variety of different issues. So if you could introduce Terry, we'll get the conversation started.BREE:I would love to. Terry occupies a very special place in my life because she was really the person who was responsible for getting me into this. I'll say a little bit more about that in just a minute, but Terry Harrow is a lawyer and a licensed therapist. She's been the Executive Director of the Indiana Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program, might refer to it as JLAP, for 20 years, following a decade of work in the mental health field.BREE:Terry is the past Chair of the ABA's commission on Lawyers' Assistance Program. She served in that role from 2014 to 27, and then at some point near the end of that, she snookered me into taking the reigns for the next three years. So yeah, she was really instrumental in getting me and she was, you are, Terry, the person who got me into this. So thank you.TERRY HARRELL: You're welcome, Bree. I do remember with the taskforce saying, "You've got to come do this, you have to come to this meeting. We're going to form this national taskforce."BREE:That's right.TERRY:I'm wondering whether you'd kill me later or thank me.BREE:Yeah, well here's the thank you. So as Terry became a leader in this space, that was certainly recognized in the ABA President at that time, appointed. It was Hillary Bass out of Florida, appointed Terry to lead the working group to advance wellbeing in the legal profession, which was an all-star group of people who were responsible for launching the ABA's Employer Wellbeing Pledge two years ago, which has been wildly successful. We have now about 200 signatories of some of the largest legal employers on the planet. Terry continues to be very involved in that. She's been a key partner within the national taskforce since its inception back in 2016.BREE:So, Terry, what did I miss? Welcome to the program.TERRY:You did a wonderful job, thank you, Bree. Happy to be here and I need to tell both you, I hadn't realized you'd done 10 already. I was aware of your podcast but I'm impressed, I'm impressed.BREE:So Terry I'm going to start off by asking you the question that we ask everybody is, what brought you to the lawyer wellbeing movement? What experiences in your life are behind your passion in this work? We found that people who really get involved and in the center of the circle of what we're doing, tend to have some real passion that's driving what they do. So, what's yours?TERRY:Yeah, that question makes you think back and I think it started young because my dad was a lawyer. I remember running with my dad and one of his partners in high school, I loved doing that. Of course we called it jogging, I won't tell you how old I am, but that gives it away. We'd go jogging and they would talk about how that helped them to stay more focused at work and improve their mood. As a child of a lawyer, I can testify that evenings when better when my dad went, stopped by the YMCA on his way home and exercised first before he came home. He was a trial lawyer, I think that I learned early that transition from work to home can be really helpful.TERRY:Then in high school, I had a friend who died by suicide, and then the father of a good friend also died by suicide. So I think that sparked my interest in mental health and my decision to major in psychology in undergrad. But then I went to law school, and actually, I loved law school. I'm probably a geek, there aren't many people who will say that but I made really good friends, I enjoyed it. Went to work in big law where I saw both some examples of probably good wellbeing practices and then some very bad practices, but I also learned that for me that work was not where my passion was. I learned what a burden it is to try and work that hard about something that you're not really passionate about.TERRY:Bree, I know you understand this, because you and I have spent our Christmas break working on policies before. You have spent I know, breaks working on tax documents and you only do that if you really, really care about what you're working on. To do that about something that isn't terribly meaningful to you is torture, to me at least.TERRY:So then I went back, after I worked in law for a couple of years, went back, got my MSW, worked in mental health in a variety of positions which was great. Loved it, but then I heard about this Lawyer Assistance Program and I thought, wow, I'd always wondered if I would get back to my legal roots somehow. Started working at the Lawyer Assistance Program, absolutely loved it. First as the Clinical Director, then as the... I became the Executive Director. Then it was really through the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, that I started thinking more broadly about lawyer wellbeing. At the LAP we were already thinking, and we can talk more later, but we were thinking about ways to talk about prevention with lawyers a little bit. Didn't have a lot of capacity and bandwidth to do that. But it was really through the commission that I started thinking about structures, the fishbowl in which we are swimming, as opposed to just dealing with each individual lawyer himself or herself, if that makes sense.BREE:Absolutely, yeah. At some point you want to go, get tired of pulling people out of the stream and you want to go upstream and stop what the real problem is, yeah.TERRY:Yeah, exactly, exactly.CHRIS: Terry, many people attribute the start of the wellbeing movement around the report that the National Taskforce released back in, surprisingly, 2016. The 44 recommendations and that, but we all know that the forerunner to that was the work of the Lawyer Assistance Programs. So I was hoping that you could give our listeners some perspective of just that history of the Lawyer Assistance Programs and how wellbeing has played a role and what you do. While it's probably taken on a more prominent role of late, but still being a centerpiece of what ultimately the programs were designed to do.TERRY:Yeah, I would love to do that. Begins to make me feel like I'm an old timer, but when you've been doing it for 20 years that happens, I guess.TERRY:Yeah, the LAP idea of lawyers helping lawyers, which is originally what we called a lot of the LAPs. Lawyers helping lawyers has been around for many decades, at least since the '70s. I believe much earlier than that, but it was a very informal, just volunteer, and it was mostly lawyers in recovery from addictions trying to help other lawyers who were struggling with addictions, and primarily alcohol, that's what they were. But then in the '80s, staff programs starting popping up, people started realizing, this could be a lot more helpful if there was a phone number, one phone number to call, one person who is the point person because it was hit and miss with the volunteer network on who found them and who didn't find them.TERRY:So states around the country started creating Lawyer Assistance Programs where they'd have an office with a phone number and a person assigned there. At that time, the ABA formed a commission, it was called the Commission on Impaired Lawyers. Tells you how far we've come. It was about helping impaired lawyers. It was very basic and the primary goal was to help states create a formal program to do this work. I forget exactly when, somewhere in the '80s I believe or early '90s, we changed it to the Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, which I think is a much better name. I don't know exactly the timing, but by 1997 when Indiana created our program, the stronger programs all over the country were what we called broad brushed, in that they dealt with mental health issues, including substance use issues but much broader. I think the earlier programs probably did assist a few lawyers with mental health problems, but that's not what they were known for.TERRY:Over the '90s I would say, and early 2000, almost I think all of the LAPs today are broad brushed, in that they will help lawyers with almost any problem that they come against, not just substance abuse problems but that myth still persists today. Even though Indiana, for an example, we've been a broad brushed program since 1997 and yet I will go out and speak and some lawyer will walk up to me and say, "Wow, I wish last year I'd known that you dealt with problems other than alcohol because Wilma Flintstone was grieving her husband's death and we thought she was really depressed, but because we know she didn't drink, we never thought to call the Lawyer Assistance Program." So that kills me and I want to get that word out there. I'm sure Bree has heard those stories as well.BREE:Absolutely, yeah.TERRY:So the LAP was doing our work, helping lawyers that were either brought to our attention or came to us voluntarily wanting help. All along, I kept thinking, we should also be doing some more prevention work. I'd like to offer some lawyer's running group or do some more education, get some more education out there. I couldn't believe how many years I've been doing JLAP 101 presentations.TERRY:One of our state bar presidents said, "Terry, what if we create a wellness committee at the state bar, will that upset the LAP? Would we be taking your turf?" I said, "Absolutely not. You can help us because you can do more of those proactive things, like have healthy eating seminar for lawyers or sponsor 5Ks and do some more of that front end work than what the LAP has the bandwidth to do." We work together very closely. I mean, I was a Co-Chair that first year, I'm back being Chair again, Co-Chair again this year. In fact, the way it works is the wellness committee supports a 5K run but you know who's there at 6:30 in the morning to organize the whole thing? It's always staff from the Lawyer Assistance Program. So we really worked hand-in-hand and we're still having discussions about, how do we work together to be able to do more and not duplicate efforts and not cause each other any hard but actually do more? Because there's certainly lots more work to do, tons more work.BREE:Yeah, and Terry, I'm interested in... because you've been so central in this space and know all the players and people. Particularly since the report has come out, what do you see in the area of, I think of it as prevention work, but a lot of times it comes under the heading of wellbeing or wellness. What are some of the things that you're seeing that the LAPs are doing now?TERRY:I think we're offering, we're increasing the breadth of our programming, which is good. We're focusing our marketing efforts, if you will, on those things. I know in our LAP, we found that our care for the caregivers support group is one of the more popular groups, that and our grief group have been more popular. They've helped people to understand that there are certain issues that may impact everyone or at least any one of us can encounter. By being part of some of these wellness efforts with the state bar, I think people started to perceive us more as wellbeing people and it's a good thing to be seen hanging out with those people, as opposed to in the past when they saw us as the alcohol police. They really didn't want to be seen with us, or I'd walk into a cocktail party and someone would put his drink behind his back. It's like, we're not the alcohol police, we're all about wellbeing. I think that has started to come through, and it's helped with collaborations.TERRY:With the report coming out with these very specific recommendations, I was able to talk to the state bar and the LAP and the state bar put on a symposium for legal employers talking specifically about the recommendations for legal employers and what they can do to improve wellbeing. That was fabulous, actually, we had wonderful speakers from a lot of the law firms and corporate council groups around the state. That was just great. We're still getting our normal referrals, and of course those remain confidential, but we're doing so much more that doesn't have to be confidential, like offering yoga and offering a mindfulness session, that I think we're more visible to. We're not this mysterious hidden group any longer.TERRY:With more emphasis on wellbeing and the taskforce report coming out, and the pledge from the ABA. Even my own supreme court decided to create a wellbeing committee specifically for supreme court employees. So we're a 250-person group ourselves, so we've added that. So I mean, I just think raising the visibility and the emphasis on wellbeing has had incredible results for us.CHRIS:Terry, as you think about... I mean I'm not as familiar with the Lawyer Assistance Programs, although being on the malpractice prevention side, we certainly have partnered with... I mean, we work a lot in rural states, so we were aware of certain states that still did not have a Lawyer Assistance Program. My sense is now that I think all 50 states actually have one. Not knowing when you started with the Indiana program, I would just love to hear your perspective on where we were then versus where we are now from an evolution perspective. You got to be pretty excited because this feels like there's a lot more with the innovations going on in the wellbeing side, I like to always think of the Lawyer Assistance Programs as, you guys are the heroes in the trenches every day. I think that there's a great appreciation for the work that you do but it's been a lot of work to get to the point where the issue has become back on the front burner as a national topic of discussion.TERRY:Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I mean even when we created our program in '97, there was still a lot of states that did not have a program at all. Now, there were a lot that did. Indiana is rarely first, but we're rarely last. There were also states that only served lawyers, they didn't serve law students, they didn't serve judges. So I'll make a plug for my state, I was very proud of my state that they looked around and said, "Looks like the better programs serve law students, lawyers and judges, the entire legal community, and they're broad brushed." We made that decision but it took a while, into the 2000s I'd say. Now we're at the point where I think almost every state... let me phrase it this way. I think every state has a Lawyer Assistance Program, some are more robust than others. There's a fair number that still have only one employee and there might be one that's still voluntary, but there's definitely someone we could get a hold of at every state that is concerned with Lawyers' Assistance. So we've come so, so far.TERRY:I remember in the day when it was hard. I mean, we knocked on doors to get... we wanted to get our message out at various lawyer conferences, and we really had to work at that. Today, everyone wants a wellbeing program at their conference, whether it's prosecutors or defenders or trial attorneys, judges, everyone wants a wellbeing program. So now, I mean I talk to my staff about we may have to start to get selective because we're doing so many presentations throughout the year that we've got to make sure we have time to take care of our clients as well. That's the most important part of what a LAP does, but it's a great problem to have to work at. I think a lot of that credit goes to the wellbeing movement, that it's on people's radar. So organizations that I wasn't even aware of who never thought to contact are now contacting us.BREE:That's great.TERRY:That's huge.BREE:Yeah, that is.CHRIS: Yeah, and let's take a quick break because one of the things I'd love to come back and talk about is just how the demand has evolved over time, because I've got to think with COVID and other things, the demand was already high but we're at an even more interesting place with the pandemic.CHRIS: So, let's hear from one of our sponsors, take a quick break, and we'll be back.—Advertisement: Your law firm is worth protecting and so is your time. ALPS has the quickest online application for legal malpractice insurance out there. Apply, see rates, and find coverage all in about 20 minutes.Being a lawyer is hard. Our new online app is easy. Apply now at applyonline.alpsnet.com.—BREE:Welcome back, everybody. We are so honored today to have Terry Harrell, who is really a leader, the leader, one of the leaders in the Lawyers' Assistance Program world. She has worked at every level of that experience. Terry has been the Executive Director of the Indiana JLAP for the past 20 years, so brings a wealth of experience.BREE:So I'm guessing, Terry, that you have a finger on the pulse of how things are going with the LAPs during COVID? The level of demand and how they're meeting and what they're seeing. I mean, early on in the pandemic, what I knew in talking to the LAP programs is that they felt that people were hesitating to call. The demand went down at first, but I don't think that's the case now. What are you seeing?TERRY:I think you're right on spot, Bree. I think when... My experience, and I think I heard this echoed correct with the other LAPs is that last spring, calls dropped off. I think two reasons. One, all the law students got sent home from law school. We couldn't do our onsite support groups for law students any longer or meeting one-on-one with law students. Those calls, I mean they went dead silent. We heard nothing from the law students for months.TERRY:But the lawyers and judges also dropped off. I don't know, my thinking is, and this is just Terry Harrell speaking. I think the lawyers and judges were busy trying to help others, trying to help their firm or their court staff deal with what was going on at work, trying to help their families, trying to help their communities figure out what had to happen. As usual, as lawyers will do, they put themselves last and they just sucked it up and did the work they had to do because as the pandemic continued, and I think this is true for all the LAPs, I know it's true for us, the calls began to come back. Lawyers and judges are calling us, we're starting to have our normal calls again, as well as, it's funny, the COVID stress calls don't come in directly. Someone will call me, concerned about another person, say, another lawyer in the firm.TERRY:Then next thing I know, we're talking. Well, how is this isolation and the pandemic, how's that affecting you? Next thing I'm talking to that lawyer about their stressors. To where we've all noticed, they come in sideways because lawyers as usual, are busy trying to help other people, but they're getting to us now. I'm really pleased with that, that our normals are back up to normal.TERRY:What I would say, I hate to say there's a bright spot in a pandemic because there's nothing good about this pandemic, but one of the things, I guess a silver lining of a bad experience, has been our support groups. We had before pandemic, we had, I don't know, eight maybe support groups going around the state, but if you lived in a smaller community, there wasn't one close to you. We just couldn't justify having support groups in some of those communities that had few lawyers in them. Even if you go into Indianapolis, to get to the downtown support group, if you work on the north side to get done with your work day and drive 45 minutes to downtown Indianapolis for a support group wasn't real. Then 45 minutes home, wasn't realistic.TERRY:So when the pandemic hit, we moved everything to Zoom. We talked about it but we'd never done it. We just did it because we didn't have any choice. It's been great because we've been able to include people from more rural areas. It no longer matters geographically and so people have come to groups that normally wouldn't have. They've been much more effective than I would've guessed.TERRY:We also added a group, that just called our Connection Group. So everyone who is practicing law or going to law school or serving as a judge during the pandemic is eligible. We're all eligible, it's just to connect with other members of the legal community. It's robust and people get on there and talk about the challenges that they're facing. They also laugh as most support groups, they also laugh and have a good time.TERRY:So I think when it's over, we'll go back to having some in person, I mean because doggone it, sometimes there's nothing like a hug or an arm on your shoulder, but I think we'll continue with the Zoom support group meetings because they are more effective than I ever would've guessed. It allows us to get to those people in rural communities. I mean, this may be something, Chris, for those states like North Dakota and Montana, where you just don't have big populations of lawyers. If they can do things by Zoom, I have been shocked at how well that has gone.CHRIS:Yeah, I think you raise a good point, because I think that in some ways the legal profession is now more connected because of the necessity of having to utilize technology to connect with one another. One of the things that I've seen in the bar association world is that fairly significant rise in participation in CLE program. Obviously that all went virtual, but they're seeing, particularly in rural states, record numbers of people sitting in on getting their CLEs and connecting in an entirely different way. So that's going to be really interesting to see how that plays out from a support perspective in the longterm, but like you said, I'd be rather optimistic that we feel like people are not as far away even though we're physically not together. There's connection points that we can certainly rely on as we move forward.TERRY:Absolutely.BREE:Terry, I know the... and just to emphasize and reemphasize this as those in the LAP world always do, that everything is confidential about the calls, 100%. But of course abiding by confidentiality, can you talk about maybe any trends that you have seen in the kind of calls that you're getting? I mean since they've started to pick back up, do you see more extreme situations? Have the type of calls changed, or just going back to what they were before?TERRY:I would say it's really, it's amazing but I think they're going back to the mix we had before, which has tended to be more heavy on mental health recently than addiction, which is interesting. Although, sometimes we find out there's also an addiction issue there, of course, but it's in the same mix of lawyer with dementia, demeanor issues, depression, alcohol. We have had two... again, thinking about confidentiality, I have to think what I saw but we've had two pretty dramatic relapse situations and I don't know if those were due to COVID or not. It's too new but they were two people that we thought had a really solid recovery. So I will be over time I'm sure, we'll figure some of that out and see if that played into it or it was just the course of addiction itself.BREE:Sure.TERRY:But yeah, I haven't seen a big change in the type of calls we get, other than it's almost like the pandemic is just one more layer. It's one more stressor on top of everything else.CHRIS:Terry, I'm curious that the pandemic I think for a lot of people has been an opportunity to reflect on their current state of life. I'm just curious particularly with your social work background, just your perspective on... people are evaluating all parts of their family and their professional life, their relationships, and how that ultimately... I'm sure there will be books and book written post pandemic about the impacts of that as a reflection point. We're just curious on your perspective of lawyers in particular and as they had to work from home and not be as connected. I've heard some lawyers say, "I really never want to go back to an office again." So I'm just curious on that, on your perspective on that.TERRY:Yeah, I mean like you say, it'll be years before we know the total impact, but I definitely think it has caused people to think about, what do I really need to do? Do I need to be going this hard? Do I need to travel that much? Maybe I want to take a job where I can, if my employers let me continue to stay at home, maybe I'll quit that job and find a job that allows me to work from home. I'm aware of at least one retirement that was, not caused by the pandemic, but hastened by having that time to reflect on what's really important in life. The lawyer decided, you know what? I was going to wait two more years but why? Why am I doing that? I want to spend this time with my family, I'm going to go ahead and retire. So I think there'll be changes in workplace policies, and I don't know how that will all fold out.TERRY:Yeah, and I think there'll be some career changes because I think there will be some people who have decided what's most important to them, that there may be some shuffling around. People may make some career decisions because they've had time to sit with themselves and decide what's really meaningful and what works for them, instead of just jumping into the daily grind thoughtlessly every day. I think we'll see some changes.CHRIS:Yeah, and employers may need to adapt as well. Again, I think it's going to be very interesting to see that if nothing else, the work-life balance has been called into question. As we think about wellbeing as wanting people to feel like they've made a good decision in are professionally satisfied in the practice of law. Having a pandemic in the midst of a career has an opportunity for you to rethink your position in that world.TERRY:It really does. I mean, there's some dramatic instances. I've heard of lawyers who went into the courtroom and the judge said, "I won't let you go forward unless you take your mask off," where they thought it was... something like that can make you think, well, is this really worth risking my life to do big things? Then maybe employers will change. It's turned out there's some people who are very rigid about, I want you at your desk working 8:30 to 4:30 or whatever, very rigid hours. They may have learned that actually if you tell people, "This is the work you need to get done but you can be flexible about when you do it," and it still gets done, that may open up some possibilities for people. Yeah, it will be very interesting to see what happens.CHRIS:Terry, you've been very involved in the work to create systemic change in the legal profession, both as it relates to wellbeing and both in Indiana and on the national front. Could you talk with us about some of the projects that you're currently involved with? Again, both at home and on a national level?TERRY:I would love to. Bree mentioned earlier that Hillary Bass created the working group to advance wellbeing in the legal profession, but that was a working group that was sunset a couple years ago, but one of the major initiatives of that group was the ABA Wellbeing Pledge. That pledge was meant to continue and to continue to be there to encourage and support employers to make changes in the workplace to benefit lawyer wellbeing. So CoLAP took that under their umbrella and created a wellbeing committee at CoLAP, which I'm still involved in.TERRY:I'm particularly involved in our subcommittee that's working on that pledge. We have, I don't have a current number, it's approximately 200 people have signed the pledge. That's a very rough number, but more people are signing on. We're starting to get feedback on what the legal employers are doing. I want to stop, it's easy to say firm, we mean legal employers. This is for anyone who employs lawyers in their workplace, whether it's a government agency, law school, law firm, in-house council. It's broad, broader than just law firms, I want to be clear about that.TERRY:We've seen some big changes, we have seen law firms are updating their policies to be respectful of mental health and encourage people to get the help they need when they need it. I've seen law firms hire wellbeing directors and I've seen them go a different way and hire an actual in-house therapist to be available to their staff. There's just been explosion of wellbeing activities and programs in the law school, that go on and on about that. Now, I do think most of those are aimed at the students, which is great, but I think we need to circle back and remind the law schools that they also employ a whole lot of lawyers on staff and make sure that those wellbeing initiatives are also including their own employees, because I'm not sure it's been interpreted that way at the law schools.TERRY:Legal employers are doing things to reduce the emphasis on alcohol, either by having events that are not built around alcohol or by having more options available or limiting the amount of alcohol served. I think there's still a lot of thought going into how to do that by the legal employers. All legal employers are offering some sort of wellbeing training, whether that's learning about mindfulness, financial wellness, nutrition, learning about your Lawyer Assistance Program and your EAP. A fair number are offering some fitness coaching kind of alternatives, there's a lot of creative work being done. I know Bree's been following some of those signatories as well. She's also on that wellbeing committee. It's fun to see and I just can't wait to see what else comes out of those initiatives with the legal employers.TERRY:I'm going to talk about the policy committee briefly, but did you all have anything you wanted to say about the pledge? I know Bree, you've been really involved in that as well.BREE:No, but I think that it really is beginning to change the way things are done. It also, we're creating opportunities for these pledge signatories to come together and share information and strategies. So it's a great project and one that's just getting started.TERRY:Right, in fact I should mention, in March we're going to have a virtual event for those law firm signatories. So if anybody's thinking about joining, I would suggest you join before March so you can take part in the March virtual, of course, event.TERRY:I'm also on the ABA policy committee today, and that group is looking at the taskforce recommendations, particularly ones on what the regulators should do, because the taskforce report asked that regulators take action to communicate that lawyer wellbeing is a priority. I think that means getting it into written policies and rules so that it's there for the long term, not just something we talk about at one CLE and move on. So policy committees looking at the model rules of professional responsibility, with an eye on how can we emphasize wellbeing as an aspect of competence. I'm not going to go into more detail on that yet because I think there's a lot of moving parts there, but I hope that we will be able to make some change in the model rules that institutionalizes wellbeing so it doesn't go away. So that law professors can talk about it in their professional responsibility classes, so that CLE ethics can tie to it. I think there'll be all sorts of benefits to institutionalizing the idea in the model rules. We're watching other policies where there's an opportunity to add that in.BREE:Yep, so foundational. [crosstalk 00:35:23] about what's going on in Indiana. You guys have taken the lead in some initiatives. The character and fitness questions.TERRY:Yeah, in terms of systemic change, I think this is a really important one. For those who don't know, most bar examiners historically ask... years ago, they asked a really intrusive question about, have you ever been diagnosed with or treated for a variety of mental health conditions? I think the question had been narrowed by most states but it was still there. CoLAP has continued to push and I've not been directly involved in those efforts, but to tell states that the question needs to come off the bar application. It's okay to ask about misconduct or behavior that's concerning or problems with performance, but it's inappropriate to ask whether someone has a diagnosis or has sought treatment for something.TERRY:We went to our Chief Justice, I guess it was six months ago now maybe. Once we explained it to her, she said, "You're absolutely right, we should not be asking that question, period. Let's take it off starting today. Let's just remove it." We even had had a few applications come in and she said, "Just strike it from the few applications that have come in. We are not using that question anymore-BREE:Wow.TERRY:... starting today," which was fabulous.BREE:I didn't know that, that's great, Terry.TERRY:She did it, because we thought we'd have to wait until the next round because it had still been on the application. She's like, "No, we'll just mark it out on this one and then take it off the next one and we're done with that question right now." That was fabulous, and we're not the first state. I know New York for sure has done that. I think there's a couple others that I can't recall, but I'm hoping that the snowball is rolling and that more and more... because that's something that sends a message to law students, it sends a message to lawyers, that getting treatment is a good thing. That's a positive thing, not a weakness. It's so important.BREE:So essential before they join the legal profession. So Terry, this the capstone question. So, are you ready?TERRY:Okay.BREE:So pull out your crystal ball and tell us, I think you're one of the best people I the country to talk about this. What does the Lawyers' Assistance Program of the future look like? I mean, what would be ideal? Then talk about it if you can, what it takes to get there.TERRY:Well what's in my head is more of a picture, it may not have the details in it yet, maybe you two can help me flesh it out, but one of our volunteers for years has always said that her vision for JLAP, for our LAP, is that it's a coffee shop. It's this friendly, open coffee shop where lawyers can stop in, get a cup of coffee, connect to others, talk over their challenges. There's no stigma to coming in, it's a very welcoming and encouraging place. I really think that idea, that is the LAP's role, it's helping lawyers to connect, whether it's to a volunteer, another lawyer, a support group, or to professional treatment of some kind, or just reconnect with themselves. That's the key, I think, underlying LAPs.TERRY:Wellbeing is very individual, so it's maybe the LAPs are helping all lawyers to stay on track with their own wellbeing, whatever that means. Thriving and performing at their highest level. I can envision, what is LAPs, every lawyer did an annual checkup just like you do with your primary doctor?BREE:Great.TERRY:Let's pause, push the pause button, sit down with someone from LAP and just say, "Am I taking care of myself? Am I thriving, or am I merely getting by, or am I really sinking here?" Wouldn't that be great, to just pause once a year and meet with somebody and have that discussion? That would obviously probably take a few more staff, so maybe a little more funding, but that's my big vision.BREE:Great, and in the report, one of the recommendations under that, the LAP section, was to make sure that there adequate funding for the programs to be able to meet the need. A part of that need, it's the calls and it's also be able to get out and do all of this public education that is now being requested. We've seen some successes in that around the country, particularly we had the podcast from Virginia and how they got an increase in funding that, I don't know, tripled?CHRIS:Yes.BREE:What they were able to do and able to hire full-time professional staff, and that's really made all the difference. So there's always that piece too.TERRY:There really is. Two things about that. I need to give a shout out to my Supreme Court for supporting us, fully supporting us with funding, helping us with staff, but also during the pandemic with laptops and speaker or headsets and cameras and all that's necessary to do our work. The other piece is, yes, you have to have a LAP that's well funded because we have people that are out doing these presentations, which you can't just walk away in the middle of a presentation. We have calls coming in and we also have these crisis situations that come in where suddenly one or two staff people may have to just take off and go deal with a crisis situation. Whoever's left has to pick up whatever they were supposed to do that day. So the funding is a tricky... funding and staffing is a sticky, interesting issue.BREE:Yeah, absolutely.CHRIS:I think it's interesting, Terry, that first of all, I love your coffee shop analogy because I do think that we're ultimately trying to create a space that's a very welcoming space. I know how much you have been emboldened in your mission because of the support of your Supreme Court. I almost think of the judiciary as being the baristas in those coffee shops because if they are offering us a wide menu of options and also helping with the systemic change and being supportive, I think so much of what we've been able to achieve in the wellbeing movement has been because of the support of the judiciary. Most notably the state Supreme Courts.TERRY:Absolutely.CHRIS:... and the development of the taskforces. We struck a nerve with a group of individuals who, let's be honest, are the leaders in our profession. The more that they're sitting at the table in that coffee shop as our baristas, I think the more effective we will ultimately be, not just in the success of the Lawyer Assistance Programs but in engineering this culture shift that ultimately is our longterm goal.TERRY:That's absolutely right. We've had such good support institutionally from our court and from our Chief Justice. We also have two of our justices are actually JLAP volunteers. One justice in particular, he goes around and will speak with us and say flat out, "It is okay not to be okay. It happens to everyone from time to time, it is okay to ask for help. We don't expect perfection from you, we expect excellence and that means taking care of yourself." It's fabulous when lawyers here that from that level, that kind of leadership.BREE:What a great message, yeah.TERRY:It is, truly is.CHRIS:Well, this has been... this again, Terry, you are one of the pioneers in our space here, working in the trenches. You've been so giving of your time, talent, resources, expertise. We're thrilled to have you in our midst, we're thrilled to have you on the podcast. We just can't say enough.CHRIS:Bree and I both served on the ABA working group and the amount of work product that came out of that group under your leadership in that short period of time was really impressive.TERRY:Well, thank you to the two of you for taking that ball and then running with it. It's been fabulous and I'm really excited to see where we go in the future with the wellbeing.CHRIS:Awesome, Bree, any closing thoughts?BREE:Just to echo what you've said, Chris. We are so appreciative, Terry. It's great to spend some time with you.CHRIS:All right, so we will be back in a couple weeks with our next podcast. A lot of great things, I think, on the horizon, in the wellbeing movement. Bree and I think, as we think about the long term sustainability of our movement, there's some real exciting things happening. A considerable amount of outreach and conferences on the horizon. So there's just a lot of good stuff happening out there, both at the state level and the national level. So we certainly hope to be a part of being able to promote those things that are on the horizon because it just feels like more and more things are cropping up on the calendar and that's good for ultimately where we're trying to take it.CHRIS:So, for everyone out there, be good, be safe, be well. We will see you on the next podcast. Thanks for joining us.
Andrew Perlman is one of the nation’s leading forces helping to establish the future of legal education and legal practice. As a professor and now dean at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, he has helped drive the creation and development of programs for teaching about legal innovation and technology. He was founding director of Suffolk’s Institute on Legal Innovation and Technology and its related legal technology and innovation concentration for law students. He also helped establish Suffolk’s Legal Innovation and Technology Lab, or LIT Lab, where law students are able to work directly on legal tech and data science projects. Perlman has also been a leading force in national initiatives to shape the future of law practice and access to justice. He was chief reporter for the American Bar Association’s Commission on Ethics 20/20, which was responsible for updating the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct to reflect changes in technology and increased globalization. He also served as the vice chair of the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services, which produced projects and recommendations designed to improve how legal services are delivered and accessed, and he was the inaugural chair of the governing council of the ABA’s Center for Innovation. Perlman joins host Bob Ambrogi to share thoughts on the present and future of legal education, legal practice, and legal regulatory reform. Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. ASG LegalTech is the company bringing innovation to the legal space with modern and affordable software solutions. ASG LegalTech’s suite of technology includes the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, and MerusCase, and e-payments platform Headnote. Everlaw is a cloud-based ediscovery platform that enables law firms, corporations, and government agencies to collaboratively discover information, illuminate critical insights, and act on key evidence. XIRA.com is where potential clients find, book and meet with attorneys in one place. For attorneys, XIRA is abolishing the subscription model for tech tools, providing free, fully integrated practice management software, e-billing, online scheduling, document management and video conferencing.
Two authors of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession study, Left Out and Left Behind: the Hurdles, Hassles, and Heartaches of Achieving Long Term Legal Careers for Women of Color, Paulette Brown, Chief Diversity Officer, Locke Lord LLP, and Eileen Letts, Partner, Zuber Lawler & Del Duca LLP, share the results of this study and the impact that the paucity of women lawyers of color has on the administration of justice. (November 19, 2020) Questions? Inquiries about program materials? Contact Alan Johnson at ajohnson@bostonbar.org
In this episode of the new podcast, Path to Well-Being in Law, co-hosts Chris Newbold and Bree Buchanan enjoy lively conversations with lawyer well-being pioneer David Jaffe. David gives essential insight into how the well-being movement took hold in the legal profession and discuss ways in which its culture may finally be shifting. He also discusses the research study he co-authored regarding law students and how that data has informed significant shifts in how law schools are addressing the well-being of their students.Transcript:CHRIS NEWBOLD:Welcome to Episode Four of The Path to Lawyer Well-Being in Law, a podcast series, a production of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being with technical support coming from our friends at ALPS. Our goal is simple, to introduce you to cool people doing awesome work in the space of lawyer well-being, and to shine the light on the many great things happening around the country. I'm joined today by my fantastic co-host, Bree Buchanan.BREE BUCHANAN:Hi everybody, thanks Chris. Good to be here with you today.CHRIS NEWBOLD:Yeah, and today we're going to dive into an area of lawyer well-being that I think is both fascinating, because it's kind of where a lot of the cultural elements of lawyer well-being originate. We're going to talk about law schools and the work that's being done in law schools. We are very excited to have with us a real visionary in terms of thinking about law school culture as it relates to lawyer well-being. Bree, I'm going to have you introduce our guest, David Jaffe.BREE BUCHANAN:Sure, and thank you, and I appreciate the opportunity to do that because David Jaffe is one of the favorite people that I know, and so I'm delighted to have him here. David's day job, he's the Associate Dean of Student Affairs at the American University Washington College of Law in D.C., and I know David from the many years that he spent on the ABA's Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs and has been a leader with that group around issues related to law students and looking at reform for law schools across the country around how they address students who are struggling with mental health issues or substance use problems, and just general well-being. He was awarded CoLAP's Meritorious Service Award a few years ago. Near and dear to our hearts is that David was the author, the lead author, the author, on the law school section of the National Task Force Report. So he's been in this space with us from the very, very beginning.So David, welcome. I'm so glad you're here with us today.DAVID JAFFE:Thank you, thank you Bree and Chris, thank you so much for having me today.BREE BUCHANAN:Yeah. And you know one of the questions that we ask everybody that's on the podcast, because I think it's helpful to just have the human side of this is, David, what brought you to the lawyer well-being movement? It's so clear that you have a driving passion for this work. What drives it?DAVID JAFFE:It's a great question actually, something I've been thinking about a lot. I think I bring it back to two elements from my own, my personal childhood and background, one of them which I've not shared a lot. When I was 15 years old I actually came across one of my siblings who was attempting to commit suicide, or at least thought he was at a very young age. He was 16 months younger than me, and had taken a mixture of pills in an effort to join, not through suicide but a cry for help to join one of my other siblings in a private rehab school in another state. I happened to be the one at home who found him, found him in enough time. He was taken care of and ultimately did end up at this school, and he's now okay, thank you. But I think it's really something that at that age had to have stuck with me.There's also a history of depression in my family. It goes very deep to my grandmother, with whom I was very close, and my father and a couple of other relatives. So it's something that I've been sensitive in my personal life, and then through extrapolation. I look at these 100s of law students who we take in at our law school and across the country every year, and just wonder with all the myriad issues that they have facing them even prior to school, and then exacerbated by everything that they have in transitioning to law school, what they must be going through. And I think that's just been a lot of what's driven my desire to be available to reach out when possible and try to be some resource of assistance.BREE BUCHANAN:And they're so lucky to have you, David, to have somebody in that role who really gets it and is really compassionate and feels for what they're going through, and it's evident in hearing you talk and the work that you do.CHRIS NEWBOLD:Yeah. David, remind me how many years you've been involved in higher education and in particular the law school setting.DAVID JAFFE:Sure. So I graduated from the Washington College of Law, where I'm presently employed, in 1993. I spent a total of three years in different positions with the school, four actually, and in 1997 I interviewed successfully for the Dean of Students job. I was the second Dean of Students that the law school had, was relatively young to have the title of Dean although it's never been something that I've made a lot of in my title, but more importantly it was giving me the opportunity to work with students more on the, just on a one-on-one level. So I think I had a LinkedIn reminder today that 27 years of service with the law school.CHRIS NEWBOLD:That's definitely got to have provided you the context and the perspective to see obviously a lot of different changes in the law school setting over that duration of period of time.DAVID JAFFE:Absolutely. Absolutely. I think we, I'm sure we'll talk more about this, but I think that we've seen an evolution of sorts, and unfortunately and fortunately in the same breath, around mental health and well-being. I think it's one that's really only taken hold probably the last five, maybe no more than seven years. But again, to the good, I think law schools generally are trending in the right direction in that regard.CHRIS NEWBOLD:That's exciting to hear. Let's go back a little bit and let's talk about the Suffering in Silence study. Obviously that was a precursor to the Path to Lawyer Well-Being report, and lay the evidence based challenges that I think we're both seeing in the profession in one respect but in the law schools specifically in that particular study. I'd just be curious on why did you do the study, and how did it come about?DAVID JAFFE:Sure. I got lucky to a large degree. I had been thinking a lot about the fact that we did not have a lot of data around the issues that those of us who've worked on the front lines with students perceived to be the case, around well-being, mental health, substance use, help seeking behaviors, things of that nature. I don't remember who it was but somebody put me in touch with a fellow traveler, Jerry Organ, who's a law professor at St. Thomas and somebody who does a lot of work around data for the American Bar Association. Jerry and I were introduced via email from a third party, and funny enough I think we spent about two years, maybe longer, working together towards building the survey and the idea without ever having met each other in person. I think it was some conference subsequent that we finally had a chance to meet and exchange hugs and catch up.Jerry was interested in the same thing I was. We believe anecdotally that there's significant issues around law student well-being. We don't have the data. The only survey that had been out at that time was in AALS, Association of American Law School survey dating back to 1993, so it's actually the time that I had graduated law school. That survey was limited to some degree. It hadn't really addressed prescription drugs. It hadn't looked at help seeking behaviors as well. So we wanted to have information. For me the discussion was always the important part, but data's important, particularly for individuals who may not believe that the issues are actually ripe or actually out there, and so we wanted to have the backing and then be able to use that as a foundation to say, "Okay, now what do we do?"So the survey came about in 2014. We surveyed 15 law schools, 3500 students, had just over 3,000 responses, and the numbers by and large confirmed a lot of what those who were working already with students noticed to be the case, that there was more drinking than anybody would, if not have anticipated, anybody wanted to see in law students. Use of prescription drugs without a prescription in more significant numbers than anybody would have hoped for. Positive screening for depression, around anxiety, particularly around anxiety fairly significant numbers. I think we screened 37% positive for anxiety.Then again in the same breath that although a significant number of the students who responded to the survey, over 80%, indicated that they would seek a health professional if they felt they had an issue around alcohol or drug use or mental health, only 4% had indicated actually having seen somebody and those [inaudible], the numbers just don't match up. It wouldn't make sense if you were acknowledging in one breath the significant numbers that students were drinking and binge drinking and using drugs and everything else yet not getting help for it.And that had just turned us quickly to some of the other numbers, which were around the help seeking behavior, that between, depending on whether you were looking at substance use or mental health, between 40 to 50% of the respondents said that they felt that they were more likely to get admitted to the bar if they kept their problem hidden. So [inaudible] when you take all these numbers together that they're acknowledging in one breath that they probably needed help based upon their use in different areas, but that they weren't getting the help and the presumption is that they weren't getting the help because they were afraid they were either going to have a job implication or that their character and fitness were going to impede them and they were not going to be admitted to the jurisdiction that they sought to get admitted to after three or four years of hard study and tuition payments and everything else.BREE BUCHANAN:Absolutely, and you know I shared in that first episode about, I started having emerging mental health issues in my first year of law school, and I can remember, I mean no way would I have ever gone to anybody and asked for help.DAVID JAFFE:Yeah. Right.BREE BUCHANAN:I really felt like I had to completely put out this image of being on top of everything and couldn't show any chink in the armor, so to speak. I got the opportunity to go back to that same law school and teach a clinical program 20 years later and I'll tell you, it's the same attitudes. Not much had changed at that time, but hopefully some things are changing now. [crosstalk]DAVID JAFFE:It's hard, Bree. It's really, you think about these individuals and regardless of the law school where you're working or assisting students, these students were skimmed from the top of undergrads or even if they were out for a few years, the top colleges from across the country. They all want to be competitive, oftentimes with themselves, sometimes with the sacrifice of classmates, which is another challenge. But they also, as a general rule, those students tend to be type A. They feel they've got everything under control and they can handle everything, and this whole notion of, a stigma of needing to have things under control really, really gets in the way of these students seeking help.CHRIS NEWBOLD:David, the study came out in 2016, right? So we're four years removed from the study. Do you have a sense of how things have shifted with law students since the study was done? Do you have a general feeling for if we're doing better, are we worse, are we about the same? What do your instincts tell you?DAVID JAFFE:It's a great question. I'll start with a tease. Jerry and I are fortunate to have received a grant opportunity, and we're going to be updating that survey. We're surveying again next spring, in 2021, and so we're going to have yet another opportunity to really see the hard numbers and see if we've made some significant changes or potentially slid back since that survey and that time. What I would suggest, and although I'm very proud of the survey and a lot of the results from it, I don't want to give all of the credit to that. I think that Jerry and I should also mention Kate Bender from the Dave Nee Foundation who co-wrote the article with us after the survey came out, or the results of the survey came out.I think that the law schools have been trending, maybe in part from results of the survey but just in part from being more aware of the importance of the issues, have been trending towards being more proactive than we have been. I had used the number five, seven years prior to this conversation, and what I mean by that is that we were at a time where, orientation for example, we would be told by senior administrators informally or formally that the last thing we should be talking about are issues around mental health and stress and anxiety. We're welcoming an entering class, and then boom they're going to get hit right between the eyes with this notion that it's going to be a really, really different experience, and next thing you know we're scaring them away to another school, as if we were the only law school that had an issue around these challenges.That conversation has given way towards issues or conversations around well-being, around meditation and mindfulness and yoga and other outlets and seeking help when needed, as really being front and center orientations at I would say a good many law schools around the country. So we're not only not afraid of it anymore, but rather than being in this kind of reactive posture where we wait for a student to come and either be referred by a faculty member or just realize that they're desperately sinking and really come to somebody for help at the last minute, we're doing more proactive outreach. We're saying from the beginning in the orientation, in the materials, through reminders of mindfulness meditation sessions or yoga sessions or whatever else it is, that we understand that students are going through these issues and we want to try to head them off, and then of course also be there should despite our best efforts some of the issues continue to make the work and the challenges difficult for our students.CHRIS NEWBOLD:I'm curious how you, to the extent possible, how do you measure success of what you've been doing relative to how you want to create an evolving culture in the law school that obviously prepares them for maybe greater vulnerability and greater willingness to let faculty know when they're in those challenging spots, or perhaps fostering a more collaborative and maybe less of a competitive environment?DAVID JAFFE:It's a great question. I think it's one thing that we, I would say for myself in our student affairs office, we probably struggle with a little bit. Metrics seem to be coming more and more important for schools, the ability to report outcomes of what they're doing in various ways. One way one can do it is to, how many students are dropping in your office, how many students are you meeting with one on one? In theory around well-being you could mark it by the number of students who are coming to a meditation session. But it's tricky, because you can argue two sides. If fewer students are coming to your office for help, then you could suggest that or imply that the work that you've done in orientation are causing students to, in a good way, to maybe seek help maybe with family or private counseling or things like that or maybe doing meditation on their own, and they're actually taking better care of themselves.On the other hand, if numbers are increasing of students coming in to you, you could also argue that you've gotten word out about it, that you are a positive resource without judgment, without question, and so the students have found the credibility in your office and the comfort level and they're coming to you maybe at a time that they would be afraid, you know the Dean of Students has a job to report me to a character and fitness and to the bar, and so if I go and get help I might just be putting my death sentence out there for admission to the bar later on. So the short answer, I don't have an ideal one, Chris. I think, I simply feel that if one keeps beating the drum of the context and the conversation around this just being important and doing what you need to for yourself when you can, and seeking help when you feel like this is getting out of control, you've just got to trust that the students are responding to you and are getting help when they need, either with you or again through other individuals.BREE BUCHANAN:David, I know during your tenure as a leader of the law school committee of CoLAP, there was a study published by Jordana Confino that really looked at what was going on with law schools across the country and adopting well-being initiatives, and this was written within the last couple of years. Can you share some of the most promising practices or things that impressed you that are going on right now across the country that we might entice some of the law schools to adopt?DAVID JAFFE:Sure. Jordana's article was terrific, and as you said it did kind of follow a survey that several individuals had worked on in just trying to get a sense of ... Some of it was following our survey, but again some of it was just a general sense of we know you as law schools are doing better work or looking to increase your efforts in regard to what is working, what is not working. I would say if I wanted to tease out one, and forgive me, I don't recall if the numbers were as solid on this as I'd like to see them, but I actually think our faculty, faculty across the board, law faculty across the board that is, have the perhaps best opportunity to have a positive input and a positive effect on our students around these issues.What I mean by that is that despite those of us as Dean of Students who like to kind of wear this badge of honor of being on the front line with law students, we're technically not. We do get to see the law students at orientation, at least for those Deans of Students who run orientation. In my case I'm one of them. But once school gets started the students are really, they're beholden to their classes and their faculty and vice versa. One of the parts of the article that had come out was, again, I think it was, there were definitely examples of faculty leading the way but I think it was more of a suggestion that we do a deeper dive in that regard.Our faculty are held in such esteem by their students, particularly the entering students who are kind of seeing them for the first time and learning from them in these various subject areas. The opportunity for the faculty to, what's the phrase, to step away from the sage on the stage and just kind of be an assistant on the side. Not to stop doing what they're doing in teaching, but to take a minute in class, every now and then, even starting classes, with a very brief breathing exercise, but also taking a break every couple of weeks and acknowledging, "I know that you're hitting a peak point of the semester right now, that you're doing your legal writing class and that you're taking a midterm and this and that." Checking with the students. "Are you doing okay?" Reminding them that they've accomplished so much just by getting to law school, and reminding them that they have very much the right to be where they are and that they're going to graduate and not going to be- [inaudible]BREE BUCHANAN:Oh dear.DAVID JAFFE:Having a dog bark in support of that, I will take 100% of the time. [inaudible] So I think that's one of the big areas. I know that Jordana's survey had also pointed out that a lot of the wellness programming again are areas, depending on your school and what's working best for you, was definitely another area where we were seeing wellness committees that invited students in to discuss what was going to work best and then giving way to these meditation sessions or yoga sessions or running clubs or just giving an opportunity for students to gather together to talk, and ideally to kind of give way to more open conversation about how they could be supporting each other.BREE BUCHANAN:One of the things that's really golden is if you have a faculty member who will actually share his or her experience, maybe with depression or anxiety over the course of their career.DAVID JAFFE:100%.BREE BUCHANAN:That does so much to bring down the stigma that's around this and just makes it okay for people to start talking about it. When you can talk about it, then you can ask for help for it, and that's so critical.DAVID JAFFE:That's right. And we all have it, and that's the thing. And I try to share with students and say, occasionally I'll share the stories that I shared here in the podcast and go into a little more depth, but I'll also say, these things don't change. Some of our students are older and married, but you graduate from law school, you get married, you're dealing with raising a family, with a spouse or a significant other, buying a house, jobs and things like that. The stressors continue, so it's may be peaking to a degree in law school for students but they don't go away, and so the real question is, what do we do about getting help while we can, while we're in a support network where others can be helping us so that we can come out the other side and be as healthy as we can.BREE BUCHANAN:So David, you've been really central to some policy initiatives that have the potential to make real change in this area, and I want you to have the chance to talk about this. One of them is around the character and fitness questions that states ask law students and has such a chilling effect on law students' willingness to ask for help. Tell us about what your work is in that area.DAVID JAFFE:Sure. I [inaudible] an incredible component to the issue, and chilling effect is exactly the right phrase, Bree. There's again a much deeper dive. For those who are interested I would just encourage them to either reach out to any of us or to look up, Louisiana, I think they probably list it as Consent Decree in 2014, but basically there was a determination back in 2014 that a number, well that the State of Louisiana in that case was using their questions on their character and fitness portion of the bar application that were invasive and violative of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, that they were asking questions that could not or should not be asked. And so a decision was made to force through the decree to soften those questions, but if the determination was that they were being made only in that state because the suit was there and not federal and not across the board.Some other states indeed who were already well addressing mental health questions or not having them at all. A couple of other states saw the handwriting on the wall and decided to make some changes. But there are still a decent number of states, four or five or six that would be described as extremely invasive, and then maybe scaling down to another 10 or 12, maybe even 15 or so. And these are states that are just asking questions that most typically is kind of the, did you ever? I mean they're asking questions about a student's health and background that really don't have a place in the current reflection of the character or the fitness of that applicant to study law. There may be issues that occurred that were well dealt with a number of years ago, and yet the question is opening it up again and causing a student to potentially disgorge information of a very personal nature, and also potentially re traumatize when these students have been through significant issues.I've worked with some others. I've worked with Janet Stearns, who's my counterpart and friend at Miami's Law School. We have written an article recently about it, and even on the heels of that, we think, and some other things that were going on. We've seen a couple of states even in this calendar year who have rethought their questions, New York somewhat famously, and although they had cited to our article but to their credit they had been at work at it for a while. But they actually chose to modify their questions significantly after about a year, maybe a year and a half of a working group. And we still hope, because that's still fairly current and New York is such a significant bar, that we may see, and we've indeed heard from a couple of states since that decision came down, from a couple of states and their working groups that have been asking, "What information do you have, what can you provide us, because there's some of us who would like to see some of those changes implemented in our states as well."And the argument just simply, maybe I should have started with this, is if the students were more and more savvy about looking ahead about what their future may be and what they have to do, they're looking on line. They see what the questions are. And if we're able to respond, or if their jurisdiction is able to respond, to say, "We're not going to ask questions around mental health," or the question we're [inaudible] asking is have you, if it's an issue that is maybe within the last two or three years, have you been receiving treatment for it, and if you have then we're going to be okay with that. Well that's going to allow those students, to go back to the bulk of our conversation this far, to actually get the help they need while in law school so that they can sail through with flying colors on that application and go on to lead healthy, not only professional lives as lawyers but personal lives as well.CHRIS NEWBOLD:Great. I think that's a great time for us to take our break, and we'll talk about some more of these policy initiatives that are currently being pushed by CoLAP.DAVID JAFFE:Sounds great.Your law firm is worth protecting, and so is your time. ALPS has the quickest online application for legal malpractice insurance out there. Apply, see rates, and bind coverage, all in about 20 minutes. Being a lawyer is hard. Our new online app is easy. Apply now at applyonline.ALPSnet.com.BREE BUCHANAN:All right, welcome back everybody. We have David Jaffe with us today and we're talking about some really exciting policy initiatives that David has been at the forefront of, and these are things that can be game changers, really, around well-being for law students. What I wanted to, I can't miss out on asking you about, David, is your efforts to convince the ABA's law school accreditation committee to make some changes for what law schools are required to do around this. Can you talk a little bit about what your, I guess, I don't want to say lobbying but that's what it basically comes down to, efforts in this area?DAVID JAFFE:Sure, advocacy, definitely. Thanks, that's a great question. So one of the areas that we, and again a number of individuals who are interested in this would like to see more of an emphasis on, is some kind of formalized or required training around substance use and mental health awareness while in law school. Every law school is part of this. So the ABA accredits law schools, it's either every seven years or might be every 10 years now. You have to go through a process of self-evaluation and then sharing that information, and there are a lot of steps and questions around standards that have to be complied with.One of the ongoing requirements towards the completion of the degree is that students take a course in legal ethics or professional responsibility, it's more often called, and while recognizing that a number of those courses will fold in because of the nature of the topic, professional responsibility, a session may be an hour or something like that around substance use, mental health education and awareness. Oftentimes a lawyer assistance program director is brought in, maybe a volunteer to tell his or her story, and they're very engaging conversations when they're held.So it's there informally, but informally is a relevant term. No professor is required to write that into their professional responsibility textbook or case book and no faculty member is required to teach it as part of their overall assessment in that class. Since that's the most obvious class we've focused on that in a proposal to the ABA where we suggest it or at least suggest it generally, that substance use, mental health, at a minimum, two hours during a student's three or four years of education, is devoted towards that topic with the suggestion that a professional responsibility course would be the most logical place, that the ABA could be free to simply say that the requirement is there.In theory you could do it as part of orientation, you could do it prior to that although I think it would be a little bit too early, I think we'd want students to transition and get settled in and then appreciate some of the nuances and some of the things that might be affecting them before they hear this information. But we really feel that trying to build atop this informal approach and those faculty and those who do write these course books to fold it in, that we have a formal adoption so that schools are really compelled to work in an area that quite frankly they ought to be doing regardless.BREE BUCHANAN:Terrific. That's just a brilliant approach.CHRIS NEWBOLD:Yeah. David, you've also been very involved in the law school mental health day for law schools. I think last year it was in October, which I think is not coincidence, that you plan that in the first six to eight weeks of the semester, and I'd be curious on your thoughts around that particular mental health day and what the plans look like for 2020.DAVID JAFFE:Sure, thanks for that. So prior to, it might have been two years ago, mental health day was being held in the third week in March, and it was a somewhat artificial date and time that had been selected. A group of us had gotten together and said, "You know, it's way too late in the day to be having these conversations, right? You're at the end of the academic year. Why not push something up?" And so there was a determination and some advocacy to move it. It was actually a fairly easy lift, in credit to the ABA law student division, which is oftentimes very helpful in publicizing events that are going on around it. So we moved it to October 10th, which coincides with Global Mental Health Day as well. We've occasionally had to ... Well, we've only done it a couple years but we try to avoid a Saturday or sometimes even a Friday where law students are starting to check out for the weekend.What we tried to do is bring some [inaudible] leaders. The last couple of years we've done some national broadcasting and invited schools to, through a webinar, to attend live, to ask questions live, and have them anchored at a school. We're looking to finalize the plans for this coming October, but I would say the part that I'm most excited about and I do hope it comes together, because it's probably a long time in coming, is that I believe the law student division is going to play an even increasingly prominent role in the event or quite frankly series of events. We may do a couple of presentations over a few days this year, and we hope that one of them will be led by the law student division and students themselves, because they really, there's never a better moment or an opportunity than a student working peer to peer with other students around these issues.We like to stay the law students are getting younger each year. Obviously it's a joke as we age each year and still dedicate ourselves to doing this work, but when they stop and they see that they're, listen to their law students and the issues that their law students are facing and going through, it's then when they can really say, that's me, and it's really nice to hear, for some of them for the first time, I'm not the only one going through this.That's another area we probably should touch on at least lightly as well. We have students who believe, particularly when they're transitioning into school and feeling the crush of the Socratic method and the new language and the reading and everything else, that they're the only one who's going through whatever it is that they're going through. I've seen so many times when I've finally had an opportunity to counsel one of these students, when I will look them in the eye and say, "You know, you're not the only one this week, or sometimes the only one today, who's come to my office from these issues," and you almost can see the burden kind of lighten from their shoulders, that they're like, "Oh my god, I'm so happy to hear that because I really thought I was the only one who was afraid to be called on or the only one who wasn't getting what was going on in class and everything else."So coming back to mental health day, our hope is that there'll be at least one session that could be led by some of the student leaders and [inaudible] leaders, and really speak directly to students about some of these issues and inspire them to get help if that's an issue or to become leaders in their own right at their other schools across the country, and just kind of tentacle this out so that we're building on these wellness programs wherever and whenever we can.CHRIS NEWBOLD:David, one of the things that I think is interesting as we look into the future a little bit is, I'm concerned that there's just, a lot of folks who go into law school, go through law school and then ultimately, there's a failure in expectations of what practicing law is like relative to what their expectations were before they came into law school. It's an expectations gap that I think ultimately, you get through law school, you've got all this student debt. You maybe take a job that you didn't anticipate taking, and then you kind of move yourself through a profession in which maybe you don't love what you're doing, and if you can't find professional satisfaction some of these other coping mechanisms then kind of creep in. I'd be curious on your thoughts on what law schools can do to maybe better establish what practicing law is actually like, and when to do that in the law school setting, and whether you believe that there is some notion of an expectations gap.DAVID JAFFE:That's a very thoughtful question, Chris. Let me take a stab at that. I'm going to back up a little bit. I don't disagree with anything that you said but I'm going to take maybe a step back prior to law school. I've had some really helpful conversations with the counselor who's assigned to our law students through the university's counseling center, and although we have an absolute agreement that she cannot share any specific information about law students with me, we do have an ongoing agreement that if there are any kind of threads or issues in the aggregate that are worth sharing, maybe there's a faculty member who seems to be affecting a group of students or something going on at the school, that she absolutely can share it, and time and again when we've sat down what she has said to me, Chris, is that by and large the issues that the students are bringing forward in law school are not law school related.They're issues that, these kind of deep seated issues that law students have not addressed prior to coming to law school. Family issues, maybe unresolved. Personal issues. There may be issues around self-confidence and imposter syndrome and things like that, but also any issues around relationships, and maybe some diagnoses of depression and things like that as well. But things that students have not come to grips with, and then they get to law school and it's this jarring transition to start with, and then at the back end, and it's really, you know three years is a, even four years for evening students, it's a blink of an eye at the end of the day, and the student who has not sought the opportunity to work through some of these issues, which are now of course being exacerbated by the tuition and the potential prospects for employment and looking for those jobs and looking for summer opportunities and dealing with the debt and making new friends and transitioning, all these things are coming to a head.And so the student who's not dealing with it at all is simply, they're not sailing through typically. They're struggling. But then all these issues are presenting themselves again in the work force, inclusive potentially of this kind of gap which is, I haven't been able to focus on myself, let alone on what I ought to be learning while I'm in law school to make myself a better lawyer, and to have an appreciation for what it is that I want to do.I think the other part to your question in terms of the gap, and it all relates to well-being at the end. But I think the better job a law school is doing, not only around counseling students individually, collectively, but also providing some kind of experiential, solid experiential education or opportunities, variety of opportunities for education prior to the student getting out, is only going to serve the student well. And by that I simply mean whether it's a clinical program where a student's able to work as attorney student, attorneys for a year under the supervision of one of our faculty or even attorneys who are in practice, or even externships or internships where the students are going out into the field and working under the tutelage of a lawyer or a judge or a set of lawyers, and really gaining a sense, one, that it may be a subject area that they thought they were interested in and it ultimately turns them off, but they still have an opportunity to pivot and move in another direction; two, to gain some of those professional skills.Because where a lot of these students, they're coming right out of undergrad and really they may not have ever worked at all and if they did, they're more of the kind of run of the mill retail positions and whatnot, but not something that really immerses you in the day to day, the exchange, the thoughtful thinking, the analysis, the professionalism that needs to be brought. And if you're not having those experiences in school then Chris, I absolutely agree, you find yourself in the profession potentially in a position that was not something that you thought you wanted to do or knew anything about, and you're unhappy. And there's [inaudible] to do that. We only get a limited period of time to enjoy what we're doing in living, and if we're not making positive selections about it we're bringing ourselves down, we're bringing down our colleagues, those around us, and again, this is the time around family formation, relationships and all, and those aren't going to work well either if you're not grounded in what it is you expect of yourself and what's making you happy on a daily basis.BREE BUCHANAN:Absolutely. And David I can really tell that you, like we said at the very beginning, I think, visionary. You think about all of these issues so deeply. So let me just ask in our last question, where do you stand today looking forward and for our students? Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Do you think things are going to get better for students, and what do you base that on if that's the case or otherwise?DAVID JAFFE:Short answer, long answer. As this podcast is being recorded, we're living in the middle of this pandemic, or if somebody's optimistic maybe a third of the way out, who knows. There are a number of us who are extremely concerned as we head into an academic year of where our students are going to be mental health wise. Social isolation is just the number one attack or deterrent towards well-being, and so while we're trying to make all this progress at law schools all of a sudden we're in this remote environment where we're staring at screens and looking desperately for other opportunities to engage, and this is going to be with us for a while. For most of us, at least the fall semester, we don't know about the year ahead.So short term we're going to have to be looking at those issues. I'll also mention here that we're dealing with some professional licensure issues about the ability or the inability to counsel across state lines, and so if we have students at a school who are not at a school physically but are now living in another state and taking classes remotely, we in many instances cannot provide them the counseling and the counseling services that we would normally be able to do when they were in person, so that is a significant challenge. There is some legislation out there that I'm tracking and others are following that we hope will continue to relax some of the provisions that were initially relaxed in some states in the immediate aftermath of COVID in March.Long term though, and again I hope it's a long term, a short long term or a short, short term where this kind of challenges go we start to have, I think we're trending towards the good. I think what we're finding, and we should give some credits to the law students as well. We're finding law students who are coming to law school, I want to say a little more self-aware. Maybe not, not self-aware and immediately well as a result of self-aware, but self-aware and comfortable enough that there are issues that they need to acknowledge to get better. I feel like there have been more open ended conversations. We've been running orientation for about five weeks now for this year's entering class and we've seen some really healthy conversations. We've received a lot of props in emails after some of our address your stress and mental health sessions during orientation, that students are really opened up and really appreciated them.So I think the generation of students may be more willing on the one hand to be more open about these issues, and in turn probably more insistent that law schools are looking to address these issues. I know in my school our students formed a mental health alliance and they were pushing us around a number of issues. Are we providing enough counseling sessions? Are the referrals appropriate if we run out of our sessions? Can we make the intake a little bit easier? On and on.And so I think the respectful, kind of gentle pounding on the table for, almost coming back to us and saying, "Hey, if Dean of Students, you're telling us that we need to be taking better care of ourselves, then we're going to turn around and say here are the things that you as law schools need to be doing to support it." And I think this is all going to coalesce in, I don't know how many years. I want to say three years, maybe five years as we're having this conversation, that I don't think we're going to turn ourselves entirely out of jobs around mental health but I think that our students are going to be taking even more and more of a look at themselves and making these requests of law schools, and I think we're going to be heading in the right direction. So I'm pretty optimistic, looking ahead.CHRIS NEWBOLD:David, do you find that that's generational in nature or societal in nature, or what do you think are some of the drivers that are kind of positioning us for that optimism?DAVID JAFFE:You know, I used to say, when I was growing up and probably a couple of generations around then, if a principal or the teacher called you in as parents and said, "We think there's a behavioral issue or something that's going on with your child," you would look at that adult and say, "How dare you accuse my child of that," and look to sue the school or take them out or go somewhere else. The pendulum then I think swung for a period of time where, and I don't mean to blame parents here but I think the notion was, if my child through medication can be achieving and overachieving, as the pendulum kind of swung to the other way. Whatever you can to do help my child, that's great. I'll do it, let's go for it.And I don't know exactly where that pendulum is right now, but I think it's some settling in the middle of a combination where students are students, when they're younger, prior to being law students, are being perhaps better diagnosed, again perhaps a little bit more self-aware. Maybe the parents now are a little bit more aware of knowing what to look for and what to avoid. So I think we're growing up a little bit healthier as families in that regard, and so I would say it's a little bit generational and maybe also a little bit societal. I mean there's just, wherever you turn there's just a push around well-being and wellness. And sometimes it's a push back against some of the challenges that we're facing around [inaudible] news and society and things like that, and so folks are looking for better answers. It can be really sobering and depressing if you're just constantly looking at negative breaking news and natural disasters and the epidemic we're living in and things of that nature.So sometimes the best response is simply to say, "I'm not going to be that person. I'm waking up every morning and eating my Wheaties and getting my exercise in and taking care of myself, and then through my own well-being I'm looking for others to do the same." And in some, you know it is that kind of village analogy. It's going to take all of us. But I think we're, even going back to the faculty, I think as we see, not to criticize older faculty but as we see faculty who are coming through law schools where they saw some of this well-being support, they're looking to mimic that because they realize that they were served well and they want to make sure that they're paying that forward with their students as they're receiving them in their classes and their experiential learning and everything else. So I think it's a combination, Chris, of a lot of those things, and again I think if we continue to sound the importance of this and continue to work in various areas, it should only continue to improve.CHRIS NEWBOLD:All right. I think that's going to be fascinating to watch over the next decade, how your graduates also come into the practice of law with better expectations as to the work life balance, and how that will play into talent acquisition by law firms and what law students ultimately are looking for out of their professional, the professional part of their journey and how that balances with their personal side. Because I think the days of Saturday Sunday working and all that, you know again, some firms are going to require it, but I think it's going to be very interesting that I think folks are coming into law school with better sense of what they want, and it'll be interesting to see kind of a clash of generations of partners and hires and how that ultimately evolves into the law firm culture within the profession generally. [crosstalk]BREE BUCHANAN:It's like a podcast episode.DAVID JAFFE:I think it's an excellent observation, and I would just respond to that briefly to say that I know that I have met with students, when they've asked, you know maybe students in recovery, students who are feeling a little more confident about themselves and they say, "What can I do to contribute?" And I say, "Well, this is going to be a really big ask, but your next interview, your set of interviews, you ought to ask about what that law firm is doing around well-being," because the more often they hear that the more they realize that that is going to have to be the next leverage point. And if you start to fall behind as a law firm you're going to have quality associates who are not interested in working there because they're not seeing it.Now it's putting a lot on the law students of course to ask, but if you're [inaudible] the right law students who are getting six, eight, 10, 15, 20 call backs for interviews, they're going to have the pick of the litter. So why not ask that question and force the hand of the firms. And you're absolutely right, Chris, the law firms are going to have to ... Some of them are doing it, to be fair, but their going to have to make some critical decisions around these issues in the coming years.CHRIS NEWBOLD:Well, David, our time's coming to a close. I want to obviously thank you for being a visionary in the law school space. Bree and I do a lot of work working with our state task forces around the country, and invariably one of the subgroups that they create within their task force is law schools, right, because I think everyone appreciates that the law school is the headwater of, the training ground for the next generation of lawyers to come into our profession, and there's critically important work issues suggested.There's a lot of issues before they even come into law school, but in terms of their introduction into the law space and the legal culture, it starts in law school, right? And there's just so many important things happening there that sets the tone for their journey into the profession, that we can't thank you enough for the work and the leadership that you've done within the law student culture. I know that there's a lot of uphill battles still to face, but I think that we all share in your optimism that there's real positive things happening in that space that I think bodes well for the culture shift that we're trying to engineer within the profession generally.DAVID JAFFE:I really, I appreciate this opportunity, and the two of you have been incredible thought leaders in the legal profession and the work with the task force and everything to come, so I thank you both in turn and again for granting me an opportunity just to have this conversation. Thanks so much.BREE BUCHANAN:Thank you, David.CHRIS NEWBOLD:Awesome. Yeah, thank you, and we'll be back in two weeks. Our next guest will be Judge David Shaheed out of Indiana. Judge Shaheed is a real thought leader in terms of bringing the nexus between well-being and the judicial sector of the legal profession, serving in a number of different capacity and leadership roles. I'm really looking forward to that podcast, because the judge element of well-being in law I think is a critical part that's oftentimes overlooked. So we'll be excited to get into the weeds with Judge Shaheed in a couple of weeks. So thank you for joining us for Episode Four. Thank you, David, and we'll be back in a couple weeks.David Jaffe is Associate Dean of Student Affairs at American University, Washington College of Law. He is co-author of the 2016 national law student study, Suffering in Silence, and a number of other publications on law student well-being. He serves on the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP) as co-chair of the Law School Assistance Committee, and in 2015, he received the CoLAP Meritorious Service Award in recognition of his commitment to improving the lives of law students.
Podcast co-hosts Bree Buchanan and Chris Newbold, who also serve as co-chairs of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, introduce themselves, provide perspective on how the lawyer well-being movement began, how and why the issue has sparked a national conversation, why a culture shift in the profession is needed and share their individual stories of what brought them into the lawyer well-being movement. Transcript: CHRIS NEWBOLD: Welcome to the Path to Lawyer Well-Being, a podcast about cool people doing awesome work in the space of lawyer well-being. This podcast is presented by the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being. I'm Chris Newbold, and I'm joining you from Missoula, Montana, and I'm excited to be joined by my co-host Bree Buchanan.BREE BUCHANAN: Hi, everybody. I'm Bree, and I'm joining you from Eugene, Oregon. Chris and I are both co-chairs of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being. So, a little bit just about what that group is, we're a group of lawyers representing different parts of the bar when each of us are a leader within that group. What binds us together is a passion for improving the lives of lawyers. We all hold a belief that to achieve that goal, there has to be a systemic change within our profession, so that well-being of its members is a top priority.CHRIS: This is our inaugural podcast, and I think this is the right time to do a few things, I think, in our first podcast, which is to introduce a little bit about the well-being movement. To introduce you to the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, and most importantly, probably to introduce you to us. Why we find a personal passion in lawyer well-being, what our hopes and aspirations are as we think about the vision of this podcast series. Because there's incredible work going on around the country right now in this space of lawyer well-being launched several years ago with a legendary report that I think ignited a national discussion on this particular issue.This is, I think, just a really exciting time for us in the movement, as we have grown really a large contingent of folks who are really fundamentally hoping to see some systemic changes in our profession for the betterment, as we think about lawyer health and well-being. So, we're going to have some fun today, I think, in our first podcast, Bree.BREE: Absolutely.CHRIS: Let's talk about the notion of a theme around beginnings.BREE: Sure, and I thought it would be really great today, yeah talking about beginning of this podcast, talking about the beginnings of the national task force. How did it come about? Why did we do this? How was it envisioned, and what is it that we're trying to do? Then, also I thought it would be, this is the perfect time to talk about, Chris, you and I, our beginnings in this movement. What drew us to this? There's a real passion on the part of everybody that's working in this movement. So, what got us to this point, and I think it's a pretty interesting story.CHRIS: It is.BREE: So, I look forward to sharing it. Yeah.CHRIS: It's been I think a really unique journey and, again, I think something that we continue to be very optimistic about where this movement is moving and the type of change that I think that we can engineer as we grow an army of well-being advocates around the country. So, Bree, let's start. I'd love to go back to the namesake of this podcast, is the Path To Lawyer Well-Being, and that name, I think, resonates with you as someone who's really a co-founder of our movement, and the report that got started by a coalition of organizations that began to really take an interesting look at this particular issue. Can you take us back to those early days of well-being?BREE: Sure.CHRIS: How did it come together and what have been some of the crowning achievements as we think about it?BREE: Sure, in some ways it's a bit of an improbable story. It sounds like sort of an official group, and it really started back in 2016. There were a group of us who were each in our own right leaders of a national organization that worked in the space of lawyer impairment, lawyer well-being. We basically commandeered an empty conference room, the ABA annual meeting in San Francisco in 2016. We don't get to see each other very often and said, "Let's sit down and talk about the fact that we now have these two really significant large studies about the rates of impairment and the state of affairs of lawyer and law student's well-being in the country."We haven't had that before. I come to this movement out of the lawyers assistance program world. I was an incoming chair of the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs. I had known, just from the work that I did and the calls that I answered every day at the L-A-P, the LAP, that there was a real problem. That the profession was experiencing with depression, and substance abuse, and alcohol use disorder, et cetera. We had a couple of folks from the National Organization of Bar Counsel, the people who regulate the profession, and a couple of folks from the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers.The lawyers who often end up defending lawyers who were in the disciplinary system, and really work around in the space of ethics and professional responsibility. So, the small group of us sat down in that room, and I don't know what was in the water or the air that day, but we decided that given that we finally had the data, the hard data, to prove what we had known all along, we felt that there was a window of opportunity for us to move with that information. On that day, we decided that we were going to gulp, create a movement to bring about systemic change within the legal profession, in regards to how the health and well-being of its members are ... basically, how that's prioritized, because we had seen too much suffering.Some of us had suffering in our own lives. I had witnessed too many lawyer suicides, and we really were so motivated to do something and do something quickly. So, we had that charge moving forward. We left that room. We brought together a coalition of national organizations, and we had some pretty, ultimately, ended up with some pretty prestigious groups, such as the Conference of Chief Justices. The National Association of Bar Executives is coming on board, et cetera. We decided that we needed to do a report to the profession and say, "We now have this information.We know that there are real issues within our profession, and we need to do something about it." Hear the best minds that we could bring together who work and think about these issues every day. These are our recommendations to the profession. Chris, you were part of that. Talk a little bit about your role in all of that.CHRIS: Yeah. I come from the side of Lawyers Professional Liability insurance, right? So, we have a vested interest in seeing lawyers practice with the duty of competence. I think one of the things that we saw as a recurring theme in some of our claims activity is the notion that impairment oftentimes is a precursor to a malpractice claim. So, based upon a really simple premise that I think that the report kind of signaled, which is to be a good lawyer, one has to be a healthy lawyer. So, that was for Alps, the company that I worked for, which is the largest direct writer of lawyers malpractice insurance in the country, and other malpractice insurance carriers.It was that kind of a natural fit that we want to see lawyers thrive. We want to see them be just wonderful advocates on behalf of their clients. Too often, when lawyers are finding themselves in tough situations, they were reverting to things that would generally take them into a downward trajectory and open themself up to a malpractice claim. So, what I think is really cool, Bree, about the way that this movement got started, it's just the diversity of the groups were at the table. You're talking about a real sense of a grassroots. So, you got chief justices, you got disciplinary council. You got, obviously, the incredible work that our lawyer assistance programs do around the country.You got the association of professional responsibility lawyers, various entities that have associations with the American bar association, what an interesting kind of group to come together. I don't really know of many other kind of legal issues that have started from such a grassroots perspective. Let's reset the timeline a little bit. This happened in August of 2016. So, we're about four years now away from this getting started, and really I'd love for you to walk us through one year later after that. We were on the cusp of releasing the report that got everything going.That's a pretty short period of time-BREE: Yeah, it is.CHRIS: ... to mobilize that group to publish, produce, research what ultimately came to be known as the path to lawyer well-being.Bree Buchanan: It really is amazing in a little touch of a miracle that it all came together. You have these disparate backgrounds, and we really did everything by consensus. You've probably heard me talk about this before Chris, but I felt like it was birthing a child. It took nine months to write the report. It was a tremendous amount of work. All of us had not only our day jobs, but we're also leaders of national organization. So, we crammed all of this work in between the little pieces of open time that there might be. Really, everything that we decided ultimately, just about, was by consensus. Everyone was amazingly on the same page. We broke up into to writing groups based upon the stakeholder group that we were involved in. It was just really quite miraculous. The editor in chief for the report is Anne Bradford. I'm excited to announce that she's going to be our first guest on this podcast. She was the editor-in-chief and just did an amazing job. Also, the founder of the Lawyer Well-Being Week, which we just launched this past spring. So, it was pretty incredible process. We finished the report and published it in early summer of 2017. We immediately took it to the Conference of Chief Justices and asked if they would endorse it.Effectively, they passed a resolution encouraging all members of the profession to read and take heed of the report. Then, within days of that, we were able to leverage that support and take it to the ABA. We're back there at the next annual meeting, August the 27th, and there was a resolution introduced and passed by the house of delegates supporting the report. So, so much happened so quickly. It was just, in some way, it's one of those things where it felt like it was kind of meant to be.CHRIS: Yeah, and for our listeners out there, if you haven't had a chance to see the report, the report can be found at lawyerwellbeing.net, where you can download the report. One of the things, I work a lot in the bar association world, and it was really exciting to see just how fast that we've struck a chord, I think, with folks who really want to see the lawyers, again, thrive in being successful in law practice. I know we'll get to our personal stories and I'll talk a little bit about why I got involved in the movement. But I think that it was exciting to see the report itself, which we flirted with actually naming this podcast 44 recommendations, right?Because it was a fairly comprehensive report that outlined for various stakeholders pathways to being part of the solution when it comes to lawyer well-being. We talked a lot about the challenges of our profession. What I loved about it was it was a forward looking document that said, "If you're interested in being part of the solution, here are the pathways."BREE: Absolutely, and everybody that got involved from the beginning all the way through to when we were passing resolutions, when the president of the ABA, Hilarie Bass picked this up and said she wanted to make it a priority, I believe that it was so successful because every person who pick this up and looked at it, he or she had experienced either maybe within their own career, but certainly over the course of their career, they had known lawyers or maybe judges, or even a law student, who had experienced some of these problems. Had experienced some severe episode of depression, or perhaps of a substance use disorder.Even though we don't talk about these things in the profession, we have all bumped up against it in one way or another, over the course of our career. Really, what most tragically motivates so many people, especially if you've been in this field for a couple of decades or more, we all have stories of someone we have worked with, have known, a colleague who has taken his or her own life. Unfortunately, the tragedy, with those tragedies comes some opportunities to look at how we can do things better and it really motivates people to make some change. So, it seems like the task force and the report, it was the right thing at the right time.Since that time, what we've really worked towards is trying to build, I guess, you'd say, grassroots movement across the country. That starts with each of the States taking the report. We actually talked about sort of, I talk about being cheeky. Because you look in the report, it's actually to the Chief Justice of each State and saying to her or him, "This is ultimately your responsibility for the well-being of the legal community under you. We're asking you to pull together a task force or commissioner committee pulling together the heads of the different stakeholder groups within the profession. Take a look at this report.See if there's something that inspires you see. If there are things that need to happen in your State, what works for you. If it doesn't work for your State, then don't do it." A large number of States are picking up that charge and it really is occurring in a, again, in a really compressed timeline. It's amazing, Chris, you've been a part of a number of those States coming together to try and pull, put together their own task force.CHRIS: Yeah, and it's been really, again, impressive to see the amount of interest at the local level. I think change generally starts at the local level. So, when you think about, we had a number of States and I'll give a shout out to a couple of them. States like Vermont, they went really early. Put together a task force, had a very supportive Chief Justice in Chief Justice Paul Reiber, and really have done a really significant work moving it forward. Virginia's another great example.BREE: Absolutely.CHRIS: One of our national task force original members was the Chief Justice there.BREE: Don LemonsCHRIS: Don Lemons in Virginia. Again, this is just an issue that resonated with him, and we do a lot of malpractice insurance in the Commonwealth. I just think that there's a yearning to be the very best lawyers that we can possibly be and to have the support of the judiciary there, and the Virginia State Bar. Utah, another great example of a State that got out in front and really started to set the tone for a movement of state task forces or state commissions to really look at the issue. Identify how well-being is occurring at the local level.Make suggestions, make recommendations, and again, strive for systemic change to our particular profession. Bree, do you have the latest numbers on how many States have engaged in some type of activity at the state level for a task force or a commission?BREE: Sure, yeah. One cool thing you can do is on our website, lawyerwellbeing.net, if you scroll down and there's an interactive map. So, you can see the States, it's wonderful to see it visually, the States where they have implemented a commission or a task force, so that sort of thing. In some States, they haven't done a multi-stakeholder group. Maybe it is the state bar has put together a lawyer well-being committee or commission, that's doing a lot of the work around this. Universally, or almost universally, the Lawyers Assistance Programs are very involved in this work, too.So, it's taken different forms, but I would say the last time I counted, there's about 32 to 35 States now that are working in this space. So, well over a majority. So, it's exciting.CHRIS: Yeah, and I think ultimately, what is most exciting for those of us in the space is what started out as a small group of 20 to 25 people, really kind of concerned about the issue, has really multiplied by many, many factors in terms of, there are literally people in every state and every territory around the United States that are vested in this particular issue, are working with their respective state bars, or their regulatory entities, or their Supreme Courts. That's the underpinnings of, again, a change in the environment.A change in what we're trying to promote, which is, I think, obviously, a healthier legal profession of folks who find professional satisfaction in the practice of law. As we know from the numbers, that's not always the case. We have a lot of work to do because we work in an adversarial system. We work in a stressful system, and then, you add on top of that, some of the events of 2020, and you double down on that even further. So, there just can't be, I think, a more important time for us to be launching this podcast series to talk about the issues that are affecting the current and the future of lawyer well-being.Really bring on, again, really cool people doing awesome work in this particular field, because there are great people. We will talk to the Anne Bradfords and the Patrick Krills. But we'll also go down, those are national, I think, pioneers in our space, but we'll also, I think, go down and also look for stories that's happening at the local level. We'll look at specific topics. We have all these state task force chairs that are looking for guidance in particular areas of the well-being discussion. We have modifications to the rules of professional conduct that are happening with respect to well-being. We have incredible stories happening in our law schools.BREE: Absolutely.CHRIS: We have developments on character and fitness parts of bar applications. We have pathways for reducing stigma in law firm culture. I what I'm excited about is the, I think, the intellectual journey that is in front of us. As you, Bree, as you think about the vision of this podcast, what gets you excited about? What's on the horizon? Because there's just so many areas that we could go as we co-host this podcast series, and what has you excited?BREE: Well, I'm excited now after hearing the list all of those things out. I am really jazzed about the future of what we're going to do, because again, there are so many people working in this space and anybody that starts to work on the issues around lawyer impairment and lawyer well-being. If you dig just a little bit under the surface, there's a story there, and I'm excited about bringing forward some of those stories. So, on that topic, Chris, let's talk about our stories and our [crosstalk].CHRIS: Yeah. Bree, let's take a quick break. I want to hear from our friends at ALPS. ALPS is, obviously, the entity as you will learn is where I do my day job. We've been able to leverage the marketing department here. So, let's hear from our friends at ALPS and then we'll come back and we'll pick up and talk about our own stories.BREE: Great.CHRIS: Okay.—Your law firm is worth protecting. And so is your time. ALPS has the quickest application for legal malpractice insurance out there. Apply, see rates and bind coverage – all in about 20 minutes. Being a lawyer is hard. Our new online app is easy. Apply now at applyonline.alpsnet.com—Welcome back. Bree, this is the part of, I think, our first podcast that I was looking forward most. Even though you and I have worked together for three to four years now,. Sometimes, we don't know the personal story about the why, right. As we think about beginnings and the beginning of this podcast, I thought it would be, I think we both thought it would be appropriate that we share our individual stories and why we bring passion, that passion, I think, originated from differing sources. So, I just thought we'd close out our first podcast with a little bit of an introduction of ourselves to our listeners.BREE: Sure.CHRIS: If you could start us off with your story and how you find yourself, where you are today.BREE: Yeah. How I find myself today, it's a miracle really. It's just astounding to be in this space and be able to work on these issues because, the issues around depression, and anxiety, and substance use disorders and all of those things are things that plagued me throughout my life and my career. So, to come through that and through recovery, and on the other side, and be in a position now where I can work to make such a difference, it's just miraculous. When I started law school, I'll just give you everything. I graduated law school in 1989. So, you can do the math.But I got to law school and I was absolutely terrified. I was one of those many, I think probably many nobody ever talks about it, but feeling like an imposter, there's a thing called the imposter syndrome. Then, I was, what was I doing here? I'm not nearly as smart as all these other people who are fronting and acting so smart and covering over their own insecurities. So, by the time I got to the first end of the first semester, the first year of law school and got my grades, I ended up with a full blown panic disorder, which is miserable. Lots of anxiety every single day. So, I started doing what worked and what was certainly the go-to for anything and everything, in the legal profession, which was alcohol.I found that if I drank and drank pretty heavily, that anxiety would go away. I graduated from law school. I got the job that I had always wanted, which was to work at legal aid and was doing domestic violence litigation for about 10 years and loved it. But was absolutely terrified the whole time, particularly the first couple of years. Again, raising that issue of the imposter syndrome, being so afraid that I'm new, and every time the phone rings, that it's going to be an opposing counsel, and they're going to beat up or take advantage of this new lawyer. I also was dealing with the incredibly difficult content of the cases, the evidence, the horrific fact patterns.Later on got involved in litigation with child abuse and representing children that are in the foster care system. So, if you think about the type of facts and stories that I was living in every day, I dealt with what is now called compassion fatigue. I had no idea what that was at the time in the early 90s. Dealt with burnout, too much work, and not enough time to do it all, not enough support systems, et cetera. So, I dealt with a lot of depression. I still had some anxiety. Again, what I found worked, "worked" in the moment was to use alcohol. Over the course of my career, I really ended up taking sort of two paths.There was the public face. Then, there was the private face. So, publicly, look at my CV. It looks good. It had some jobs, leadership positions, president of this, whatever, you'd think, "Oh, she's got it together." But what was going on in my home, where no one could see, was a lot of very unhappy existence, exhaustion, not ever feeling good enough because I held myself to a standard of perfection. Ultimately, as it tends to happen, I drank more over time. We know that the prolonged sustained drinking of alcohol and heavy amounts starts to create changes in the brain.I started to become physically dependent to it, upon it. Ultimately, I lost my marriage. That wasn't enough to get me to stop drinking. I find that listening to the stories of hundreds, if not thousands of lawyers dealing with similar problems, when I was at the Lawyers Assistance Program, that was common. Lawyers will let everything else fall in their life. Then, when it gets to work, which is where it finally got to me, when it affects your career, then that's the bottom. Not too long after I lost my marriage, I lost my job. That point was my low point. I finally was ready to admit that I couldn't control my drinking anymore, and I got into recovery.Just as I tend to throw myself full on into whatever I do, I did that with recovery as well. That, for me, meant really making use of all the resources that were available. The thing that I learned early on and what I try to impart so much to people, lawyers who are suffering, is you've got to ask for help. We've got to be willing to say, "I'm suffering, I'm struggling, and I need help." I did that in spades. I called and got involved with a therapist. I saw a psychiatrist to get treatment for my depression and anxiety. I participated in a mutual support program for my drinking, worked that program.I got involved with the lawyer's assistance program and ultimately ended up getting a job there. So, fast forward, I've been in recovery now for 10 and a half years, and my life is amazing. It is beyond anything that I could have ever imagined, but I had to get to that point and that realization where I was willing to be vulnerable, ask for help, and then do the work. Ask for help and then do what I was told to do by people who are experts in the field. So, you can see, I have a real sort of homegrown passion for this. I understand really what it's like to live every day, going to work as a lawyer, and being afraid and not feeling like you're enough.Anyway, so just out of all of that, I've grown to have a real passion for making sure as few others as possible have that same experience, and will share my story when people are interested, and I think that it would be of help.CHRIS: Well, thank you, Bree, for a couple of things. First of all, being vulnerable and telling your own personal story. I think that we will consistently encourage that to all of our guests, I think, on the podcast, because that vulnerability, I think, is something that naturally allows us to be better understanding of how you have ... The depth of personal struggles that you have endured have led you to this position of moving into leadership and helping others. That's awesome stuff. I was going to take a couple of minutes on my story. It's interesting.My story is that I take a completely different track. It's not as much developed from its core from a personal perspective as much as from an observation perspective, which is, I ... Just a history on myself, I'm a first-generation college graduate in my family. So, everything was new. So, as I looked at going to law school and understanding that I was entering a profession, that I was very much public interest oriented probably when I went into law school. Just kind of saw some things happening in law school amongst classmates and others that gave me a concern.Then, as I reflected, I'm a 2001 graduate of the University of Montana School of Law. One of the things, as I reflected on really kind of a tenure point in my legal career, was that when I queried my classmates about their professional satisfaction in the practice of law, I just, frankly, wasn't getting a response that was positive. So, when you think about the fact that folks have went down a course in terms of selection of a professional career and to not be finding professional satisfaction, and to almost actively be encouraging their kids to not think about pursuing a passion in law, it just gave me a belief that there's something systemically broken in our profession.Again, great things happening in a lot of different respects. I think our profession is one that has ... I'm always driven by seeing organizations and individuals realize their potential. If we think about the legal profession, I just kind of reflected on the notion that I don't think our legal profession is realizing its potential. Part of it has to do with the manner in which there's just a nature of unhealthiness undercurrent, beneath the hood a little bit that is pulling away from our profession, realizing its potential.I happened to be in a class of, graduating class of '75, at the University of Montana and have had to endure three suicides in our class. Again, you just sit there and go, "What's going on? Why is this happening?" It's not always related to the law. Obviously, we are human beings before we are lawyers. We always have to remember that, but I've spent a lot of my time really thinking about why are some of these things occurring? In my day job here at ALPS, I spent a lot of time working with State bar associations and doing strategic planning. I know how much this issue affects members of bar associations.So, I just felt like I'm an accidental leader in some respects in this movement, but I was drawn to it because I believe in the potential of our profession, and in working toward making it better. I felt like if I have some skills and some passion, and if I can somehow advance the conversation that this would be an appropriate venue to get involved. I happened to get introduced to the well-being movement by somebody who also, Bree, you know very well. That's our dear friend, Jim Coyle out of Colorado.BREE: Absolutely.CHRIS: Jim would be incredible, and Bree, we got to get Jim on to the podcast, because I think that he was single-handedly responsible for seeing something in me and seeing somehow how my perspectives would add perspective and flavor to our discussions. Jim was an original co-chair of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, after having sat and served with distinction in the office of the Disciplinary Counsel and Attorney Regulation, I guess they call it in Colorado. So, Jim introduced me and said, "You got something to give to this movement." Invited me in, and it's been a wonderful and rewarding journey thus far, and we still have a lot of work to go.BREE: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm hearing your story, what brought you to the movement, and that's a first for me. It really strikes me that between our two stories, it encapsulates what the issues that the National Task Force is working on. I come to this because I have a history of basically impairments, or the depression, and substance use disorder. We're really about, the national task force, is really about trying to provide, make sure that there is treatment, there are resources, there's education and information about that out there. There's providers who can talk about that.But it's also really about, so much of what we wanted to do is about the fact that so many of our colleagues are not thriving in the practice of law. What a loss, what a loss personally, and what a loss to the profession, when we're not able to work up to our full capacity. So, I think this is a great partnership, Chris.CHRIS: Yeah, it is. I'm excited for the journey. I do think that I wanted to give a little bit of a preview of who our intended audience is, because I think that that's an important part of why we develop the podcast series in the first place. This podcast series is specifically designed for folks who are taking an active leadership role in the well-being movement, for you to hear from others around the country. To learn their stories and learn about their expertise so that you can find and connect dots into resources that you need to help us move this movement forward. There are other podcasts out there that I think focused on individual lawyers.There's, obviously, mindfulness, meditation, eating well, taking care of yourself. Those are very important attributes to taking each lawyer individually and comprising our legal profession. Our goal, I think, in this particular podcast is to think about those who are thinking about it holistically, thinking about it in terms of how they can move the needle at the local level. So, this is a podcast that's specifically developed for all those folks who have a real passion in becoming leaders in our movement, and connecting those folks through the sharing of information and education,BREE: Right. We've always, the task force have always been about really looking at systemic change. We said from the very beginning, we're going to try and lecture individual lawyers that they need to eat their vegetables and exercise, because we knew that and an individual lawyer can meditate, and run, and eat all the broccoli in the world, but they can't change the systemic issues within the legal system that make it almost impossible for everyone to be able to really thrive. So, that's what we're trying to get at, the big picture stuff.CHRIS: Yup, and Bree, you and I, we have a goal, right? That we want to keep these episodes to probably 20 to 45 minutes. We're targeting probably two podcasts a month as we look to continue to add new guests and new perspectives to this podcast series. So, Bree, we got to wrap this up. We got a lot of preparation to do as we nail down future speakers. We're excited, I think, by the journey that lies ahead. So, I'm wishing you well. This is Chris.BREE: And Bree.CHRIS: We'll sign off. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back with a podcast probably in a couple of weeks. Thank you.
Mike Madison talks with Dean Trish White and Andrea Sinner, the chair and director of the American Bar Association Commission on the Future of Legal Education. The Commission wrapped up two years' worth of work in March 2020 and published a report that reads more like a manifesto for change than a conventionally sober reflection. Find the ABA Commission Report online here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Drafting a Special Needs Trust is only the foundation of sound planning. On that foundation are additional documents and steps to take. In this episode we discuss two. First, the memorandum of intent which gives direction on wishes and day to day care. This episode covers what to put in the memo of intent, ensuring it is easy to find, being bold yet discreet in wishes that others may not like, and why you should not store it in your safe at home. The second consideration discussed is the importance of funding the trust via retitling to avoid probate. Show notes for this episode are at https://www.lomah.org/podcastseason4/104 Find Kim on instagram as journey2lomah About the Guest Michele P. (Fuller) Urbatsch is the founder of Michigan Law Center, P.L.L.C, and President of Advocacy, Inc., a non-profit organization. Her law practice focuses on advocacy, protection, and asset preservation for persons with disabilities, including working in the following areas of law: elder law, special needs planning, special needs trust administration, and settlement planning. Michele was recently appointed Special Assistant Attorney General to assist in settlement planning for the Flint Water cases. She is the former Chair of the Elder Law and Disability Rights Section (ELDRS) of the State Bar of Michigan and has leadership positions in several national organizations: Advisory Board Member of the Academy of Special Needs Planners (ASNP) and Michigan Chapter of NAELA Board of Directors. She is also active in the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA), the Michigan Association for Justice, and a regular contributor for the Institute for Continuing Legal Education (ICLE). Michele is honored to have received the 2018 State Bar of Michigan Unsung Hero Award, given annually to an attorney demonstrating dedication in their practice for the betterment of others. She has also been nominated to the Super Lawyers list for the last several years. Other awards she has received include: American Institute of Legal Counsel 10 Best Elder Law Attorneys 2016-2019, and Distinguished Lawyers 2016-2019 by The Expert Network, given to the top 3% of attorneys in the nation. She was also named the Women-in-Law Elder Law and Special Needs Planning Attorney of the Year by Lawyer’s Monthly Magazine in 2016. Parenting Magazine also named Michele the Top Special Needs Child Advocate in 2013. Michele and her award-winning special needs attorney and spouse, Kevin Urbatsch, frequently write together. Their publications include: Administering the Michigan Special Needs Trust; the 2nd and 3rd editions of Administering the California Special Needs Trust;and Special Needs Trusts: Protect Your Child’s Financial Future, 6th and 7th Editions, NOLO Press. She is also the author of Saving Grace, an elder law client’s experience, and Finding Peace: a guide for caregivers, to be published in 2020. Michele and Kevin have also co-authored several nationally published articles, including Traps for the Unwary During Special Needs Trust Administration, in Estates and Trusts Magazine, the Future of Planning for Persons with Disabilities which was published in the Fall 2013 edition of the NAELA Journal, and Pooled Trusts: An Approach to Special Needs Planning for Families of Modest Means, published in the May-June 2013 edition of BiFocal, a Journal of the ABA Commission on Law and Aging. Michele has also contributed to Michigan Bar Journal, Planning for a Person with Disabilities, Considerations when Settling a Lawsuit for an Individual Lacking Capacity or a Minor, and Divorce and Disability: Identifying and Resolving the Unique Issues of a Spouse with Disabilities. In addition to the Michigan State Bar Journal, Michele has contributed to the MAJ Journal, Elder Law Answers, NAELA news, and other publications. Michele is a frequent presenter for various national and statewide organizations such as ElderCounsel, MassMutual, the American Bar Association, American Association for Justice, Michigan Association for Justice, the Institute of Continuing Legal Education, Michigan Brain Injury Association of Michigan and the Michigan Guardianship Association, among others. She is of council for several non-profit organizations, national and statewide, which administers pooled special needs trusts. Michele graduated with Honors as a member of the James Madison College at Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations. Michele then attended American University International Law Masters program and obtained her Juris Doctor from the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
Episode 116 - Guest: Dari Pogach, Staff Attorney, ABA Commission on Law and Aging American Bar AssociationIn this episode, National Director of ElderLawAnswers, Rebecca Hobbs, continues her conversation with Dari Pogach, staff attorney for the ABA Commision on Law and Aging on Guardianship reform in the United States. Dari discusses legislative trends that are occurring nationally and challenges that states are facing. Ms. Pogach also discusses ways that elder law attorneys can get involved locally and nationally with guardianship reform. Dari also discusses the ABA's Working Interdisciplinary Networks of Guardianship Stakeholders (WINGS) project, a project to support court-led partnerships in states to drive changes in guardianship policy and practice.
Episode 115: Guardianship Challenges and Reform (part 1)Guest: Dari Pogach, Staff Attorney, ABA Commission on Law and Aging American Bar AssociationIn this episode, Dari Pogach, staff attorney for the ABA Commision on Law and Aging speaks with National Director of Elder Law Answers, Rebecca Hobbs, on issues and challenges that states are facing with guardianships. Dari discusses issues that are affecting the lives of people with guardians as well as alternatives to guardianship such as supportive decision making. Dari discusses recent media coverage of guardianship issues and the reform that must happen to help to address these concerns.
With limited resources and difficult systemic restrictions for both immigrants and judges, those inside the immigration court system don’t think those brought before their courts are receiving real due process. At the ABA Annual Meeting, host Laurence Colletti is joined by Judge Joan V. Churchill, Judge Dana Leigh Marks and Karen Grisez to hear about the pervasive issues causing serious difficulties for all parties involved, some ways in which the system could be improved, and ways lawyers can get involved to make a meaningful difference for those facing the potentially severe consequences of a ruling against them. Judge Dana Marks is an immigration judge in San Francisco California who has been on the bench since 1987. She is also the President Emerita of the National Association of Immigration Judges. Judge Joan Churchill is a retired immigration judge, having served from 1980 to 2005. She is a past president of the National Association of Women Judges and she currently works with the ABA section on National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary. Karen T. Grisez is a member of the Litigation Department and is resident in Fried Frank's Washington, DC office. She joined the Firm in 1990 and became Public Service Counsel in 1996. She serves on the ABA Commission on Immigration and is a past chair of the commission.
Judy Perry Martinez is a lawyer who has made public service a part of her career from the start. She continues that legacy in August as she assumes the presidency of the 400,000-member American Bar Association during its annual meeting in San Francisco. On this episode of LawNext, Martinez joins host Bob Ambrogi for a wide-ranging discussion of the challenges and opportunities facing the ABA and the profession at large. Over more than 30 years, Martinez has held various leadership positions at the ABA, including as chair of the ABA Presidential Commission on the Future of Legal Services, which three years ago released it seminal study on access to legal services, Report on the Future of Legal Services in the United States. Martinez also chaired the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, which evaluates all prospective nominees to the federal bench. Other roles in which she has served include as the ABA’s lead representative to the United Nations, a member of the ABA Task Force on Building Public Trust in the American Justice System, a member of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, a member of the Council of the ABA Center on Diversity, and a member of the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence. She spent much of her career at the law firm Simon, Peragine, Smith & Redfearn in New Orleans, where she is of counsel. In 2003, she joined Northrop Grumman Corporation as assistant general counsel-litigation, eventually rising to become vice president and chief compliance officer before leaving in 2015 to spend a year at the Advanced Leadership Institute at Harvard University. NEW: We are now on Patreon! Subscribe to our page to be able to access show transcripts, or to submit a question for our guests. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.
The Path to Law Student Well-Being, Ep. 2: Character and Fitness and the Evaluation Process.Episode 2 features a short conversation about character and fitness evaluations in the bar admission process as it pertains to mental health issues and substance use disorders. Guests are Janet Stearns, Dean of Students at the University of Miami School of Law, Robert Albury, Executive Director of the West Virginia Judicial & Lawyer Assistance Program, and host Chase Andersen, Case Manager with Minnesota's Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers.The Path to Law Student Well-Being is a podcast series sponsored by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The series is a response to the call for action in the 2017 Report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, which sets out action items for the legal community, including specific steps law schools can take, to shift the culture of the legal profession towards one that is focused on well-being.
In this 3-part episode, Scott Rogers, a nationally recognized leader in the area of mindfulness and the law, and host Stephen Slawinski, a 3L at the University of Dayton School of Law, discuss the practice and benefits of mindfulness.•Part 1 examines why a law student might begin a mindfulness practice and the benefits of doing so.•Part 2 provides ways in which a law student might get started on a mindfulness practice.•Part 3 offers advice on how to overcome some of the roadblocks to practicing. •In a special bonus episode, Scott leads a 3-minute mindfulness exercise.Scott is the founder and director of the Institute for Mindfulness Studies and of the University of Miami School of Law's Mindfulness in Law Program. He also co-founded and co-directs the University of Miami's Mindfulness Research & Practice Initiative. Learn more about the Mindfulness in Law Program at: www.law.miami.edu/academics/mindfu…s-in-law-program.The Path to Law Student Well-Being is a podcast series sponsored by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The series is a response to the call for action in the 2017 Report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, which sets out action items for the legal community, including specific steps law schools can take, to shift the culture of the legal profession towards one that is focused on well-being.
In this 3-part episode, Scott Rogers, a nationally recognized leader in the area of mindfulness and the law, and host Stephen Slawinski, a 3L at the University of Dayton School of Law, discuss the practice and benefits of mindfulness.•Part 1 examines why a law student might begin a mindfulness practice and the benefits of doing so.•Part 2 provides ways in which a law student might get started on a mindfulness practice.•Part 3 offers advice on how to overcome some of the roadblocks to practicing. •In a special bonus episode, Scott leads a 3-minute mindfulness exercise.Scott is the founder and director of the Institute for Mindfulness Studies and of the University of Miami School of Law's Mindfulness in Law Program. He also co-founded and co-directs the University of Miami's Mindfulness Research & Practice Initiative. Learn more about the Mindfulness in Law Program at: www.law.miami.edu/academics/mindfu…s-in-law-program.The Path to Law Student Well-Being is a podcast series sponsored by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The series is a response to the call for action in the 2017 Report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, which sets out action items for the legal community, including specific steps law schools can take, to shift the culture of the legal profession towards one that is focused on well-being.
In this 3-part episode, Scott Rogers, a nationally recognized leader in the area of mindfulness and the law, and host Stephen Slawinski, a 3L at the University of Dayton School of Law, discuss the practice and benefits of mindfulness.•Part 1 examines why a law student might begin a mindfulness practice and the benefits of doing so.•Part 2 provides ways in which a law student might get started on a mindfulness practice.•Part 3 offers advice on how to overcome some of the roadblocks to practicing. •In a special bonus episode, Scott leads a 3-minute mindfulness exercise.Scott is the founder and director of the Institute for Mindfulness Studies and of the University of Miami School of Law's Mindfulness in Law Program. He also co-founded and co-directs the University of Miami's Mindfulness Research & Practice Initiative. Learn more about the Mindfulness in Law Program at: www.law.miami.edu/academics/mindfu…s-in-law-program.The Path to Law Student Well-Being is a podcast series sponsored by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The series is a response to the call for action in the 2017 Report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, which sets out action items for the legal community, including specific steps law schools can take, to shift the culture of the legal profession towards one that is focused on well-being.
In this 3-part episode, Scott Rogers, a nationally recognized leader in the area of mindfulness and the law, and host Stephen Slawinski, a 3L at the University of Dayton School of Law, discuss the practice and benefits of mindfulness.•Part 1 examines why a law student might begin a mindfulness practice and the benefits of doing so.•Part 2 provides ways in which a law student might get started on a mindfulness practice.•Part 3 offers advice on how to overcome some of the roadblocks to practicing. •In a special bonus episode, Scott leads a 3-minute mindfulness exercise.Scott is the founder and director of the Institute for Mindfulness Studies and of the University of Miami School of Law's Mindfulness in Law Program. He also co-founded and co-directs the University of Miami's Mindfulness Research & Practice Initiative. Learn more about the Mindfulness in Law Program at: www.law.miami.edu/academics/mindfu…s-in-law-program.The Path to Law Student Well-Being is a podcast series sponsored by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The series is a response to the call for action in the 2017 Report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, which sets out action items for the legal community, including specific steps law schools can take, to shift the culture of the legal profession towards one that is focused on well-being.
Episode 4 features a conversation on how adopting a growth mindset can help law students thrive both emotionally and intellectually. Guests include Dr. Katherine Bender Ph.D, former programming director for the Dave Nee Foundation, co-author of the ground breaking Law Student Well-Being Study and Assistant Professor in the Department of Counselor Education at Bridgewater State University, and Professor Dan Bowling III, Senior Fellow at Duke Law and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. Mitchell Barthelemy, a 1L at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and co-host of the law student podcast Cold Call Lawcast, moderates the discussion.The Path to Law Student Well-Being is a podcast series sponsored by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar and Law Student Division. The series is a response to the call for action in the 2017 Report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, which sets out action items for the legal community, including specific steps law schools can take, to shift the culture of the legal profession towards one that is focused on well-being.
The Path to Law Student Well-Being, Ep. 1, Part 1: Ways individual faculty members can notice, engage with, and support students they suspect are in distress.The inaugural 2-part episode features two short conversations with Dean and Professor of Law Michael Hunter Schwartz of the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law and Professor Larry Krieger of the Florida State University College of Law and is moderated by Professor Susan Wawrose of the University of Dayton School of Law.•In the first part of this episode, Dean Schwartz and Professor Krieger suggest ways individual faculty members can notice, engage with, and support students they suspect are in distress.•The second part identifies steps faculty can take to promote student wellbeing through their teaching in the classroom and includes concrete actions for law school administrators.Dean Schwartz is a recognized expert and the author of numerous books and articles on the subject of law student teaching and learning, including his book, What the Best Law Teachers Do. He has also been ranked for the past three years in a row by National Jurist magazine as one of the most influential legal educators.Professor Krieger is well-known for his groundbreaking work on law student well-being, including how values and motivation affect law student and lawyer satisfaction and the role law schools play in shaping law student values and in humanizing the profession. He has also has done significant research measuring the psychological changes of law students during law school.The Path to Law Student Well-Being is a new podcast series sponsored by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The series is a response to the call for action in the 2017 Report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, which sets out action items for the legal community, including specific steps law schools can take, to shift the culture of the legal profession towards one that is focused on well-being.
Francine Ward, Business and Intellectual Property Law Attorney, Member of the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs Advisory Committee
Episode 6: Courtney Wylie, Former Lawyer, Certified Leadership Coach and Member of the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs Advisory Committee
The Path to Law Student Well-Being, Ep. 1, Part 2: Steps faculty can take to promote student well-being through their teaching in the classroom and includes concrete actions for law school administrators.The inaugural 2-part episode features two short conversations with Dean and Professor of Law Michael Hunter Schwartz of the University of the Pacific’s McGeorge School of Law and Professor Larry Krieger of the Florida State University College of Law and is moderated by Professor Susan Wawrose of the University of Dayton School of Law.Dean Schwartz is a recognized expert and the author of numerous books and articles on the subject of law student teaching and learning, including his book, What the Best Law Teachers Do. He has also been ranked for the past three years in a row by National Jurist magazine as one of the most influential legal educators.Professor Krieger is well-known for his groundbreaking work on law student well-being, including how values and motivation affect law student and lawyer satisfaction and the role law schools play in shaping law student values and in humanizing the profession. He has also has done significant research measuring the psychological changes of law students during law school.The Path to Law Student Well-Being is a new podcast series sponsored by the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. The series is a response to the call for action in the 2017 Report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, which sets out action items for the legal community, including specific steps law schools can take, to shift the culture of the legal profession towards one that is focused on well-being.
In this AT/CP podcast from the ABA Section of Antitrust Law, host Jana Seidl talks to Richard Parker, Meredith Linsky, and Marissa LaVette about the legal profession’s overall increase in pro bono work and the efforts to continue this trajectory. They discuss the drivers behind this trend and give suggestions for ways lawyers can connect with pro bono opportunities across the country. They encourage lawyers who are hesitant to get involved to try ABA’s Free Legal Answers as a first step into pro bono work. In addition, they offer advice to young lawyers on how to get started in pro bono with the help of mentors, training, and the ABA Center for Pro Bono resources. Meredith Linsky is the director of the ABA Commission on Immigration in Washington, DC. Marissa LaVette is the assistant staff counsel for the ABA Center for Pro Bono. Richard Parker is a partner at Gibson Dunn in Washington, DC. (Host) Jana Seidl is an associate in the Antitrust and Competition practice group at Baker Botts.
Pat Gillette is one of the country’s leading experts and most sought-after speakers on gender diversity and equality. She speaks regularly at law firm retreats, conferences, ABA meetings, State Bar meetings and industry events. For most of the 40 years over which Ms. Gillette practiced law, she was rated as a top employment litigator and trial lawyer by Chambers and other organizations and was a leader and rainmaker in her firms, At the end of 2015 she resigned as a partner at Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, LLP to pursue her passion for empowering women through keynote speaking and writing. She was also invited to join JAMS to mediate employment cases and now has a successful mediation practice. Ms. Gillette’s newest book, “Rainmakers: Born or Bred” is filled with practical tactics and strategies that can be easily implemented to enhance business development skills and books of business. The book highlights the nationally acclaimed Rainmaker Study and includes helpful tips from rainmakers and clients across the country. This groundbreaking study, coupled with Ms. Gillette’s insights from her own experiences, brings a fresh perspective and approach to business development. Ms. Gillette has been widely recognized for her work to advance women in the profession. Most recently, she was chosen as the 2018 recipient of the ABA Margaret Brent Award, the highest honor given to women lawyers for professional achievements and advancing the interests of women in the profession. She has also received the ABA Golden Hammer Award, the California Women Lawyers Association’s Fay Stender Award, the Transformational Leadership Award as one of the Top Women Rainmakers, and the Barristers Association of San Francisco Award of Merit. Ms. Gillette is the co-founder of the Opt-In Project, a nationwide initiative focused on changing the structure of law firms to increase the retention and advancement of women. Her team at the 2016 Diversity Lab Hackathon created the Mansfield Rule, requiring that 30% of all candidates for leadership positions be women or minorities. The Mansfield Rule has been adopted by over 60 firms nationwide and is increasing the visibility and pipeline of women and minorities for leadership positions in firms and organizations. Ms. Gillette has been a Commissioner on the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession, a member of ABA’s Gender Equity Task Force, Co-Chair of the BASF No Glass Ceiling Initiative, a member of the National Women Lawyers Association Board and Foundation, and she serves on several non-profit boards dedicated to protecting and promoting women, including Equal Rights Advocates and DirectWomen, Ms. Gillette is the proud mother of two successful and enlightened sons and lives in Kensington, California with her husband of 40+ years. She was an elected official in her town and is active in political and community organizations and activities. Visit Ms. Gillette’s website at www.patriciagillette.com. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/freeman-means-business/support
Many people have difficulty getting the legal help they need. In this On The Road episode, host Kristoffer Butler talks with a panel at the ABA Midyear Meeting about their varying involvement in public interest law and pro bono opportunities. They discuss the many different areas of the law that they represent and encourage young lawyers and law students to consider public interest law because of its impactful opportunities. They also offer up areas where seasoned lawyers can donate their time to help those with limited access to justice. Amy Horton-Newell is the director of the ABA Center for Public Interest Law. Ainka Jackson is on the ABA Commission on Homelessness and Poverty and is the executive director of the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth, and Reconciliation. Wendy Wayne is the chair of the ABA Commission on Immigration and the director of the Immigration Impact Unit at the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Massachusetts. Eric Storey is the Director of Grassroots and Digital Advocacy at the American Bar Association. Buck Lewis is the chair of the ABA Pro Bono Committee. Joshu Harris is chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Gun Violence.
Our guest this week on LawNext is Daniel B. Rodriguez, who recently stepped down as dean of Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, where he gained wide recognition for his work to innovate legal education, and recently stepped up to become chair of the governing council of the ABA Center for Innovation, which focuses on improving the affordability, effectiveness, efficiency, and accessibility of legal services. Rodriguez was dean at Northwestern Law from 2012-2018 and now serves on the school’s faculty as Harold Washington professor of law. Before joining Northwestern, Rodriguez was Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair in Law at the University of Texas-Austin; a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy; dean and Warren Distinguished professor of law at the University of San Diego School of Law; and professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Widely recognized as a thought leader on innovation in law and legal education, Rodriguez was the 2014 president of the Association of American Law Schools and was a member of the 2014-2016 ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services. He is currently a visiting professor at Stanford Law School and, in the spring semester of 2019, will be a visiting professor at Harvard Law School. In a wide-ranging interview, Rodriguez and host Bob Ambrogi talk about the meaning of innovation in law and at law schools and the obstacles to achieving innovation. Comment on this show: Record a voice comment on your mobile phone and send it to info@lawnext.com.
In this episode I am excited to have Joan Williams on to talk about gender and race, and how they play out in the workplace through her new "Bias at Work" survey. Joan is a Distinguished Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings. Her path-breaking work helped create the field of work-family studies and modern workplace flexibility policies. She has been studying the legal profession and how to improve it for decades. Topics Covered She defines implicit bias and examples of the four basic ways they can show up at work: Prove It Again, Tightrope, Maternal Wall, and Tug of War. Why WorkLife Law created the "Bias at Work" survey, and it's goal. How the types of subtle bias that are captured in the "Bias at Work" survey affect lawyers. What law firms and legal organizations can do to stop these subtle biases from affecting their employees. Learn more about Joan at: Bias Interrupters | Small Steps, Big Change Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! hello@jeenacho.com. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho For more information, visit: jeenacho.com Order The Anxious Lawyer book — Available in hardcover, Kindle and Audible Find Your Ease: Retreat for Lawyers I'm creating a retreat that will provide a perfect gift of relaxation and rejuvenation with an intimate group of lawyers. Interested? Please complete this form: https://jeena3.typeform.com/to/VXfIXq MINDFUL PAUSE: Bite-Sized Practices for Cultivating More Joy and Focus 31-day program. Spend just 6 minutes every day to practice mindfulness and meditation. Decrease stress/anxiety, increase focus and concentration. Interested? http://jeenacho.com/mindful-pause/ Transcript Joan Williams: [00:00:00] Implicit bias is a technical term that I use because most people know it, it implies that the bias that's going around is unconscious and subtle. And I think actually that's quite misleading, I think a lot of it is pretty blatant. And I frankly don't think it's that important, whether the person who's engaged in biased behavior chooses to bring that to their consciousness or not. Intro: [00:00:27] Welcome to The Resilient Lawyer podcast. In this podcast, we have meaningful, in-depth conversations with lawyers, entrepreneurs, and change agents. We offer tools and strategies for creating a more joyful and satisfying life. And now your host, Jeena Cho. Jeena Cho: [00:00:47] Hello my friends, thanks for being with me today. In this episode, I have Joan Williams. She is a Distinguished Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings. Her path-breaking work helped create the field of work-family studies and modern workplace flexibility policies. She has been studying the legal profession and how to improve it for decades. Joan welcome to the show, I'm so happy to have you. Joan Williams: [00:01:19] I'm delighted to be here, thanks for inviting me. Jeena Cho: [00:01:22] So can you give us a quick 30-second introduction of who you are and what you do? Joan Williams: [00:01:29] I've been a law professor for a very long time, and I've been studying gender for a very long time. I started out studying work-family issues, and now my chief focus is on gender and race in the workplace, and how they play out in subtle ways. Which is why we're excited about our new "Bias at Work" survey that allows people to go in and answer a few questions, and get a quick readout of what kind of bias climate they are reporting at work. Jeena Cho: [00:02:00] And what have you been finding, in terms of bias at work so far? Joan Williams: [00:02:05] Well, the "Bias at Work" survey is part of a larger survey that we've used on that, to assess the bias climate first in engineering, and more recently in the legal profession. I co-wrote a study for the ABA Commission on Women in the Minority Corporate Counsel Association, where we gave the larger survey to a national sample of lawyers, and we're just about to come out with the results. Bottom line is, there's a lot of implicit bias going around. Jeena Cho: [00:02:42] To start off, I think that term implicit bias gets kind of tossed around a lot. What do you mean when you say implicit bias? Joan Williams: [00:02:50] There is really just a lot of gender and racial bias, in addition to bias based on other personal characteristics. Implicit bias is a technical term that I use because most people know it. It implies that the bias that's going around is unconscious and subtle, and I think actually that's quite misleading. I think a lot of it is pretty blatant, and I frankly don't think it's that important whether the person who's engaged in biased behavior chooses to bring that to their consciousness or not. I always say, if you're clueless whose fault is that? Jeena Cho: [00:03:32] What are some examples of how these implicit biases show up at work? Joan Williams: [00:03:38] Well there are four basic types. The first, I call "prove it again." And it's that some people find they need to prove themselves more so than their colleagues. And it's definitely triggered by race, it's triggered by gender, it's triggered by class origin in professions like the legal profession. People who were born in non-elite backgrounds have to prove themselves more than people from elite families. It's also triggered by disability, so that's proved again. The second is quite different, it's called "the tightrope." It stems from research on women that shows that a narrower range of behavior is accepted from women. So women often have to choose between being liked but not respected, or respected but not liked. And when they're assertive they're called aggressive, or worse. Anger is less accepted, self-promotion is less accepted from women than from men. And our research with things like the "Bias at Work" survey shows that a narrower range of behavior is accepted not only by gender, but also by race. So it affects people of color, men as well as women. For example, anger is less likely to be accepted in a professional workplace when it comes from an African-American. Jeena Cho: [00:05:19] Yeah. Joan Williams: [00:05:21] And the third pattern of bias is actually the strongest, it's called "the maternal wall"; its gender bias triggered by motherhood. It affects dads too, if they play an active role in family care. And then the final one is called "the tug of war," and that's when gender or racial bias turns into a conflict within those groups. Jeena Cho: [00:05:46] You know, these issues just seem so big. And so often people aren't aware of it, or you may not be aware that you're treating someone that's a woman or a person of color differently than you do someone who's a white male or looks like you. So how do we begin to become aware of it, and change these behaviors? Joan Williams: [00:06:14] Well actually people are in luck because they can go to our website, which is www.biasinterrupters.org, and we have a full set of open-sourced toolkits for interrupting bias based on a bias in performance evaluations, in hiring, in meetings, and in assignments. And just going to the website and using the tools for individuals will help give you a very abrupt (and we hope efficient) education on how these patterns of bias commonly play out in the legal profession, and how it interrupt it. Jeena Cho: [00:07:01] I love that, I love that there's a toolkit and people can just go there and look at it. I often feel like, especially being a woman of color and in the legal profession, I always felt like there was so much focus on changing me, or changing us and our behavior. I remember going to these workshops on how to handle interruptions, or how to handle when someone else claims your idea as their own. So how much of this work needs to be done by the people that these behavior's impact, so women and people of color, versus white males? Joan Williams: [00:07:49] Yeah. And I think it's important to point out that for some of these patterns, specifically proven again, white men from non-elite backgrounds may be having the same kinds of problems that women and people of color are having. [00:08:06] I mean we've been working on these problems and supposedly deeply caring about diversity in the legal profession for 20 or 30 years, and almost nothing has happened. When I gave my first program on women in the legal profession in 1997, 17% of a law firm's partners were women. Do you know what it is today, for equity partners? Jeena Cho: [00:08:33] Oh I look at the data, yeah. Joan Williams: [00:08:35] It's, oh my gosh. So what we've been doing hasn't been working, and that's chiefly because the chief tools have been diversity initiatives or women's initiatives. And as you point out, that's totally great if the problem is with the women and people of color, but typically that's not the problem. The problem is that these forms of bias have been constantly transmitted through an organization's basic business systems, which is why the other set of toolkits on that Bias Interrupters web page are tools for organizations, tweaks they can make to their hiring or performance evaluations, systems that will in an evidence-based, metrics-driven way, interrupt this constant transmission of bias through basic business systems and workplace interactions. Jeena Cho: [00:09:33] So for the listeners that are out there that are like, yeah maybe I have some biases and I want to figure out a way to interrupt it, can you give one or two concrete examples or suggestions on how they can change their behavior? Joan Williams: [00:09:54] I actually wrote a whole book on that with my daughter Rachel Dempsey, it's called "What Works for Women at Work." And what I did for that book is just went around to the savviest women I could find, recited the common patterns of gender bias, and said any of that sound familiar? 96% said yes. And what's worked for you? Then that's what works for women at work. And I'll give you some examples. You mentioned the stolen idea, when you mention an idea and someone else gets credit for it. Well the next time that happens, you can do several different things. One is you can just say really mildly or with humor, "So glad you liked that idea, here's the next step." Or you can work behind the scenes if, that happens persistently, and set up a little posse of people who either echo each other's ideas, making it clear who the idea came from. Or when someone steals an idea, they can say, "I'm so glad you like Jenna's idea. I think you've added something important Jim, here's the next step." So what we have and what we gathered in what works for women at work were a lot of low-risk strategies for interrupting bias (on your own or on behalf of others) without spending too much political capital. Jeena Cho: [00:11:32] Yeah, I love that suggestion. What can law firms or legal organizations do to stop these subtle or implicit biases from affecting their employees? Joan Williams: [00:11:44] Well lucky them, because within the month or very early next month will be released a new report that we did for the ABA Commission on Women and Minority Corporate Counsel Association. It's called "You Can't Stop What You Can't See," and it has not only the results of our national survey on racial and gender bias in the legal profession, but also a full set of open source toolkits specifically designed for law firm lawyers and in-house counsel. So they're going to have to toolkits very specifically designed for those environments that will allow them to find out if they have bias through the workplace experiences survey, and then interrupt the biases if they do. I'll give you an example on the issue of assignments, because that's been less talked about. In "What Works for Women at Work," my daughter Rachel Dempsey coined the term "the office housework," and that women do a lot more of the office housework than men. The undervalued work, the literal housework like planning parties, and administrative work like finding a time or place to meet. So one of the toolkits that we have is a toolkit that provides a protocol for an individual manager or department or a whole organization, to find out if there is a fair allocation of the glamour work on one hand, and the office housework on the other. And then to establish a very specific protocol for remedying both problems. If you have nothing but women doing the office housework, there's a protocol for spreading that around more evenly. And if you have nothing but a small group of white men getting the glamour work, there's a step-by-step protocol for remedying that problem. Jeena Cho: [00:13:56] Yeah, I love that. And I think that's something that happens all the time in offices. I remember being given instructions like, don't sit next to the food because you don't want to be responsible for serving the food, and all of these rules that you to keep in your head for just trying to navigate the law firm environment, so you don't end up as the office housewife. Joan Williams: [00:14:19] Yeah, and the bottom line is that takes up brain space, and it has the potential of undercutting women's credibility. Asian American women are under more pressure than any other group of women to behave in feminine ways, and face often more pushback if they don't. And the bottom line is that that shouldn't be your job, to constantly be heading off bias at the pass. That is really the organization's job, to put in systems that seamlessly interrupt those common patterns of bias. Jeena Cho: [00:14:58] Sometimes when I have these conversations I get pushback, and the pushback is why should we treat the women or the people of color special? Why do they get their own retreat, for example, at a law firm? Why do they get their own woman lawyer meetings or groups? And that's somehow biased against the white males. I'm curious what your response is to that? Joan Williams: [00:15:29] We are already treating the women and people of color differently. The nationwide study of engineers found that if you ask American engineers if they feel like they have to prove themselves more than their colleagues, it's true that 1/3 of white men say yes, but 2/3's of women and 2/3's of people of color say yes. So those women's and diversity initiatives are designed, at best, to help women and people of color navigate problems that they face, in that case twice as often as white men. Jeena Cho: [00:16:15] The other place where I often notice is very glaringly, because I spend so much time traveling around the country and speaking, is so many legal conferences. I can probably randomly pick any legal conference (unless it's being put on by a woman's organization or an Asian Bar Association or the Minority Bar Association) and there is not a whole lot of diversity in the pool of the speakers. And often when I point this out to the organizers and say, "Hey you have 80 speakers and you literally had six women and one person of color, me. That's a problem." They will come back and say something like, well we care about diversity but we're not going to sacrifice quality to have diversity, and we just picked the most qualified speaker. What's your response to that? Joan Williams: [00:17:16] You know, it kind of depends on the field. Some fields are very small and they have a certain demography. If that's true, then you should be thinking about what fields are represented at your conference. But most fields in the law are large and diverse, and probably what's happening is.. I remember going into the Dean when I was at Harvard Law School and asking why there was one woman on the faculty as a tenured woman. And he batted his eyelashes at me, bless his heart, and said there's none qualified. And I said, in the whole country? And he said no. So that is a failure of imagination and it's a failure of social networks. Because how do people put together conferences? They're putting them together under time pressure, they go through their networks, and the single strongest determinant of who is in your network is who's similar to you. So they need to either diversify their network, that would be a good idea, or make sure that the planning committee represents diversified networks by adding other people to the planning committee whose networks will help them tap the full pool of talent. Jeena Cho: [00:18:52] Yeah, and also the other thing I often notice is the planning committee will be let's say 10 people, 9 of them will be white males and they'll have one woman or one person of color, and they'll literally tell me, "Well she was responsible for finding us diverse speakers, and she didn't." And I always feel like no, it can't be up to one person within an organization or within a conference planning committee to fix your diversity problem. And I think so often that happens, like in law firms we have people that are Director of Diversity and Inclusion, and that person gets scapegoated if you fail on the diversity and inclusion front. Joan Williams: [00:19:34] That's not called caring about diversity, that's called not caring about diversity. One of the problems and reasons there's been so little progress is that again, the organizational response to the failure to retain and advance women and people of color often has been to hire somebody as a Diversity and Inclusion manager, and give them a budget for programming. Well the reason that women and people of color are falling out of the pipeline is because they have to prove themselves more than the white guys from elite backgrounds, a narrower range of behavior is accepted from the women and people of color, they're under a lot of pressure to play back office roles, they're not given equal access to the glamour work. For women, motherhood is often used as an excuse to sideline women, and the ideal worker still is designed around a man married to a homemaker. Those are not problems that you can solve by hiring a D&I manager and giving her a budget. That response is again showing that you don't care as an organization. Jeena Cho: [00:20:59] Hmm. You just made this point a little while ago, but we do tend to hang out and associate with people that are like us; I think that's sort of a human nature. So if you look around your network and your circle of friends and colleagues and you notice, they all look like me, they went to the same law school. If you're a white male, it's like oh yeah so many people that I work with are white males and they all went to the same law school that I went to. Thoughts or suggestions on how to expand your network? Even just opening your mind to different ideas. I think it's sometimes harder and uncomfortable to try to reach out and make connections. You know, how to be with that discomfort and start to make those positive changes in your life? Joan Williams: [00:21:58] I think it's particularly hard for women, I think it's particularly hard for Asian Americans. It's hard for women because the default model of friendship differs by gender. For women, the default model of friendship is to be a good friend you're very open, you have a deep emotional connection, you share troubles. The default model of friendships among the bros is that you have a broad network of relatively shallow ties, and the fact that you're going to help each other's careers is kind of a given. Whereas, if a woman tries to, for example, get business from a friend, it may be seen as, "Oh my gosh I thought we were talking about emotional issues and having an emotional connection." And that context, particularly for women in law firms who really have to take steps towards rainmaking, that is where the action is in almost all law firms. You need to establish what's called an entrepreneurial network. You need to understand that another genuine way of interacting with people, male as well as female, is to engage in what the guys do. Which is kind of a ritual exchange of favors, like I'll do you this professional good turn and you'll do me this professional good turn. That's not a bad model of friendship, it's just a different default model of friendship. So that's one of the things that women really have to understand. For Asian Americans, this can be particularly challenging because so many, at least from immigrant families, have been taught that the path to success is to keep your head down and just do awesome work. Jeena Cho: [00:23:58] Mmm hmm. Joan Williams: [00:23:59] And of course doing awesome work is a precondition, but it's not the whole schmiel. Because if you just keep your head down and do awesome work, the risk is that people are going to be very happy for you to work for clients so they can go out, get more clients, get the origination credit, and hand the work over to you, who now will have to even work harder because you're not getting any origination credit. I remember that my institute, the Center for WorkLife Law, was doing an analysis of performance evaluations of a large and major law firm. And again and again and again and again, it was so blatant; the Asian Americans were being slated into back-office roles. And believe me, you may be doing important work, but if you're not doing the work that's valued at your organization, you're not going to be promoted and compensated in the top bronze. Jeena Cho: [00:25:12] Joan, thank you so much for joining me today and for sharing your time and your wisdom with us. Thank you so much. Joan Williams: [00:25:20] Thanks for the invitation, Jeena. Closing: [00:25:27] Thanks for joining us on The Resilient Lawyer podcast. If you've enjoyed the show, please tell a friend. It's really the best way to grow the show. To leave us a review on iTunes, search for The Resilient Lawyer and give us your honest feedback. It goes a long way to help with our visibility when you do that, so we really appreciate it. As always, we'd love to hear from you. E-mail us at smile@theanxiouslawyer.com. Thanks and look forward to seeing you next week.
This week on the Law School Insider, a podcast brought to you by Western Michigan University Cooley Law School, we are bringing you a special presentation of a talk given at WMU Cooley Law School by past ABA President, Paulette Brown. Paulette Brown shares her thoughts on law school and law career success and this is an interview that you will not want to miss. Paulette Brown became the first African-American woman to lead the American Bar Association (ABA) in August 2015. She is partner and co-chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee at the international law firm, Locke Lord LLP. She has held many positions throughout her career including in-house counsel to a number of Fortune 500 companies and as a municipal court judge. In private practice, she has specialized in all aspects of labor and employment and commercial litigation. Brown has been recognized by the National Law Journal as one of “The 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America” and by the New Jersey Law Journal as one of the “prominent women and minority attorneys in the State of New Jersey.” She received the New Jersey Medal from the New Jersey State Bar Foundation and currently serves on its Board of Trustees. She has also repeatedly been named as a “New Jersey Super Lawyer” and by U.S. News as one of the Best Lawyers in America in the area of commercial litigation. In 2009, Brown was a recipient of the Spirit of Excellence Award from the ABA Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession. In 2011, she was honored with the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award by the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. Brown, who served as president of the National Bar Association from 1993-1994, received that group’s highest honor, The C. Francis Stradford Award, in 2015. Brown earned a J.D. at Seton Hall University School of Law and a B.A. at Howard University. Read more about Paulette Brown's visit to WMU-Cooley Law School on the WMU-Cooley Law School Blog.
In this Special Report, Deputy General Counsel to the Oregon State Bar Mark Roberts and ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Director Malcolm ‘Skip’ Harsch stop by to discuss the Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity’s Stonewall Awards and introduce the 2016 award honorees. The Stonewall Award is named after the 1969 Stonewall Riots that took place in New York City and recognizes lawyers, members of the judiciary, and legal academics who have affected real change to remove barriers on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the legal profession. This year's honorees, Talmadge Fitzpatrick Tribe partner Thomas Fitzpatrick, Nashville attorney Abby Rubenfeld, and Freedom to Marry Founder and President Evan Wolfson, sit down with Legal Talk Network producer Laurence Colletti to discuss their hard work and accomplishments in the fight for LGBT rights.
In this episode of The Digital Edge, Sharon Nelson and Jim Calloway interview Judy Perry Martinez, chair of the ABA Presidential Commission on the Future of Legal Services. Martinez discusses specific actions the commission is taking to find solutions, including grassroots meetings across the country, a national summit, public hearings, and lawyer education. She explains how discussions with lawyers, judges, technology innovators, law students, academics, and law librarians bring awareness to issues in the changing legal landscape and encourages solution ideas. These changes present challenges and opportunities for lawyers today, but those who do not jump on board will likely be left behind.
I spoke with Marty Smith, a founding director of MetaJure, an automated document management system. He is also the co-founder of Attenex, one of the first document review platforms that incorporated visualization, and a member of the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services. We discussed the genesis of MetaJure, what makes it unique, how it integrates with existing document management systems, and the future of automated document management.
I spoke with Marty Smith, a founding director of MetaJure, an automated document management system. He is also the co-founder of Attenex, one of the first document review platforms that incorporated visualization, and a member of the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services. We discussed the genesis of MetaJure, what makes it unique, how it integrates with existing document management systems, and the future of automated document management.
I spoke with Marty Smith, a founding director of MetaJure, an automated document management system. He is also the co-founder of Attenex, one of the first document review platforms that incorporated visualization, and a member of the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services. We discussed the genesis of MetaJure, what makes it unique, how it integrates with existing document management systems, and the future of automated document management.
I spoke with Marty Smith, a founding director of MetaJure, an automated document management system. He is also the co-founder of Attenex, one of the first document review platforms that incorporated visualization, and a member of the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services. We discussed the genesis of MetaJure, what makes it unique, how it integrates with existing document management systems, and the future of automated document management.
I spoke with Marty Smith, a founding director of MetaJure, an automated document management system. He is also the co-founder of Attenex, one of the first document review platforms that incorporated visualization, and a member of the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services. We discussed the genesis of MetaJure, what makes it unique, how it integrates with existing document management systems, and the future of automated document management.
Legal Talk Network Host Adriana Linares and Producer Laurence Colletti interview the director of the Commission on Immigration, Meredith Linsky, and Managing Attorney at ProBAR Children's Project Meghan Johnson at the 2015 ABA Midyear Meeting. Together, they discuss the influx of unaccompanied minors coming to the United States from violent conditions in Central American countries. Lindsky explains that the ABA Commission on Immigration focuses on finding, training, and placing immigration lawyers where they are most needed. Johnson describes how ProBAR Children's Project works to educate the children, many of whom are seeking refugee status, and all of whom are subjected to horrible conditions. Both encourage any interested lawyers to sign up for their programs.
Adriana Linares and Jason March interview Jim Holmes, chair of the ABA’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Commission (SOGI), and SOGI Director Skip Harsch at the 2015 ABA Midyear Meeting. They discuss the growth of the section, how it helps LGBT civil rights, and advocacy, education, and resources provided to the members. Jim Holmes is a trial attorney and litigator for Sedgwick LLP in Los Angeles. Skip Harsch started doing internships with Lambda Legal in law school and worked for the National LGBT Bar Association before becoming the SOGI director.
Starting a law firm from scratch can be a daunting endeavor. With a down economy, limited budget, and not enough clients, solos can have a tough time breaking into the market. In her debut as the new host of New Solo, Adriana Linares interviews Jay Foonberg, the most influential author on the subject of starting your own law firm. Together they discuss where to find clients, how to get paid, and recommended practice areas. Tune in to learn how attorneys stay relevant with new technology, why it's important to train assistants, and how to sustain a long happy marriage. Jay Foonberg is the author of How To Start and Build a Law Practice (5th edition) and was a practicing attorney in Beverly Hills for over 40 years. He served in the ABA House of Delegates, is on the Advisory Council for the ABA Commission on Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct, and was a founder of the ABA Law Practice Management Section. In addition to being an author of three other important books (all available from the ABA), Foonberg is a much sought after speaker on topics such as client relations, malpractice prevention, and client development in every one of the 50 states and as far afield as Europe, South America, and Asia. He has received the prestigious Harrison Tweed Award and lifetime achievement awards from 4 American Bar Association entities.
On this edition of The Digital Edge, hosts Sharon Nelson, Esq. and Jim Calloway invite lawyer, friend, and co-presenter Andy Perlman of Suffolk Law School to discuss the new technology audits for lawyers. Kasey D. Flaherty of corporate counsel for Kia Motors developed a technology audit to measure how efficiently lawyers are using technology and determine how much time (and clients' money) they could be saving. Suffolk University is partnering with Flaherty to enhance and automate the audit. Tune in to hear more about the audit, the partnership with Suffolk, how to get involved, and more. Andy Perlman is a Suffolk Law School professor and the director of the University's Institute of Law Practice Technology Innovation. Perlman was the co-chief reporter for the ABA Commission of Ethics 20/20, which successfully implemented changes to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and related ABA policies to address ethical issues from globalization and technological developments. He also contributes to the blog Legal Ethics Forum.
Jim and Sharon welcome guest Andy Perlman, a noted professor, author and lecturer, who serves as the Chief Reporter for the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20. The House of Delegates adopted a number of the Commission's recommendations in August of 2012 and Andy provides a great overview of what lawyers need to know about the changes in what it means to be competent, the protection of client data and ethical marketing.
The ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 has released its latest recommendations so that the rules and ethics of the legal profession keep up with the incredible pace of technology. Lawyer2Lawyer co-hosts and attorneys, Bob Ambrogi and Craig Williams, get the details from the ABA Commission’s Chief Reporter, Professor Andrew Perlman, and debate these suggestions with Attorney Bradley Shear.
People are making a difference in the legal community. The American Bar Association Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession recently announced their selection of judges, lawyers, a legislator and a law professor to receive the 2009 Spirit of Excellence Awards, honoring efforts to promote a more diverse legal profession. Law.com bloggers and co-hosts, J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi welcome Attorney Fred Alvarez, chair of the ABA Commission on Opportunities for Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession and award recipients Attorney Richard A. Soden, of counsel to the Boston office of the national law firm of Goodwin Procter LLP and Justice Dan Sosa Jr., retired Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court, to talk about diversity in the legal profession. They will discuss the progress over the years, how they have overcome barriers and made opportunities available to others and how they encourage young people to pursue law as a career.
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