Podcast appearances and mentions of patrick krill

After the ABA's 2016 study of mental health and substance use disorders among lawyers, it became well known that lawyers face particular challenges concerning addiction and wellbeing and that there were often barriers to recovery. Now, nearly 10 years later, where do we stand? Molly Ranns welcomes Patrick Krill, a lawyer, counselor, and researcher, to learn about his current research which will follow up on the 2016 ABA study. They discuss aspects of wellbeing that have improved in recent years and later dig into the areas where trends show continued struggle throughout the profession.     Learn more: What's New with Mental Health and Well-Being in the Legal Profession: Progress, But More Needs to Be Done Patrick Krill - Krill Strategies    Patrick Krill is the founder of Krill Strategies, a behavioral health consulting firm exclusively for the legal profession.

After the ABA's 2016 study of mental health and substance use disorders among lawyers, it became well known that lawyers face particular challenges concerning addiction and wellbeing and that there were often barriers to recovery. Now, nearly 10 years later, where do we stand? Molly Ranns welcomes Patrick Krill, a lawyer, counselor, and researcher, to learn about his current research which will follow up on the 2016 ABA study. They discuss aspects of wellbeing that have improved in recent years and later dig into the areas where trends show continued struggle throughout the profession.     Learn more: What's New with Mental Health and Well-Being in the Legal Profession: Progress, But More Needs to Be Done Patrick Krill - Krill Strategies    Patrick Krill is the founder of Krill Strategies, a behavioral health consulting firm exclusively for the legal profession. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join me for an in-depth conversation with Patrick Krill and Paula Davis about the state of mental wellness in the legal profession, the recent and unfortunate death of a big law partner, and a groundbreaking program they developed to help firms build effective wellness programs.

After a very challenging year, many Americans are feeling out of sorts and having a hard time getting back on track. Could the obstacle be a condition known as “Learned Helplessness”? The worst part is that a person might have it without even knowing it. Our good friend Patrick Krill returns to show us how to identify the signs and what we can do to help ourselves get out of the rut. Special thanks to our sponsor Nota.

After a very challenging year, many Americans are feeling out of sorts and having a hard time getting back on track. Could the obstacle be a condition known as “Learned Helplessness”? The worst part is that a person might have it without even knowing it. Our good friend Patrick Krill returns to show us how to identify the signs and what we can do to help ourselves get out of the rut. Special thanks to our sponsor Nota.

Patrick Krill, a lawyer who has a consulting business focused on addiction, mental health and well-being in the legal profession, left all social media, except LinkedIn, during the COVID-19 pandemic. He did it for his own mental health and says any business development benefits that came from Twitter or Facebook were not worth the trade-off. Special thanks to our sponsor, LawPay.

Patrick Krill, a lawyer who has a consulting business focused on addiction, mental health and well-being in the legal profession, left all social media, except LinkedIn, during the COVID-19 pandemic. He did it for his own mental health and says any business development benefits that came from Twitter or Facebook were not worth the trade-off. Special thanks to our sponsor, LawPay.

This week, we're highlighting an interview from May that you might have missed on a topic that's only becoming more relevant as 2021 continues on and more firms look to make staffing reductions. Patrick Krill, principal and founder of Krill Strategies, a behavioral health consulting firm focused exclusively on the legal industry, raises an interesting and little-discussed point: as law firms continue to cut support staff and embrace automation, they're limiting lawyers' human interactions even further, which is likely to exacerbate feelings of isolation that so many in the industry already struggle with. He and Law.com Editor-in-Chief Zack Needles explore that issue as well as the reasons why interacting face-to-face over Zoom all day does little to help with those feelings of loneliness. We'll be back in two weeks with new episodes!  

Mental health problems have long been a prevalent issue amongst both law students and practicing lawyers, but have things gotten better as the profession has sought to increase awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding these concerns? Meg Steenburgh welcomes Patrick Krill for a broad discussion on legal field mental health and his extensive research and work in this area. Patrick offers invaluable perspectives on how to be in tune with your own mental health and how to seek help when you need it. Patrick Krill is an attorney, licensed and board-certified alcohol and drug counselor, author, researcher, and advocate who has spearheaded numerous groundbreaking efforts to improve mental health in the legal profession. Thank you to our sponsor NBI.

Mental health problems have long been a prevalent issue amongst both law students and practicing lawyers, but have things gotten better as the profession has sought to increase awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding these concerns? Meg Steenburgh welcomes Patrick Krill for a broad discussion on legal field mental health and his extensive research and work in this area. Patrick offers invaluable perspectives on how to be in tune with your own mental health and how to seek help when you need it. Patrick Krill is an attorney, licensed and board-certified alcohol and drug counselor, author, researcher, and advocate who has spearheaded numerous groundbreaking efforts to improve mental health in the legal profession. Thank you to our sponsor NBI.

Mental health problems have long been a prevalent issue amongst both law students and practicing lawyers, but have things gotten better as the profession has sought to increase awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding these concerns? Meg Steenburgh welcomes Patrick Krill for a broad discussion on legal field mental health and his extensive research and work in this area. Patrick offers invaluable perspectives on how to be in tune with your own mental health and how to seek help when you need it.  Patrick Krill is an attorney, licensed and board-certified alcohol and drug counselor, author, researcher, and advocate who has spearheaded numerous groundbreaking efforts to improve mental health in the legal profession. Thank you to our sponsor NBI.

This week's episode features a conversation with Patrick Krill, principal and founder of Krill Strategies, a behavioral health consulting firm focused exclusively on the legal industry. Krill raises an interesting and little-discussed point: as law firms continue to cut support staff and embrace automation, they’re limiting lawyers’ human interactions even further, which is likely to exacerbate feelings of isolation that so many in the industry already struggle with.

CHRIS NEWBOLD:                Hello, friends and well-being advocates. Welcome to the Path to Well-Being In Law podcast, an initiative of the Institute for Well-Being In Law. I'm your co-host Chris Newbold, Executive Vice President of ALPS Malpractice Insurance. And as you know, our goal is to introduce you to thought leaders doing meaningful work in the space of well-being within the legal profession, and in the process build and nurture a national network of well-being advocates intent on creating a culture shift within the profession. I'm thrilled to be joined by my co-host Bree Buchanan, and I'm proud to announce that as well, and I'll give Bree a chance to weigh in here, but I also wanted to announce that Bree has transitioned from the co-chair of the national taskforce for lawyer wellbeing, to the first president of the Institute for Well-Being In Law, which is a natural Baton pass from the national task force to the Institute. She's such a great organizer and we are in really good hands with her at the helm. So Bree, welcome. BREE BUCHANAN:           Thank you Chris. When you said that, I think my heart skipped a beat. CHRIS:                 You didn't know I was going there, but I felt like that's newsworthy. And I want to make sure that that folks know that Bree is continuing in leadership. And as we launched the Institute for Well-Being In Law, she'll be such a great leader for us. And today I'm very excited to welcome to the podcast, I'd characterize him as a quiet yet influential well-being advocate, Steve Wall of Morgan Lewis, and a conversation about reducing stigmas within the law firm culture and how to overcome individual battles with disorders while maintaining a successful practice. Bree, I'm going to pass it to you to introduce Steve, and Steve, welcome to the podcast. STEVE WALL:                          Thank you very much, Chris. Great to be here. BREE:                Wonderful. Well, as an introduction, Steve Wall is an award-winning attorney and a managing partner for Morgan Lewis & Bockius, which is truly a global firm. And we were just talking to Steve before we got started and learned that there are 2100 attorneys as part of Morgan Lewis in 31 office around the world. So truly, truly global. And it's one of the top firms in the world in regards to the number of lawyers. As managing partners, Steve is responsible for the global firm's practices, industry initiatives, lateral partner recruitment, and strategic business planning. And he's also, as if that's not enough to do, he's also a senior partner in its labor and employment practice. So Steve, thank you so much for being here. We're so thrilled to have you. STEVE:                          I'm very grateful for the opportunity. Thank you, Bree. BREE:                So Chris, I'll let you get us started here. CHRIS:  Yeah. So Steve, I think one of the things that we customarily do with our guests is just talk to you about what brought you into the well-being space. And normally most of us have some type of a personal perspective that catapulted this issue to the forefront for us. And so we just love it, to start with your personal story and how you found yourself where you are today and some of the challenges that you may have faced as you built a very successful law practice at Morgan Lewis. STEVE:                        Yeah. Thanks Chris. For me it's very simple. I came into the well-being community because of my own addiction to alcohol, which impacted me from the time I was a teenager until 11 years ago when I came into recovery, and I've been in recovery ever since. For me, alcoholism has been a major part of my life as it has impacted my entire family. Both of my parents were active alcoholics until the time they passed, as were many of my grandparents and relatives. Unfortunately, two of my brothers died of this disease. And so I count myself as extremely fortunate and very grateful that I was able to find recovery at a later point in my life than I wish I had, but at least I did. And as such, I believe there is much to give back to those who helped make my recovery possible. And as you mentioned earlier, to eliminate to the extent possible, humanly possible, the stigma that surrounds mental health challenges and addiction. BREE:               Absolutely. That is such an issue. And I'll tell you, I just jumped a little bit when you said 11 years ago. I shared my recovery story in our first podcast, but it was 11 years ago that I got into recovery, also for an alcohol use disorder. And I too wished I had not waited until I was 45 years old to make that change in my life. But it is just amazing the gifts that have come from those 11 years of sobriety. D you have the same experience? STEVE:                Absolutely. It's great to know that we're siblings in recovery Bree. Because those 11 years seem to have gone by very, very quickly. But my life has changed immensely. I was what you would call the classic functional alcoholic. And while my disease continued to worsen and the personal consequences of being an addict continued to take their toll, at the same time, I was continuing my career as a big law firm associate, a big law firm partner, a big law firm leader, and literally separated my personality between the addict side of me, which was the true side of me, and then the professional side of me, which is what I wanted you to see. And as we all know when it all crashes, that separation goes away. BREE:                Yeah. And so painful. It's like you are speaking my story to that separation. And so people wonder, it's like, "Well, how can you have such an issue with alcohol and yet you seem to be just hitting all the buttons at work?" And it's hard to understand. Let me ask you, just digging a little bit deeper, what got you into recovery 11 years ago? If you don't mind my asking. STEVE:                         Sure. I realized in my thirties that my alcohol use disorder was causing problems. It was causing problems in my personal relationships. It was causing potential problems in my professional life because I would engage in behaviors around drinking which today certainly would not be acceptable. Back in the 1980s, work hard party hard had a different meaning to it than it does now. And so I, I made the mistake that so many of us that have large egos and who believe that we can control everything about our surroundings, I made the mistake in believing that I could control my drinking. And so that started about a decade long attempt to control my drinking, which had positive consequences, because a lot of the negative things around my drinking mitigated, and I wasn't doing the stupid things and putting myself in stupid positions that I had been before. But then as we know the disease of addiction progresses and it doesn't get better. And so I then found myself falling back into the types of behaviors, the lying, the hiding, the making up excuses as to why I was late or not available for professional and personal matters. And that led to about a 10 year descent into a dark state. All of the things that happen to individuals around addiction. BREE:                Right. STEVE:                          My physical health started to worsen, my ability to have strong personal relationships with people was being cracked. My professional life was at risk because of circumstances I would put myself in. And it all came down to a Sunday morning breakfast in a diner where across the table from me was my boss at the time who was then the chair of the firm and my wife. Who had gotten together, and both said, "Enough." That my attempt to divide my life between my professional life and my personal life had now ended with a two by four to my head. And I had a simple choice, which was to do something about it and to seek help for the first time in my life, or to let both parts of my life leave because that was the choice that they gave me. BREE:                I ran into that same two by four, and it is a painful wake up call for sure. And so I, why we're asking you about these things, Steve, of course, I'm sure you know the point of this is to try to, for us to share our stories. So something resonates with one of our listeners who may be starting to think there's an issue, or they're worried about somebody else and bring that light on. Just another question, you said that you started to develop some awareness that you were having this dual life and issues with the alcohol in your thirties, but then there was this 10 year period that you just knew you needed to hide it, or borough it, keep people from knowing the extent of the problem. That's certainly something that I experienced. What was going through your mind during that period of time that kept you from taking the step to get help and start getting some relief and get better? STEVE:                          Yeah, great question. And it ultimately has to do with who I thought I was as a person. And I believe that in this way, I have a lot in common with many, many attorneys. Now, we are trained to be problem solvers. We are trained to be analytical. We are cheered and given great reward for the success we have in solving other people's problems. And as a result, we developed this false persona that there is no issue that we are incapable of solving ourselves. And the single biggest factor that kept me from recognizing the depth of my addiction and getting into recovery sooner, was my inability to recognize that I could not do this myself and I had to seek help. BREE:                Yeah. STEVE:                          And when it finally became evident that if I did not seek help, I was going to lose everything that was dear to me personally and professionally, for the first time in my life, 11 years ago, I sought help. And when I sought that help, I was honest about what was going on with me, as opposed to trying to project an image of somebody who had it all together and had everything under control. And if there was one thing different I could do in my life, it would be to have that moment of grace which I had 11 years ago about the necessity of reaching out to others for help when you're dealing with mental health issues. BREE:                Yeah. I think of one word that, that can answer that question for me. And it comes down to ego of you just sort of devolve everything down into what's keeping you from being honest, keeping you from asking for help. Which is, asking for help is not something we lawyers do very well. Chris, let you jump in here a little bit. CHRIS:                     Yeah. Steve, I was going to ask, do you feel like you find yourself where you are today without that boss-wife conversation? STEVE:                          Probably not. I have worked enough in recovery with other alcoholics and addicts to know that everybody's bottom is different. Sometimes the bottom is because you get caught up in the legal system through DUIs or other criminal activity, and that's often a wake up call. And I certainly could have seen myself headed in that direction if I had continued to use. Sometimes it's health. The doctor basically says, as he said to my father, before my father drank himself to death at the age of 55, "If you don't stop drinking you are going to die." And sometimes that brings people into the rooms of recovery. But for me, it was the recognition that my efforts to keep my professional life distinct from my personal life has now failed, and that they were talking to one another and both were going away if I did not get honest with both and deal with the mental health challenges that I had. So for me personally, that was the wake up call. And I'm grateful for it. I've expressed to both of those individuals how grateful I am. I wasn't particularly grateful that Sunday morning in the diner, but since that time, I've developed a sense of gratitude and understanding of how hard it was for the two of them, neither of which have addiction issues and found it impossible to believe that the person that they loved and had worked with for decades could not control this problem of drinking. CHRIS:                   Yeah. And I think one of the things that's... We talk a lot in the well-being movement about the desire for a culture shift. And I've always been of the belief that it takes individuals like yourself who actually have a thumb on the pulse of culture within law firms that could really be the catalyst for us to significantly move forward. Right? If your boss hadn't come and sat you down, this could be a very different ending. And Steve, I'm curious on your just reflections. I think I'm right in saying that you've spent your entire career at Morgan Lewis, right? So you've seen the firm grow up if you will. And just your general impressions of how much culture has shifted per se, in terms of, again, the ability for folks to have more honest conversations about things that are affecting them, particularly in their health happiness, which we know ultimately affects productivity as well. STEVE:                          Chris, great questions. Because I joined Morgan first as a summer associate after my second year of law school at Cornell Law School. And I then joined Morgan Lewis after I graduated, and then worked for a year on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals as a clerk, and then came back to Morgan Lewis. And so, my entire adult life, my entire professional life has been with this same institution. And there has been massive change, which is not unique to Morgan Lewis, but it's a change that, over the course of the last 11 years, I've been privileged to quicken and hopefully bring to the point where we can become an example of positive mental health awareness and practices within professional law firms. The differences are many, but I would say that the key ones are, I grew up in an environment where everyone honored working really hard, really intensely, personal problems were just that, they were personal problems. If you were going through marital issues or relationship issues, you just had to deal with them. If you were going through mental health issues, well, suck it up, because that's not what our clients pay us for. Our clients pay us to work hard, solve their problems, appear indestructible in what we do. And I look back now over my time at the firm in the eighties and the nineties, and I see victims of that culture. I see people who I know, if we had been the firm that we are today, we could have helped those people. They might still be here. They might still be alive, as opposed to having found themselves in situations where they could not extricate themselves from the horror of descent into bad mental health. And I've seen many careers and marriages and personal lives destroyed by addiction over the course of the last 30 years. So the work hard-party hard culture really needs to be put aside forever, because it just makes no sense. And the stigma, and you put it Bree, ego, the belief that we as lawyers are indestructible and that nothing should bother us, that's not what people pay us for. That cultural problem has to go away too, because it just isn't true. We're just like everybody else. In fact, the intensity of our profession makes it more likely, as all of you know, from the great studies done by Patrick Krill, the intensity of our profession makes it more likely that we will suffer from mental health than many, many other professions and many, many other jobs that people have in our economy. BREE:                Absolutely. So well put. And Steve, I just want to dig a little bit more into your story, because I think that there is further lessons for people that might be listening. When I finally had that two by four to the head and decided to do something, for me, I waited too long and I ended up losing my marriage and losing my job. So I went to the other side of what you wanted to avoid. But man, when it got my attention, I threw myself into every single thing that I could think of to get better. What was part of your recovery? What helped you? STEVE:                          Yeah. There was a series of things. It started with, I knew, but more importantly, I knew but couldn't articulate it, but wife and my boss knew that I had to take a break from the practice of law and from my service as managing partner to care for myself. I didn't know what it meant to care for myself. I was always physically active. I always ran and worked out and try to keep myself in physical state, primarily, so I could continue to work hard. But I never understood what it meant to care for oneself as opposed to taking care of everybody else's problems. And so I went to rehab for 30 days, and it was at the time, in the beginning, the absolute scariest thing I'd ever done. I thought my life was over. I thought my job was gone. I thought my marriage was leaving while I was away. I didn't know how to focus on what was really going on with me. I had never dealt with the fact that I grew up in an alcoholic household. I never dealt with the sense of abandonment, of being the oldest of five children and feeling responsible for everybody because my parents were not capable because of their own illness to deal with the things that they had to deal with. So that stint in rehab helped me immensely to be able to focus on that. But what I learned in rehab was, it would have been a complete wasted effort if I didn't make recovery, the single most important thing in my life going forward. And that didn't mean that I had to leave my job or change my personal relationships. What it meant was that I had to put through the prism of my recovery, every single thing that I did from that point forward. And for the most part, I haven't been perfect. But for the most part over the last 11 years, that's exactly what I've done. There was a six month period of time where I did not travel for work. I didn't feel safe traveling. There was a, for two years, I saw a recovery coach, an addiction therapist, at least two times a week, if not more, so that I would stay grounded on what was important, My recovery. I became a member of a 12-step program, still I'm today. I did a lot of service in that 12-step program and still do today. And all of those things were designed to keep me focused on that single most important thing, which was my recovery. Because without my recovery, every single thing that's important to me would then be gone. And the mistake I had made in the 30 years prior was thinking that the other things were the most important and that I can deal with this alcohol thing if I just had time. If I didn't have to work so hard, I wouldn't have to drink. If I didn't have to deal with relationship issues, I wouldn't have to drink. BREE:                Right. STEVE:                          And what I learned was, if I don't drink, all of those things get better over time. CHRIS:                    Did you consider leaving the practice of law? Or was the aspiration to get back there, but just as a different person, so to speak? STEVE:                          I was confronted with that possibility by my therapist, multiple therapists, by my wife, by my boss. I was confronted with, "Is it going to be better for you to leave the firm and do something else?" I didn't want to, there was huge fear associated with that. And where I ended up was, that I didn't have to. Because the things I talked about earlier, things such as putting my 12 step meetings in my work calendar so that my assistant and everyone else knew when I was not available. Telling all of the partners with whom I worked and telling clients with whom I worked, that I had gone to rehab, that I was in recovery, and that I did not drink any longer. Those are the things that allowed me to continue to practice law. Because that divide between my professional life and my personal life, that the lying, the hiding, the projection of somebody who I wasn't, that all had to end. And thankfully it did end. So the clients I spoke to about my addiction, about my time off in rehab, about the fact that I couldn't travel to see them, they were incredibly receptive. And their reception and their understanding allowed me to continue to do what I do. And as time went on, I began to help them. As time went on, a number of clients and colleagues who have come to me because of addiction issues that they're facing either themselves or with family members or with friends, or with colleagues, has allowed me to give back in a way that they gave to me early on in my recovery. And that's made it... In fact, now to me, it's inconceivable to me that I would leave my position until I retire, because I now know I can do so much good by being an example of a senior partner at a global law firm who's in recovery. And by being that good example, hopefully give others the hope that they too can deal with the issue and recover. And whether they're the spouse of an addict or the colleague of an addict or an addict themselves, I now know that I can give hope to those people because they see me, who I am today, different than who I was a lot of years ago. Hmm. CHRIS:              This is a good time, I think, for our first break. But let me be the first Steve, to thank you for sharing your story. There's a vulnerability that has allowed you to share your experience in a way that I'm sure resonates with many listeners out there. And again, your willingness then to both share that in a raw account and then be willing to give back and identify and help others in similar situations. That's what we need within the profession. The ability for us to step back, reflect, but then re-engage for the betterment of our profession and how it serves society. And we certainly appreciate your willingness to come onto the podcast and share your individual story. BREE:                 Yes, absolutely. CHRIS:              Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk a little bit more about Morgan Lewis and some advice Steve has for law firm leaders as we continue to advance the well-being movement. — 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 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:                All right, welcome back everybody. And we have, again with us today, Steve Wall, who is managing partner at one of the largest global firms on the planet, Morgan Lewis & Bockius, and have been having a really amazing, honest, deep conversation about recovery. We really want to sort of switch gears a little bit, and let's start talking about the legal system in general and what's going on in the shifts around well-being. So I know some of the things that I know about Morgan Lewis is that your firm was one of the original signatories of the ABA's Well-Being Pledge for legal employers. I know, and we're delighted to say Morgan Lewis is a founding champion, a supporter of our Institute, the Institute for Well-Being In Law. Could you talk a little bit about some of the things that Morgan Lewis has done specifically around programming for well-being? And just different initiatives in structural changes? STEVE:                          Yeah. That I think you know there's so much more that we can do at Morgan Lewis and that law firms can do generally, but I'm very proud of what we've done under the leadership of our current chair, Jami McKeon, over the last six years. We were one of the original signatories to the ABA Pledge and proud to be that. We have had mandatory training of all of our lawyers on mental health issues within the profession. We have encouraged our human resources team, our practice leadership team, our senior partners across the firm to be very active with much empathy when it comes to mental health issues across the firm. We are committed to eliminating the stigma that comes with mental health. I often, Bree, as you can understand, I often analogize it to diabetes. If I had a partner or an associate who is suffering from diabetes, and as a result had to be quite disciplined about his or her diet and needed to ensure that they were able to eat and ingest food and nutrients on a regular basis, I would bend over backwards as a leader of the firm to ensure that that individual had what he or she needed in order to stay healthy as a diabetic. And we should be doing the exact same thing with mental health. We should recognize it as an illness that is no one's fault. There is no good or bad about a person who suffers from mental health. They are not evil. They are not weak. They are not bad people. They are sick people who need our help. And the more we can do to eliminate that stigma, the more we will allow people to come forward and ask for the help that so many of them so desperately need. So that cultural shift has been a huge shift within our firm, but we also see it in some of the ways in which we act. Morgan Lewis has a very special relationship with Caron treatment centers, which is one of the country's most well-known and best addiction treatment facilities in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. We have made arrangements for many, many of our lawyers to seek treatment there. We have helped the organization financially. We have invited some of their treatment personnel to speak to our lawyers. We've made clear that if someone needs assistance, they're going to do it with our help, not behind our back, because we want to know. Other things we've done, I mentioned the training. But we've had a special relationship with one of your colleagues, Patrick Krill, who has personally met with the entire leadership of the firm, our advisory board and our management committee, which are the top leadership groups within our firm. Had a two hour presentation by Patrick Krill a couple of years ago, in which he helped us understand the types of things that we needed to do to set a culture that was conducive to strong mental health. And we have recognized we have a very liberal leave of absence policy that does not distinguish between leaves of absence for mental health and leaves of absence for physical disabilities, which we all understand. If someone needs to have surgery on their back, we understand why they can't be available to work. Well, the same is true for someone who needs to take time off to go to rehab, to go to counseling to seek psychological assistance. It's no different than that person who had back surgery and who we recognize, explicitly, needs time off before they can come back to work. BREE:                One of the things I think is just indicative of the commitment, I believe Morgan Lewis was one of the very first to create a position within the firm. You have a Director of Well-Being, and that just speaks volumes as well. STEVE:                          Yes. And Krista Larson is that director of well-being and she is fantastic. And we focus, not just on the problems associated with mental health, but we focus on mitigating mental health. So as we speak right now, some of the things that we've done with pandemic is, we started several years ago and Krista joined us. We started what we call ML Well, and ML Well is an initiative involving hundreds of our attorneys and many of our staff in which they design get togethers, they design concepts, they design webinars. And we've used that base during the pandemic to really drive opportunities for people to come together. So it might be virtual cooking classes, virtual meditation classes, virtual yoga, opportunities for families and children to come together. All of that is part of ML Well. So ML Well drives a lot of positive behavior that helps us relieve the anxiety and the pressure of our jobs. The fact that we have yoga programs several times a week, that attorneys and staff can join virtually, as opposed to encouraging them to join a happy hour or just take a drink, that's the big change. I remember as a young lawyer really enjoying Thursday afternoon happy hours because it was a chance to get away from my desk. It was a chance to meet up with colleagues. And the fact that drinking was involved was just, that's just the way it was. We don't need to do just that anymore. We still that because the majority of our lawyers have no issue with alcohol and use it socially, and they should, but for those who worry about that, or do have issues, or want to refrain from engaging in that activity, we have numerous other ways to relieve stress, to engage with your colleagues, to get to know people other than working across the table or computer from them on the client work that we do. CHRIS:                    Steve, one of the things that we are actively working on in terms of our national movement is how to most effectively measure success. And I'm curious as you think about Morgan Lewis's investment in well-being, how do you know that the commitment that you're making is having the desired outcomes, right? Obviously you invested in Krista's position with a sense that there would be, either a return on investment, or the culture shift. And I'm just curious as you think about that, how do you know that you've succeeded or that you're moving the ball forward? STEVE:                          Well, the individual examples that I'm aware of, the individual lives that we've helped better, are enough for me. I know though, for every individual person that I have been involved with or am aware of, there are many, many more who simply see that example and have sought help themselves. I'm constantly amazed even with my openness about my recovery, I'm constantly amazed at how partners and associates will come up to me, who I've known for years, and will tell me how proud they are of the firm, that they've been in recovery themselves for five, 10, 15, 25 years. And I never knew that. I never was aware that those individuals existed. And now they're willing to come forward and acknowledge it. And by acknowledging it, they're changing the culture. But there have been many, many individuals who I know would not be at the firm today, and may in fact be dead if it weren't for the opportunities and the reach out and the positive reinforcement that our firm has given those individuals. By sponsoring them to go for help, by working with them on post rehabilitation, changes in their work life, by telling them that it's okay. It's okay that you're, for example, living in a halfway house while still serving as a partner at the firm. It's okay if you have to take off every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon to go see your therapist and still be a successful associate at the firm. Those are the things that we're doing openly for those people. And then you know in any organization, people see those things. And when they see that those things are okay, it gives them a license to take care of themselves better. So I don't need to see statistics because I know that the dozen or more individuals that I've personally been involved with have reaped great benefits for dozens more who see the change in the lives of those individuals at the firm. CHRIS:             Yeah. I love that. I also imagine that you're utilizing that in some respects in your talent acquisition of the new lawyers coming into the firms from law schools. Yeah. It certainly feels like work-life balance is becoming more prominent in terms of the next generation. And your commitment, I'm guessing, is part of one of those strategies that allows you to recruit the best and the brightest into the firm. STEVE:                          You're absolutely correct. We still hire the majority of our people through the traditional summer program. I'll be at remote in 2020 and likely remote in 2021. But prior to that, we changed up completely the social events around our summer program. I ran the summer program for three years when I was a junior partner, I know the pressure that a summer program that's heavy on drinking events puts on people who don't like to, or can't drink. I know intuitively that we lost Helen, who decided not to join us because the work hard party hard culture was not for them. Well, that doesn't exist anymore. We don't sponsor those activities anymore. We don't allow those activities anymore. The activities we have now around the summer program, around our new attorney orientation, around our partner orientation, around our partner meeting, the activities are more healthy. They include opportunities to have a social drink with a colleague, but they don't include open bar for hours at a time. They don't include, the only opportunity to engage socially is to hang out at a bar, at a hotel, in a hotel lobby. They include things like mountain bike riding in Arizona, and kayaking, and having a celebrity chef come in to teach us how to cook. They include the types of things that have the exact same impact on allowing you to take a break, socialize with your colleagues, relieve anxiety. They allow you to do all that without the unhealthy behavior that sometimes comes with a drinking event. BREE:                And also to have fun. Those things that you're talking about sound like tremendous fun. Steve, just a final question, it's of two parts. Do you have some closing words of advice for new lawyers who are coming on who want to be both successful and well? And do you have any words of advice for the more senior lawyers who might see this movement as a bit beyond their experience in law or perhaps even irrelevant? What do you have to say to those folks? STEVE:                          Yeah, I do Bree. And I'm in no special position other than my own experience. And there are two things that I would change in my life if I could at this point. One, adopt and find healthy habits to relieve the stress and pressure of our very intense profession. Do something that you love to do. Whether it's physical exercise, reading, music, volunteering, giving back to others, do something that makes you feel good. There's always, always room and time to take care of yourself. No one expects you to work yourself to death, which is the direction that so many of our lawyers, whether addicts or not, find themselves in. So adopt a healthy lifestyle that allows you to both be a successful professional in an intense profession, but to keep yourself well. The second point is, do not allow the historic stigma around mental health from stopping you from doing the right thing. And I don't direct that to people who suffer mental health challenges themselves, I'm directing that to healthy people who see unhealthy behaviors in other people, but because of the stigma around mental health challenges, stay quiet. They're embarrassed for the person, they're embarrassed for themselves. They don't know what to do. And if all of us who live a healthy lifestyle and who are managing well mental health challenges, called out and reached out to those who we see suffering, we will be able to help people sooner, more effectively, and avoid so many of the horrible things that we know happened in our profession and other professions. Even to this day, even myself, as much as I know, I have to check myself when I find myself thinking about staying quiet when I see somebody acting in a way that I know is indicative of a mental health issue. I wouldn't do that. If I saw someone clutching their chest and suffering from a heart attack, I would leap to their aid and shout for help. But when it comes to mental health, even I sometimes have to check myself and say, "Why aren't you helping? Why aren't you being proactive?" And all of us should be as proactive with mental health challenges as we are with physical health challenges that we see in our colleagues. CHRIS:                   Steve that's awesome advice, and obviously I think an appropriate recipe for, again, what practice leaders, managing partners. I still remain convinced that that real systemic change within our profession will occur in the individual law firm culture. And if it doesn't change there, it's going to take a long time to get there, but it can certainly be accelerated by the steps of individuals like you, who bring that perspective about balance, reducing stigma. Certainly, we're so grateful for what you do. Again, it's the like, I could call you a silent hero, right? Because I think that you are the tectonic plates beneath the surface that I think ultimately need to occur for us to accelerate well-being in the profession. So we are just very thankful for you joining us on the podcast, sharing your story, alluding to the great work that Morgan Lewis is doing in this space. And thanks so much for joining us. BREE:                Thank you. STEVE:                          Very grateful for the opportunity. Thank you both. CHRIS:                   All right. So we will be back in a couple of weeks, and our next guest on the podcast will be Paula Davis. She's the founder and CEO of The Stress and Resilience Institute, and perfect timing for her as she'll be coming on to preview her upcoming book release. Her book is entitled Beating Burnout At Work: Why Teams Hold the Secret to Well-Being and Resilience. So we look forward to our next episode and welcoming Paula to the pod. Thanks again Steve. Thanks Bree. And be well advocates out there and continue to march forward as we work to improve our profession. Thanks for joining us.

Chris Newbold:               Hello and welcome to episode five of our podcast series, The Path to Well-Being in Law, an initiative of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being. I'm your co-host, Chris Newbold of ALPS Malpractice Insurance and our goal here is simple. To introduce you to cool people doing awesome work in the space of lawyer well-being and in the process, build and nurture a national network of well-being advocates content on creating a culture shift within the legal profession. I'm joined by my incredible tag team partner, Bree Buchanan. Bree, welcome.Bree Buchanan:             Thanks. How are you?Chris Newbold:               Good. Today, we're going to turn to a critical element of the well-being picture and that's judicial well-being. So often when we think about well-being, we think about it through the lens of practicing lawyers under the guise of lawyer well-being. But today we're going to look at the judge side of the equation and we have a recognized leader in our space and a fellow member of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, Judge David Shaheed of Indiana. Bree, would you be so kind to introduce our guest?Bree Buchanan:             Absolutely, I'd be delighted and I'm truly honored. Judge Shaheed is such a wonderful person that I've gotten to know over the past six or seven years, and he's a delight to work with. So, let me introduce everybody to him. Judge Shaheed is a judge in the Marion Superior Court, Civil 1. He came into that position in August of 2007. Prior to that, Judge Shaheed preceded over the Drug Treatment Diversion Court and Re-entry Court. He served on the Court Alcohol and Drug Programs Advisory Committee and was former chair of the Problem-Solving Courts Committee for the Judicial Conference of Indiana. In addition to serving on the Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program in Indiana, he's a former member of the ABA's Commission on Lawyer's Assistance Programs and former co-chair of the Judicial Assistance Initiative for CoLAP. Judge Shaheed, welcome, we're so glad you're with us.Judge  David S.:              Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here.Chris Newbold:               Yeah. Judge Shaheed, I think one of things we love to do with our guests is just an introductory question which is what brought you into the well-being movement? Were there experiences in your life or other drivers that led you to have a passion for this kind of work?Judge  David S.:              Yes. Well, I think, for most people, at least in my community, there's always been somebody in the broader community not in my immediate family that's struggled with issues of depression, sometimes with substance use problems. So, I knew first hand how difficult that could make life for a person. The human dimension to the story. And so when I became a judge and was assigned to a criminal court and then I also had the opportunity to work with a drug treatment diversion court and then later was able to start a re-entry court of ex-offenders. It was a way to take life's personal experiences and build on those personal experiences to hopefully change the lives of people that I came in contact with in the courts.Bree Buchanan:             Terrific. Judge Shaheed, we heard in our last couple episodes from the author of the lawyer research study, Patrick Krill and then we heard from the author of the law student research study, David Jaffe. Now, we're rounding out the third leg of the three legged stool and hearing from you about the critical research that's been done in a sphere around judicial stress and resilience and you've been at the center of that national research project. So, could you tell us a little bit about that?Judge  David S.:              Yes. Well, that research associated with the National Task Force as most people may remember had a number of recommendations and one of those recommendations is that there be a survey of judges, especially with respect to stress, the effects of stress and also with respect to resiliency. There had been a survey with prospective law students. There had also been a survey done with respect to lawyers. It was one of the key recommendations especially with the judiciary, that there be a survey of judges dealing [inaudible 00:04:54] and also resiliency.Bree Buchanan:              So, what was the purpose of the research? What did you all set out to find?Judge  David S.:               Well, the purpose of the research was to actually get involved with judges and try to determine the sources of stress, the effects of that stress and then also to have a positive part, not just talk about the things that were going wrong and the things that were difficult, but also to get feedback from judges as to techniques or tools that they were using to work to try to deal with that stress. We know that when people are stressed out, when people are suffering from difficulties related to their work, sometimes there are unhealthy habits that take hold. And so since wellness is an important [topic 00:05:58] across all professions and the legal profession is also a part of that, the resiliency part with respect to what judges are doing in a positive way to deal with wellness and to deal with stress in a positive way.Bree Buchanan:           And there was a coalition of groups. Who all was involved in getting that project together because it was a big one?Judge  David S.:               Yes. It was a big project and probably the principal researcher, the person that I listen to the most, the expert was Professor Swenson. He is with the St. Scholastica College in Minnesota and also another minister of contact was Joan Bibelhausen, who is the Executive Director of the Lawyers Concern for Lawyers program in Minnesota. Yourself as representative of CoLAP during that period of time, and then also Katheryn Yetter, who is with the National Judicial College. There're perhaps premier organization associated with the education of judges. They put on many programs for judges throughout the year. And they had the role associated with having the judges that participate in their programs to respond to the survey so that we had good results. There are over 18,000 judges across the country, and we were fortunate to have over a 1000 judges in fact, 1034 judges participate in our survey.Bree Buchanan:              Wow. That is great.Chris Newbold:                Wow. Yeah, that's a great response.Judge  David S.:               Yes, very good.Chris Newbold:                Very good. Yeah. I'm curious what some of your key findings were and from your perspective, were there anything surprised you in the findings?Judge  David S.:              Well, the resiliency activities and interests, those were probably something that I hadn't really suspected when we initially thought about the survey, it's obvious you wanted to quantify as best as possible the sources of stress. So the ranking of the sources of stress [inaudible 00:08:47] and then also the effects of stress, there were about 34 effects of stress that were listed. But then there were also about 13 activities or interest including meditation, walking, exercises that judge were relying upon to effectively deal with stress in a positive way.Bree Buchanan:              And judge, I've read the research and I helped out on that some, and the thing that struck me was it seemed that judges overall compared to lawyers generally were fairing a little bit better than lawyers. But was there anything in the research that caused alarm?Judge  David S.:               Yes. Two things. It was not [inaudible 00:09:46] percentage, but 2.2%, and the figures sticks out in my mind because you have to remember there were over a 100 participants in the survey, but of that number 2.2% had [inaudible 00:10:03] aside. In other words, the stresses of the job were so significant that they had actually considered suicide. So to me, that was a big concern. A then also we all know about the availability of alcohol in our society. And so about 9.5% of the judges, especially in 2019 identified problematic drinking as one of the effects of stress.                                          And actually the 9.5 is a little higher than what is found in the general community of people over the age of 25, because it's around 6%. It's a little higher for lawyers, but the 9.5 is still problematic when you consider the stresses of the job and that some of our colleagues in the judiciary are using alcohol to cope with the stresses of their work.Bree Buchanan:             Right. And that is concerning. Absolutely. I remember another thing that was found out of the research was that there was data gathered of what judges were doing to improve their resiliency and what they wanted to know more about. And we looked at that gap there and where there was a big gap between what they were doing and what they wanted to do. We're thinking about honing in on that. Can you talk about a couple of those practices or things that judges wanted to do more?Judge  David S.:              Yeah. Well, one of the troubling and I'll just mention two, for a new judge because becoming a judge in the US especially a trial judge, I'll just speak of that in most states involves an election of some type. And so it's not like in Europe where they have a track or where you are a solicitor or whether you are on the ban, but in the US, the judge typically comes from the lawyer ranks. And so there's no real training to become a judge. So that's a concern especially for new judges, because they feel ill-equipped for the task of being a judge. They don't really feel that there is the proper support to help them be successful, and judges work in a silo. And so [inaudible 00:12:53] in a practice group law office, there's always a senior associate or partner that you may be able to go to. So you're on your own with respect to that.But another aspect that we have found to be helpful is the judicial round tables. There's an excellent report out of Texas about the success of the round tables. They started for the most part in New York because they've had a lot of success with round tables, but the round tables are just an opportunity for judges to get together and talk about the work that they do, not so much in terms of cases and case law and statutes and procedures, but mainly about the work itself and how you cope with that work, how you deal with that work. So that's an important part of the discussion as well.Bree Buchanan:              Absolutely. And just one more thing. When will the study be published? When can we expect to see that?Judge  David S.:               Yeah. The study is going to be published in the ABA Professional Lawyer, and we're in the process now of ABA review, I think for many who are aware and familiar with the American Bar Association, it's quite a bureaucratic institution. And so we're in the process of, they're completing their review but we're hoping to have it published in The Professional Lawyer of the ABA by the end of the year.Chris Newbold:                Got you. And one of the things I think is interesting particularly for any of our non-lawyer listeners is just how all the different types of judges that are out there. I mean, when you really think about the breadth of the judiciary, I mean, you've got municipal judges and justice [crosstalk 00:15:01]. You got district court judges, you got appeals judges, you got specialty court judges. And so I'm just curious on your perspective of whether there are... My sense is that there are certain types of positions on the bench that are more prone to the stress and the interaction with clients.Obviously, the higher you go up on the appellate side, probably the less interaction you have with real people. And so I'm just curious on whether the findings of the report or your personal experience tend to steer toward your judicial well-being being more of a challenge in certain parts of the judiciary.Judge  David S.:               One of the concerns, and it's talked about in the literature, and it's also found in the research is secondary trauma, or post-traumatic stress disorder and we tend to associate that with combat situations and our service people who are in military situations, but trauma can be experienced in a variety of ways. We know that there is trauma that the children experience. If they're in a household where there is domestic violence, that's a trauma. If they see violence in the family, that's trauma. So that kind of drama and trauma that is seen in the family situation, sometimes bubbles into the courts in cases of abuse or neglect. And there are judges that have to look at the probable cause, they have to look at reports with respect to how children are being mistreated and abused and cumulatively, seeing that kind of information on a daily basis, a daily diet of abuse and neglect takes a toll on the individual.Also, we're familiar with criminal courts where there are absolutely horrific events that take place. They cause the loss of life or the injury to people or the assault of individuals. And again, judges have to hear that information, sometimes have to see a horrific scenes that are part of the evidence associated with the death of a person. And so that's just part of the job. And so a stale, a daily diet of that kind of information eventually takes its toll on a human being. Takes a toll on a person. So one or two things happen, a person sometimes becomes numb to what they're seeing, so they become somewhat detached. In other words, the daily diet of that kind of information just numbs and individuals. So they see it, but then they block it out.And that's not good because then they become almost robotic in terms of doing the technical parts of the job. But to those who are a part of that court system with that kind of judge, they notice that there's something missing and that's not a good thing. So one of the other parts or one of the other aspects that is causes problems for the judiciary is burnout, because after so long, a daily diet or that kind of information causes one to just burn out. And so they start pulling away from the job and jobs satisfaction goes down and many of them are just looking for an exit or a way to get out of that kind of a court.I can recall recently elections in my county where I heard stories about one judge who was really suffering from burnout in a criminal court, basically just started continuing cases because he knew that he was going to be leaving the court at the end of the year. So there became about a six month backlog of cases that got continued. And so for those individuals who were trying to have their cases resolved, they basically suffered because the judge was burned out. So those are just a couple of ways that it manifests itself when judges are overwhelmed by the ugly side or the ugly aspects of their job.Chris Newbold:                Yeah. And it seems like such an interesting challenge both on the front end, because you're elevated out of the lawyer ranks. You're elevated to the bench and there's got to be a shock to the system at that point of just, "What am I doing?" You're trying to figure this out. There's all these new emotions that are coming your way. We know there are schools that try to help judges adapt to that, but there's really emotions there. And then as you said on back end of their career you suffer the burnout side of things where this means you figure it out, you start to then go down and put down the road of just, "This is just being tough." And it's such an interesting as you think about it from a... I'm at an age right now and soon approaching 50 that a lot of my friends are elevating to the bench. And a lot of times you elevate to the bench and you go under an island a little bit. Right? And-Judge  David S.:              Right. Yeah. And that's another aspect you've really touched on is the isolation because we're collegial people. One of the things that has been pointed out by the pandemic is that in many places in the world, people have become familiar with the idea of quarantine. And we have learned most of us, at least that that's not really a comfortable idea to just isolate yourself. And we've been told as much as possible, we should isolate ourselves. And my age group pretty much the mantra. For anybody over 60 isolate yourself, don't be in contact. And so it's a little unnatural because we like to be in community, we like to be able to interact with people.So one of the downsides of becoming a judge is the isolation, because the collegial aspect of life when you're in a practice group or when you're with a law firm, or when you're with any kind of legal work in an organization, you can ask for advice, you can just kind of bounce ideas off people, sometimes about cases that you have, but when you become a judge and you have your own caseload that you're responsible for, it's not like you can go to another judge and say, "Hey, look, I've had this case, what do you think I should do?" Because for the most part, they have their own case load and so you don't want to seem weak and not up to the job. So you basically go to your office or on the bench, you try to figure it out as best you can, but it is an isolating proposition.And so that takes a toll as well. And it's not like you can go home and share the details of your troublesome caseload with your family. So it's a rather lonely job. And then when you have to make monumental decisions, life-changing decisions about people, typically those are made by yourself. It's not like you take a committee vote, you have to make the decision and then you have to live with the decision, both with respect to appeal but also with respect to the emotional toll that it takes on yourself. And then thinking about the consequences of your decision on the lives of other people. So it's a weight that doesn't go away, and it's a weight that is unlike a lot of other professions, especially in the legal profession.Chris Newbold:                It certainly feels like a heavyweight of a job from an emotional perspective, a lot of weight on those shoulders-Judge  David S.:               Yes it is.Chris Newbold:                There’s obviously glory in the role, but real world, real family ramifications in both the decisions and the contemplation. Let's take a quick break here and hear from our friends at ALPS. And I'd like to come back on the conversation and talk about why the judicial system should to be paying close attention, not just to the judiciary totality of the profession more generally.Bree Buchanan:              Welcome back everybody. We're here with Judge David Shaheed, who is a member of the National Task Force and a member of the Judiciary. And he's talking to us about wellbeing among the judiciary in the United States. And Judge Shaheed, I think particularly with the task force report, we're really starting this well-being movement across the country. And a piece of that is for the judiciary. Could you talk a little bit about why the judicial system should be paying attention to wellbeing? What happens when wellbeing is not really addressed?Judge  David S.:               Well, the role of the courts in our life in America is one of the most important roles that there are. I mean, just the number of TV shows that focus on judges in terms of reality shows and then also drama that involve the courts. There's always been a fascination with the courts. And the rule of law in a very serious sense, is probably one of the hallmarks or most significant aspects of our democracy. And so most people don't spend their lives in course. We have professionals of course, lawyers and judges and so forth, but the average person may not ever get to a court, but if they come to a court that is going to be an experience that they seldom forget. And so the interaction that they have with the judge is going to mark them and influence what they think about the courts and the rule of law in America.So we want everybody to be at their best. When we go to a doctor's appointment, we want the doctor to be at their best and any kind of interaction that we have, we want the person that we're interacting with at their best. And since judges are making life-changing decisions, the wellness of those judges is an essential concern for all of us. And we know that if judges are well, their decisions reflect that. A part of the study has shown that with research that depending upon the time of day that judges make decisions, they're more positive in the early parts of the session and they trail off toward the end.But we want to have judges at their best during that entire process because that forms what the average citizen thinks about our courts, and about our judiciary, and about this principle of justice of being fair to everyone that comes before the courts. And so the rule of law and the administration of justice through the courts is one of the hallmarks of our democracy and that's the reason why it should be of concern that we have judges who are well and healthy on the bench.Bree Buchanan:              Wow. That's a great answer. I've never heard it put so clearly in such dramatic terms.  That's great. And now of course, we're in the midst of a pandemic. We're hitting the sixth month of this. And you're still presiding over cases in court. What is it like right now in the judicial system to try and carry on justice during a pandemic?Judge  David S.:               Yes. Well, since late February, early March everybody's life all over the world has changed and the courts and judges are not immune to that. For a period of time, basically from March, maybe until mid-May, there were basically only emergency court hearings and definitely not hearings where people were coming to court. In many cities, in many communities, the courts have been for the most part closed, and they're gradually starting to open up. And so just like we're on a Zoom call for this podcast, the courts have been using Zoom primarily at least in Indiana as the primary mechanism to have non-emergency hearings. So that has been a tremendous change because two quick points about this for judges.The second source of stress for judges is heavy dockets. So when you consider that for two and a half months or most, there were no court activities at all. There's a backlog that has developed in the criminal courts and civil courts all throughout the court system. And so I can tell you right now, the judges are stressing of how are they going to get that backlog work down. So that's one concern for judges and that adds to stress. The other part is that judges like routine, all of us like routine. And so within a short period of time, all of us as judges have had to become familiar with the technology of operating a court for the most part electronically.In most states there is e-Filing, which helps somewhat but for the most part judges have had to adapt and the staffs have had to adapt to the technology associated with conducting a hearing remotely. Where the judge is in one place, maybe in one location in one state, and then the parties may be in other states at least in other locations and still the business of the court has to get done. So this adjustment causes additional stress because we know how to do things the way we did them in 2019, but the reality is the way we operated as judges in 2019 is not the same way we're operating as judges toward the end of 2020. So those kinds of adjustments are additional stressors as they say, but that's the reality of the work that we're doing.Chris Newbold:                Yeah. Change, change, change, change, right?Judge  David S.:               Yes, absolutely.Chris Newbold:                I mean, backlogs and new technologies and new ways of operating a courtroom. I am curious Judge Shaheed, as you think about the courtroom, I think your answer was so eloquent I think on the role of the judge, you also preside over the totality of the courtroom and that includes the attorneys that are before you ultimately are officers of the court. I'm curious on your perspective with respect to them and what you generally see in the courtroom. When you see hints of attorneys who are before you who might be struggling in terms of [inaudible 00:33:40] situation, we've even seen essences of alcoholism in courts and strange behavior. I'm just curious on your perspective on the interplay between your role on the bench and then those officers of the court and what role you have in terms of both identifying challenges and then being part of the solution.Judge  David S.:               Well, I can remember over the Drug Court in Marion County, an incident where a lawyer who showed up for a hearing had cocaine drop out of his pocket before he was able to get into the court room. So that part was easy because he ended up getting arrested right there in court before the court session started. But sometimes you see impairments. A judge wants to have a fair trial in particular, if you're over a criminal court you have to be concerned about the defendant having a fair trial because from two respects, you want to have a fair trial because you don't want to have an appeal based upon the lawyer representing the defendant not being affected, but also from the standpoint of fundamental fairness. You want to make sure that as much as possible there's an equal playing field and both sides or both parties are being properly represented.So it does create a problem and an immediate problem with respect to how you get through that hearing, but then there's other ethical problem for you as to what you do when you witness signs of impairment. Fortunately, in all states there are lawyers assistance programs. And so those lawyers' assistance programs are a vital asset to the legal community, because if you see a sign of impairment or something that doesn't look exactly right, and many times lawyers you've seen them over not only months, but over years. And so you can call the Lawyers Assistance Program, mention what you have observed and then the Lawyers Assistance Program can reach out to that lawyer or sometimes a judge and to volunteers, I've done it myself just check on the person and say that you're just there to see or to ask them if everything was okay.And again that's when the real benefits of Lawyers Assistance Programs so that judges or any other professional can alert the Lawyers Assistance Program in their state that there may be an impairment or there may be some other issue that is interfering with that legal professionals' performance of their professional duties.Chris Newbold:                We should note that Judge Shaheed is an active leader in the Indiana Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program. And thank you for your contributions there, because I think your perspective is particularly important. Now, let's maybe wrap it up with one final question Judge Shaheed, which is overall, are you optimistic are you pessimistic about judge resiliency and then the ability to cope with the stressors of the bench obviously with the pandemic going on right now? What have you seen, what do you think we are now and where do you think we're going?Judge  David S.:               Well, let me give a formal plug for the article that's going to come out this year, Stress and Resiliency in the US Judiciary. That represents, I think a milestone or a high watermark with respect to information that will guide in particular those judges who are presiding judges over their courts or those judges who are administrators for the judges in their district or circuit so that they have concrete information from which they can tailor programs to assist the judges. Without the data, it's hard to have a justification to have a wellness program for the benefit of judges in district, for example.But with this report coming out, once it becomes public, then those presiding judges, those chief judges of those districts can say, "Now I have information that can guide me to start around table for judges on a monthly or quarterly basis or to have programs on wellness." So it gives judges and the judiciary the tools and information necessary to help promote and support the wellness of judges across the country.Bree Buchanan:              Wonderful. So well said.Chris Newbold:                It is. When that report obviously is published, we'll make sure to include that on our website @lawyerwellbeing.net because I think that that is... Again, a really important part of the equation that we talked about lawyer wellbeing, but it really is more of a holistic look at wellbeing in the law more generally and we certainly thank you for your contributions, your leadership, your perspective. It certainly feels like awareness is a big part of the game right now for more judges and with awareness brings vulnerability support amongst each other, and those all seem to put us more in a sense of we're trending in the right direction than the wrong direction.Judge  David S.:               Yes, yes. Well, trending is very important. We've learned with social media and depending in the right direction with respect to wellness for lawyers, the legal profession, and also judges.Chris Newbold:                Yeah. Well said, and again, thank you Judge Shaheed.Judge  David S.:               Yeah, absolutely.Bree Buchanan:              Thanks so much.Chris Newbold:                This was a great conversation again, I think sometimes we don't step back and take a look at the role of judges and just... Again, what tough jobs those are, what important jobs they are for again, of the underpinnings of a well-functioning democracy, but they don't come without emotional and stress and real problems that affect real people. And so we appreciate your perspective and bringing it on the podcast today.Judge  David S.:               Well, thank you so much for launching this podcast. I know it's going to be a big help to the legal profession. And so it's not a small step, it's a significant step and we just need to have the need to support it as best we can and years from now, people will look back on this moment and say they can remember when Chris and Bree started this. So you'll be in the hall of fame on national wellness.Chris Newbold:                That's right.  Well, again, thank you so much-Judge  David S.:               Sure, absolutely.Chris Newbold:                in a couple of weeks where we start to look at... I always think of states as laboratories of democracy and one of the states that has been really doing some incredible work is the Commonwealth of Virginia. And we're going to have a couple of the leaders of Virginia come in and talk about some of the great work that's happening there on wellbeing. And so stay tuned for that. Thanks, Judge Shaheed.Judge  David S.:               All right. Thank you. Thanks to both of you.Chris Newbold:                All right. Take care.Bree Buchanan:              Thank you. Good bye.Judge  David S.:               All right.

In episode three of the new podcast, Path to Well-Being in Law, co-hosts Chris Newbold and Bree Buchanan check in with lawyer well-being pioneer Patrick Krill.  Recognized globally as a leading authority on addiction, mental health, and well-being in the legal profession, Patrick is an attorney and a licensed, board-certified alcohol and drug counselor.  He serves as a trusted advisor to large law firms and corporate legal departments throughout North America and Europe, educating them about and helping them navigate addiction, mental health, and well-being issues on a daily basis. Patrick's groundbreaking work in the area of attorney behavioral health includes: initiating and serving as lead author of the first and only national study on the prevalence of attorney addiction and mental health problems, a joint undertaking of the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation; creating the framework for the ABA Well-Being Pledge, an innovative campaign to improve the health and well-being of lawyers that was launched in September, 2018; partnering with American Lawyer Media to conduct the first-ever survey of AmLaw 200 firm leaders regarding their beliefs and attitudes related to addiction and mental health problems in the legal industry. Transcript:CHRIS NEWBOLD:                     Welcome to the Path to Lawyer Well-Being Podcast, where we talk to cool people doing awesome work in the lawyer well-being space. My name is Chris Newbold and I'm joined by my cohost, Bree Buchanan.BREE BUCHANAN:                     Hi, everybody.CHRIS:                    We are again, super excited about the opportunity to have one of the pioneers in the lawyer well-being space join us today as our guest, Patrick Krill. Patrick is somebody who really has been influential in his work on the science side to the lay the foundation for what has become a vibrant movement and a discussion in the legal profession about the current state of lawyer well-being. So let me kick it to Brie to introduce Patrick and get us going on our question.BREE:Thanks, Chris. Yeah, I think we really are so honored to have Patrick here today. I have a little disclosure. Patrick and I work together, he's my boss with Krill Strategies, but everything I say, none of this I'm saying to just flatter you, Patrick. All of it is absolutely true.PATRICK KRILL:                Oh, great.BREE:Absolutely, but some of the words that come to my mind. Chris has already tapped on it, pioneer. A pioneer in the research around substance abuse and mental health issues in the legal profession because it was Patrick's fabulous research that was published in 2016 that really kicked all of this off. We're going to talk about that research a little bit and also talk about what he's been doing since then, in regards to updating and expanding upon that research.He's also what I think of as a true thought leader and sometimes I tease him of being our guru around these issues in the legal profession because he spends all of his time reading, researching, talking to others. Really is, truly is a thought leader on this. He's authored over 70 articles, including [inaudible 00:02:13], CNN, been in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and on NPR. So we really are very lucky to have Patrick today.So Patrick, thanks for being here.PATRICK:Thank you, Bree, and thank you, Chris. It's a pleasure to be with you both.BREE:So I'm going to start off with a question that we're really trying to ask everybody that comes on the podcast, for us to get an idea a little bit about the person themselves. So what brought you to the lawyer well-being movement? So what in your life really drives your passion for this work?PATRICK:Yeah, so it's a great question and I think to really answer that meaningfully, I have to go back to before my work in the lawyer well-being space, and to really talk a little bit about my career trajectory generally.I was an attorney, I was someone who went to law school, and then as I was getting ready to wrap up law school, made the decision to go for a further degree to get an LOM in international law. I approached the legal profession with a lot of enthusiasm and with a lot of plans about the type of law that I wanted to practice. Then what I was met with was a reality that was very discordant with what I had expected. I'm a first generation lawyer in my family, I didn't have a lot of experience with or exposure to what being a lawyer actually meant. So I had all these preconceptions.Then I got into the field and while it was fine, it was pretty clear to me right off the bat that once I got out of the academic, once I got out of the classroom setting and stopped studying about law and had to do the work, it really wasn't a good fit for me. I didn't particularly enjoy it. The idea of billing my time in six minute increments really was, I just couldn't do it. It was [crosstalk 00:04:11] water, in terms of my personality, but none the less, I did practice law for a number of years and I worked in a number of different roles. Started coming to the realization that this wasn't longterm sustainable for me. It didn't get my out of bed in the morning. Right?BREE:Right.PATRICK:           A question we always ask people is, what gets you out of bed in the morning? It wasn't being an attorney, despite my best intentions, really. I'm fascinated by the law and I still think about and read about the law all the time, but the mechanics of practicing law weren't for me.I also had my own experience overcoming addiction really early out of the gate. In the first couple of years of the legal profession, my practice I should say. So I had exposure to and experience with what it takes to overcome a behavioral health problem. That experience and that exposure to that world introduced me to this idea of counseling. So I knew what a mental health counselor was, I knew what an addiction counselor was.So when it came time for me to reevaluate and think, do I want to do this longterm? I knew that there was a field that seemed a little bit more interesting to me, it seemed a little bit more aligned with my personality and intrinsically who I am. So I went back to school to become an addiction counselor. That ultimately translated into my work with lawyers specifically. I became the director a treatment program for lawyers, judges, and law students at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. So it's a long rambling answer but I think you have to understand the bigger picture view-BREE:Absolutely, yeah.PATRICK:... how I even got into the mental health space, let alone the lawyer specific mental health space.BREE:Right, well thanks for sharing that. I mean there typically is a personal story that brings us to this work. I think that what you just said, Patrick, about really not having the best vocational fit once you get into it and start seeing what it's like day to day. I hear that as a common refrain from lawyers who are really struggling. So yeah, thanks.Listen, I want to get you to share a little bit about the lawyer study that was done, now four years ago, that you did. I think you started while you were still director of the legal professionals program at Hazelden. That has proved to be the basis for really, the lawyer well-being movement. So I'm wondering, what do you think is the most important information that came out of that study now that you can look back over the past four years?PATRICK:It's hard to say. I have a hard time identifying one thing or even two things as being the most important takeaways from that study. I think the most important result, excuse me, result of that study has been its overall impact to the extent to which it raised awareness about the nature and the scope of the challenges we face. It provided much needed data to back what a lot of us who were working in the lawyer mental health space in a clinical or other capacity knew. We knew lawyers were unwell and were struggling disproportionately to other populations, but we didn't really have good data to back up our argument. So this study provided that and it really opened the door to a much needed and overdue conversation around mental health and well-being in the legal profession. So I think it was really more the impact than any one precise piece of the study.I will say, one of the things that surprised me the most was that it was younger lawyers who were the most depressed and struggling with or exhibiting the most signs of problem drinking. The drinking piece you can get, right?BREE:Mm-hmm (affirmative).PATRICK:Think about [crosstalk 00:08:11], people drink excessively, and it doesn't have as much of an impact on them. But we were surprised about the mental health piece as well. Simply because that wasn't the profile who was showing up in treatment programs or going to the Lawyers Assistance Program or who was getting disbarred because of their mental health or substance use problem. So we went into that research with a preconceived notion of who the most at-risk population was.CHRIS:                  Patrick, how much of that was, do you think, driven by the expectations gap between... it's the same type of expectations gap that you had, which was, this is what I thought the law was going to be like, this is what the law was actually like. How that's affecting, I think, the most recent generation of graduates coming out of law school.PATRICK:Yeah, it's such a great point, Chris. I think that's a profound problem. I think you have a lot of people coming out of law school and finding themselves adrift in a profession that doesn't potentially resonate with them. That it is more overwhelming than they had anticipated, assuming they're able to get a job. Right?CHRIS:                  Yeah.PATRICK:          Get a job that meets their needs and provides some opportunity, but then they get into it and they say, "Wow, this is not what I signed up for," or, and this is, I think, I'm putting the spotlight a little bit on the law school experience. It's not what they were prepared for. So there are these mismatched expectations and what that can result in, I think you're right. I mean, I think what you're getting at is, does that play into the high levels of distress among young lawyers? How could it not? I mean, how could it not? If I had done a survey 20 years ago when I was coming into the professional, I would've been scoring off the chart on all of those assessments.CHRIS:Yeah, I mean you can see a scenario where you go down a path you feel like you're too far down that path, that it's probably more rare for someone to make a pivot like you did to say, "This isn't for me, I'm going to go and pursue my studies in an area that then interconnects the behavioral health side with the law side." We know how much student debt and other factors play into the-PATRICK:                No doubt.CHRIS:[crosstalk 00:10:28] of... how do I get out of this? Then that spirals into a set of conditions that just generally move toward more unhealthy-ness for that particular community.PATRICK:Yup, I agree. I'm sure Bree has some thoughts about that as well with her background in vocational discernment. How do we bridge that gap? How do we make some progress there, because we need to. I don't know if it's modifying law school curricula or just more truth in advertising around what the legal profession is. I don't know.BREE:It makes me think about Larry Krieger's research, what makes lawyers happy. The idea of even thinking about, it's the extrinsic things, the power, the prestige, et cetera, that draws us to the practice of law but what we know now that what makes us happy are more internal factors of meaning. That's just not made known to people who are contemplating going to law school or people that are there. It's something you have to trip over and fall down to figure out. Yeah, yeah.CHRIS:Patrick, I think it's fair to say that the lawyer well-being movement likely doesn't get ignited without the study itself because we are ultimately an evidentiary based profession. We needed the data, I think, to ultimately launch the discussion. Talk to us about that notion of how important that was to kick start the national discussion. Obviously, followed by the report subsequent to that, but how important was to lay the foundation.PATRICK:           I think it was incredibly important. I think you're right, we wouldn't be where we are with this movement had we not had that predicate of the data, and had that not been something that caught the profession's attention.In addition to the data and the value of that itself, it was also a multi jurisdictional study. So we had 16, 17, 18 different bar associations from around the country participating in this survey. Participating in this research, recognizing the value. So you saw some seeds of the interest being planted there where you had all these [inaudible 00:12:52] stakeholders, but you also had... this goes back to my overarching strategy when I was conceptualizing this study, you had the ABA and Hazelden Betty Ford, two large stakeholders with a lot of credibility in their respective spheres, coming together to conduct this research. I think that was an important piece of the puzzle. This wasn't something that could just be ignored. You have all these bar associations from around the country participating, you have the ABA, you have Hazelden Betty Ford, putting their names behind this project. I think that allowed it to get the attention that it did, and to really open the door for this conversation.Something I'd be really interested in hearing both of your perspectives on is looking back on it. I have a sense that in a way we were almost pushing on an open door. What I mean by that is, there was an appetite to have this discussion. People knew that there was a problem but it was under the surface and there wasn't an easy way to bring this up or there weren't a lot of pathways into this conversation, but then once you got that ball rolling, people were basically acknowledging, yeah, we've got issues here. Finally, can we talk about this? At least that's my perspective looking back over the last five years.BREE:Yeah, and I think that societally outside of law, more and more people were talking about these issues. So law, a conservative industry, comes up last, but then you have younger people who are coming in and onboarding into the legal profession and there's just not the stigma around these issues about depression, anxiety, or even a substance abuse problem, that there used to be. So you're starting to get a shift, and I think once we got that data, it opened up the door which as you're saying was already open.Then the other thing that I found going around the country talking, inevitably, people who have been practicing law even for just a little bit, know someone who has taken his or her own life. Once that has crossed your path, it really shapes you. It's not something that you forget about. We always want to know, well, what could've been done differently? So I think that this is a manifestation of that too.PATRICK:Yeah, and at the risk of... I don't want to dominate the conversation but I do want to say something to both of you, share something with you that hasn't really received a lot of discussion because it wasn't published. With that study where we had 15,000 responses, there was the opportunity for people to submit comments at the end. There was basically like, do you have comments? We compiled all of those and I have binder of them sitting on my bookshelf. We weren't able to publish them, the format didn't lend itself to that but we had thousands and thousands of comments, overwhelmingly they reflected a theme of, this is a huge problem in the profession. We're glad you're conducting this research. Maybe that's where I began to develop this notion that people want to have this conversation, people recognize that people around them are not well. That people around them are struggling, and they feel like they're in a profession that's tone deaf to it. But overwhelmingly, that's what the comments reflected. People saying this is a big deal.BREE:Wow.PATRICK:This is a needed endeavor.BREE:Yeah, so I know that that research was so important but there were other questions that you wanted to ask. So could you tell us a little bit about the most current research you're involved in?PATRICK:Yeah, I'm actually really excited about this. Along with a colleague at the University of Minnesota Medical School, I designed a new survey that we administered to lawyers in California and the DC bar. So we partnered with the California Lawyers Association and the DC Bar to conduct new research, bi-coastal research. I had a couple of aims for this project. One, we did want it to be a random sample, so it would meet that gold standard for research. The 2016 study, while I feel very certain that those numbers were represented of what was happening in the profession, it wasn't a truly random sample. So it didn't meet that gold standard for data. So I did want to have a random sample, but I also wanted to explore the why. Not just prevalence, not how many lawyers are meeting criteria for depression or a substance abuse disorder, but why. To ask questions that could get at lawyer motivation, lawyer personality. Then look at those responses in relationship to their mental health.So we were originally supposed to launch that research project right around the time, and I mean what a year we're all in. So right around the time when the pandemic was hitting. The survey was supposed to go out, I think, the same week that California announced stay at home orders. So obviously the California Lawyers Association said, "We need to pause," and we agreed with that. What that gave us the opportunity to do was to revamp the survey and to modify some questions to actually measure the impact of COVID-19 and quarantines and all of that on lawyer mental health. It was ultimately disseminated, we finished data collection about a month ago and we're analyzing the data, getting ready to write up the manuscript.Basically what I can tell you, I can't talk about the data in any precise way at this point prior to publication, but what I can tell you is that the problems are real, there was nothing anomalous about that 2016 study. In some respects, they appear to be getting worse. Also, the impact of COVID-19 has been material. It's been real, I mean, people are feeling this as it relates to their mental health and their substance use. Beyond that though, we're going to have some really interesting insights to share about the why piece. Why are lawyers so likely to experience depression, for example.So I'm really excited about it, really grateful to the DC Bar and California Lawyers Association. They helped us get a big data set, we had really robust participation and a random sample. So it'll be useful, useful data for the profession.BREE:Do you have a sense of when it might be published?PATRICK:Yeah, well that's that million dollar question. Our goal is to have it submitted to a journal by the end of September. Then it's that sort of, out of your hands. It's journal's own publication schedule. Best case scenario it'll be published in December, but that could easily go into January of next year, February. I mean, just given all of the delays that everything seems to be experiencing and all the uncertainty, but we're moving pretty expeditiously. We're moving about as quickly as you can with a study of this size and nature.CHRIS:Patrick, how much do you think that the research side of well-being is important to the discussion, because we really don't have a lot of good... I mean we have research, we have some groundbreaking studies. We had yours, we had the law student one, we have your followup here, but it still seems like there's a lack of emphasis on the research side as we think about the well-being movement. I'd just love for your insights into, what's the next generation of research as you think on the horizon?PATRICK:Yeah, I think personally, research is a very important piece of the puzzle. That's not just because I'm involved in it, it's because you have to understand the dimensions of the challenges that you're trying to address. You can't just be spit balling about what's going on.We're also a profession that's trained weigh and evaluate evidence. Lawyers are prone to scrutinize things and want to know, is that backed by data? Is that science driven? So I think if you want to persuade people that there needs to be a change you have to back up your argument, in addition to people like us being able to understand the nature of the challenges. So I think it's vitally important.In terms of next generation or ongoing, I think further exploration of what causes the problems, which is probably going to be further exploration of the lawyer personality, beyond really important work like Krieger and Sheldon's work and other research that exists. We need to understand that a little bit better. I think we also really need to get at the disconnect that we started by talking about. That expectation gap or the mismatched expectations between what people think they're getting with a career in the law, and what they end up getting because that's got to be a big piece of the equation as to why many people find themselves, to put is charitably, less than satisfied.CHRIS:Yeah, and if we have a profession of folks who are less than satisfied, that doesn't bode well to the profession generally.PATRICK:No, right, exactly.CHRIS:Let's pivot real quickly before we take a break. I'd love to hear your perspective. Each one of us comes at this from a different angle, the well-being. Bree obviously originating from the lawyer assistance programming side. I spend a lot of time thinking about small firms and solo practitioners and preventing malpractice claims. A lot of your focus professionally has been on big law. More than anybody else, you probably have your finger on the pulse of how big law is adapting to the new emphasis on well-being. I'd just love to hear your perspectives one what you're seeing out there. Do you think big law is paying attention, because oftentimes I think big law, if they embrace it it has a trickle down effect to the totality of the profession. So I'd love to hear your perspective on big law and the interconnectedness to well-being.PATRICK:Yeah, so it's an important area of discussion. I think you're right that often, big law does have the ability to set the pace. They're almost like the pace card for the profession, who have an outsize influence on the profession despite the fact that they employ a minority of practicing lawyers.I would say if you compare where we were four years ago, big law has made a lot of progress. It started with this overdue recognition and acknowledgement that this is a real problem. We have an issue that we need to get our arms around. Five years ago, there was profound and widespread institutional denial of the scope of the problem. Maybe if it wasn't denied, it was simply a lack of awareness. You can characterize it however you want, but the reality is that these issues were not being dealt with in a deliberate way. They weren't even really being acknowledge, despite the fact that it tends to be a pressure cooker environment. It tends to be one of the most intense professional environments out there.Now what you have is widespread acknowledgement that these problems are real. Widespread acknowledgement that their competitors are taking steps to try and [inaudible 00:24:32] the problems or at least mitigate the problems. So there's momentum, there's real momentum that has developed.All of that said, there's a fundamental tension between the business model of big law, which again, tends to be really high expectations, a pressure cooker environment, a lot of billable requirements and other demands. There's a tension between that model and being able to take care of yourself the way that you might want to, and having any sense of balance in your life. So I think to try and resolve that tension is going to continue to necessitate incremental efforts that are sustained over time. It's not going to be an overnight fix. It's going to take a long time.That said, many firms are making a good faith effort. They're trying, they're trying to bridge that gap incrementally where they can. One of the problems with incremental progress, especially in an environment where so many people are not satisfied, is that it takes patience. So you have some people in those environments or some people, external to big law, commenting on big law saying, "This is all window dressing. All of these changes that they're making don't really get at the heart of the matter." But the reality is you have to start somewhere and you have to start taking steps. As long as those steps, like I said, are sustained and they continue to move in the right direction over time. I think the model can be adjusted to the point where people experience greater levels of personal well-being. To some degree, that's already happening.BREE:Yeah, and now that all three of us are being coauthors of a task force report, we can remember all the thought that went into how we make a good argument to the legal profession for this culture change. There was the financial, it's good for business. It relates to our ethical obligations. Then the humanitarian, it's the right thing to do. Which of those three do you think are motivating the firms and the people in the firms that you're dealing with? Are those [arguments 00:27:01] resonating?PATRICK:Honestly, maybe I just have the good fortune of working with some really amazing firms, but my experience has been, all three resonate. I mean, you tend to have really good people leading these organizations. It's not like they're unfeeling individuals but they have to operate within the bounds of their business model. All three points resonate.The one that is probably driving the progress the most is the financial but it's not necessarily financial the way I think that we were contemplating it in the task force where good mental health translates into less expenditure and better performance and all of that. It's financial in the sense of wanting to present a firm culture that attracts and retains the best lawyers. So it's almost a hybrid rationale, it's certain that if you boil that down, firms want to attract and retain the best talent so that they ultimately perform better financially. But it's not the precise calculation of how many specific dollars they're going to save by having fewer depressed lawyers. If that makes sense?BREE:Yeah, you bet.PATRICK:Does that make sense the way I'm explaining that?BREE:Yeah, and one thing that I hear that really resonates when I speak is the issue around the recruitment and retention. That's a big deal, and getting back to talking about those younger lawyers that we were talking about at the very beginning. They expect that they're going to work for somebody who has an interest in them personally, that cares about them as a human being. That's just what's out there and what they're dealing with, with the new folks. So yeah.CHRIS:Yeah, certainly feels like the talent acquisition side where these firms are competing for the best and brightest talent coming out of the law schools, that many of those students are coming in with a different mindset from a work life balance. That has the potential to be a real game changer, it probably has you more optimistic thinking ahead to the future, in terms of the generational change that will ultimately evolve in big law.PATRICK:      Yeah, absolutely. I do think that the younger generation of attorneys, assuming that their priorities aren't co-opted by the machines, if you will. Assuming that they maintain that level of desire to have a different work life experience. As long as they continue to prioritize well-being, then yes, I think that they can be a driver of real transformational change and sustained change in the profession. As long as they don't get co-opted or swept away by the current that exists. I don't see any evidence that they will, I'm just offering that as one potential caveat. Does the prevailing system ultimately prevail?CHRIS:Yeah, yeah. Well hey, let's take a quick break. Patrick, this has been a fascinating conversation. I love the again, your thought leadership in this space. Your experience, your ability to see the macro trends, I think is really critical as we think about the well-being movement on the horizon. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back.—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 buy coverage, all in about 20 minutes. Being a lawyer is hard, our new online app is easy. Apply now at applyonline.alpsnet.com.—BREE:So, Patrick, continuing along the line of what is happening in big law around this whole lawyer well-being movement. There is a pledge, it's the well-being pledge for legal employers. That is being conducted by the American Bar Association, specifically, the Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs, but you really were the instigator of that. So can you talk a little bit about why you thought that was so important and how that project's going right now?PATRICK: Yeah, so I'd be happy to. I'm really, really gratified with how the pledge has turned out, especially given how it began. What I mean by that is, I first proposed the idea of a pledge campaign to ask legal lawyers to publicly state a commitment to various principles around well-being, back in, I want to say 2015 prior to the study. At the time I proposed that and had this idea, the profession was in a different place. This conversation wasn't really happening or resonating in the profession. So that idea gained no traction.So when I had the opportunity to present it again in 2018 under the [inaudible 00:32:24] of the ABA, Working Group to Advance Lawyer Well-Being, the group liked it and we ran with it and we launched it in September of 2018. Starting with 12 law firm, and those were basically firms that I or others in the working group had a relationship with. We approached them and said, "Would you like to put your name behind this campaign and help us generate momentum and interest to hopefully change the culture of the profession?" So we started with 12, I would say very courageous law firms. We're now up to close to 200 organizations.BREE:That's right.PATRICK: [crosstalk 00:33:00] pledge, which is really, really remarkable. We still have a lot of room to grow and a lot of stakeholders that we want to get on board, but it has already in my view, amounted to a vehicle for cultural change. That was the idea from the beginning. We need a vehicle for cultural change, something that provides concrete, tangible guidance about steps that organizations can take to reduce the impact and prevalence of mental health and substance abuse problems. I really couldn't be more pleased by how well it's going.I'll say it's simply signing a pledge and saying we're going to do X, Y, and Z, in it of itself is meaningless unless the organization follows through. It's not hard to imagine why some organizations may want to sign on just for PR reasons or peer pressure, whatever. But we just finished evaluating, we circulated commitment forms, recommitment forms, after organizations had been signatories for a year. We're just finishing evaluating all of those responses and the overwhelming majority of signatories are really taking meaningful steps. I mean-BREE:That's great news.PATRICK: [crosstalk 00:34:16] they're trying to live up to that commitment that they made.BREE:Yeah, wonderful. Can you talk just for a minute, because my thought is maybe some people who are listening who may be interested in getting involved in that pledge. So it's for legal employers, it's not just big law. Right?PATRICK: Yes, exactly. So we are-BREE:Bar associations?PATRICK: We have an overwhelming number of big law firms who have signed on but Bar associations, law school, corporate legal departments, sector legal employers. A large public defender's office, a state attorney's office, the Department of Justice. If anyone from the DOJ is listening, we want you to take the pledge. There are lots of other stakeholders that it would be great to get on board because this is about changing the culture of the profession, not the culture of big law firms.BREE:Right, right. So also, Chris, what do you think about the pledge as being someone who works in day to day in risk management for law firms? Do you see it as a helpful tool?CHRIS:Yeah, I think again, what we're trying to do is get the discussion going amongst partners in any size of a firm or in any type of a legal employer environment. So the more that those conversations are being had, I think that the more that you're seeing people see... I know from our perspective, we believe that happier, healthier lawyers ultimately lead to fewer claims. So the pledge, I think, has been really a catalyst for... What I would love to see is again, 200 signatories to become 1,000 signatories, to become 2,000 signatories because I think we continue to want to be able to see this filtered down if big law is the pace setter, how do we continue to see small law, solo practitioners, and others come into it? Then also, a geographic representation.I know one of my aspirations is to have pledge signers in every state in the country. So it is really a catalyst for the national discussion, the national movement, and people saying, "I'm in." We need people to say, "I'm in," because I think that that is going to be critical to the success of our ultimate goal, which is the culture shift.PATRICK: I think that's right. When we get to that point of having a really wide base of buy in and a wide base of participation, in for example, the pledge. I mean that's when you start to see this idea of well-being really associated with the idea of being a lawyer. It becomes part of the notion of what a career in the legal profession involves. Part of that role, ideally one day be a focus on taking care of yourself.CHRIS:Yeah, let's shift here quickly. I know again, we'd be remiss to not talk for a few minutes with you, Patrick, about the impacts of the pandemic. You referenced it a little bit in some of your current research. Just hear your thoughts on the effect of the pandemic on lawyers, to the legal community, substance abuse, mental health. We're seeing it amongst our [inaudible 00:37:35]. It's a tough time out there.BREE:Yeah.PATRICK: Yeah, it's an extraordinarily tough time, I think for anyone in society. Different people have been experiencing the events of 2020 differently. That's one thing that I think is important to recognize, that although we tend to say we're all in this together. That's true, but also really not true. We're in the same storm but we're not all on the same boat. That's really evident in some work environments, where you might have some people who this has amounted to a significant inconvenience for them. Maybe they're riding it out from their beach house or whatever. Then you have other people who are in a 700 square foot apartment and they've been traumatized by what's been going on over the course of the last four to five months. So that experience has not been universal.All of that said, I'm hearing on a daily basis at this point from people, from organization, from firms who are saying, "Our people are struggling." I've had four or five emails, today's a Wednesday, I've had four or five emails sent Monday on that point saying, "Can we talk? We need to talk to you about what's going on. Some of the trends we're seeing." So it's real and it's important to recognize, going back to the data that we were all discussing earlier, the legal profession was starting off on shakier ground, as it relates to our mental health and substance abuse risk. We already had higher levels of those problems. Now the pandemic has come along, and not only the pandemic. The stay at home orders, the economic uncertainty, the racial tension that's been [inaudible 00:39:25] the country. I mean, there's a lot happening in 2020 that has really pushed some people to the brink or in some cases unfortunately, over the brink.BREE:What are you telling these folks when they call? To the extent that you can share that. What is some general advice?PATRICK:            Well, almost always these conversations involve letting them know that what they're experiencing internally in their organization is not anomalous. So helping them understand the dimensions of what's happening throughout the country and around the world. Normalizing that experience, but also I think it's really important for organizations to be mindful of how they're communicating with their people around this and how they're trying to make accommodations and adjustments to culture and expectations where possible. If I were to call them several months ago, I think back in March, about this phenomenon essentially known as emotional dissonance, which is the disparity between how we feel inside and how we feel we have to present in order to conform with workplace expectations or other expectations of us. Right now for many people, that level of emotional dissonance is quite high because they are a mess inside and they're really struggling to hold it together or they're completely burnt out and they're completely frazzled, but they're a lawyer. There's a very real set expectation for how they present themselves and how they comport themselves.So I think it's important for organizations and employers to recognize that and to try to move the needle a little bit and show some flexibility around those expectations because the higher that level of emotional dissonance, the greater the risk of burn out, unwanted turnover, all sorts of problematic outcomes.CHRIS:Patrick, let's spend our last couple minutes talking about just your motivation. You are somebody again, first generation lawyer. In many respects, you're both nudging and blowing us, opening up new doors in a national discussion. I've called you at times the fire alarm puller, which means that you're shining the light on some of the problems of our profession, which I know that it's motivated by a desire to drive it in the right direction and to return it to a level of professional satisfaction that we can all be proud of and excited about.I'm just curious on, what's it like to be in your role, to be talking to lawyers about the challenges and also I know that you are amongst, in our community, one of the primary solution drivers. You're always thinking about, how do we move it forward? So as we think about this culture shift, I'd just love your perspective on both raising the alarm on one side, but yet putting the fire out and looking for a bluer sky, a better horizon in the future.PATRICK:          Yeah, well they're both, I think, equally important. I think the fire alarm has been raised at this point. That's a great question, Chris. Thank you, I should say, for asking that because I think it really gets it to equally important things. We needed to raise awareness, we needed to get this conversation going. I think on an ongoing basis we will need to keep that level of buy-in, and that level of awareness raised. So that's one of the reasons why I'm conducting new research. We can't rely on research from 2016 in perpetuity. We need current data to continually drive the conversation. But beyond that, it's only so much utility if you raise awareness, and then don't have any next steps outlined. Talk about, how do we get to a better place? It's a problem and it's a solution. Now we've identified the problem and we all have to be focused on developing good solutions.I love problem solving, not in the math sense, I'm terrible at math but just in a conceptual sense. It's always what I've enjoyed is trying to figure out problems and solutions. So that piece does really motivate me and I enjoy that. I like wrestling with concepts and theories and testing different propositions and figuring out what might work. So that's a really important piece.I've got to say, I appreciate you saying that I'm driving some efforts here, but this is a team effort. Both of you and all of our other wonderful colleagues on the national task force and other people around the profession who are contributing to this cause, we're all rowing in the same direction and contributing where we can to turn the ship. I don't know how many different lame metaphors I've used but it's certainly not just me. We really are doing this together. But I'm grateful, I experience a lot of gratitude for the opportunities that I've had in my life to allow me to be doing this work. Most days it's good to get out of bed and it's good to get up and do what I have to do that day.CHRIS:If the goal is the culture shift, I am curious on what your greatest fear is as we look ahead.PATRICK:  [inaudible 00:45:05] you stumped me, because I don't know what this says about my personality but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that. I don't know that I have one.BREE:                   I know that with the task force when we first started our greatest fear is that nobody would pay attention or we'd write this report and it would sit on a bookshelf.CHRIS:Yeah.BREE:So that's not happening.CHRIS:That's not happening. My greatest fear is always, I've been around the legal profession for 20 years now and you see issues rise to the level of national discussion, and oftentimes then peter out. I think we collectively, I think we're both trying to build the infrastructure and the sustainability of the movement and the architecture of the movement so that it continues to be front and center, a front burner issue. I feel like we've done a pretty good job thus far but boy, once we let our guard down we could lose the momentum and we can lose momentum.PATRICK: Well, I couldn't agree more fully. I have no intention of letting that happen for my part. That would be fully antithetical to who I am at my core. So I'm going to keep pushing this as long and as hard as I can. Knowing that there are so many other people invested in this process, I think will probably overcome some of the what may have been long odds at the beginning, about whether you can really achieve a cultural change in the legal profession. I think we're getting there and we will ultimately get there.BREE:Patrick, you truly are making the profession a better one. So, thank you.PATRICK: Well, that's kind, Bree. Thank you.CHRIS:Yeah, it's been awesome. Again, we talk about awesome people doing great things. You are definitely in that camp and Patrick, we thank you so much for being on the podcast and being one of our first guests.PATRICK:                 That was great. Really good to chat with you both. I hope this podcast is just a tremendous success, as I'm sure it will be.CHRIS:Awesome. Well, everyone, be well out there. We'll be coming back with a podcast in a couple weeks. Thank you.BREE:Thanks, bye, everybody.

Bree and Chris welcome lawyer well-being pioneer Anne Brafford to the podcast, best known for her roles as author of Positive Professionals, co-chair of the ABA Law Practice Division’s Attorney Well-Being Committee, editor-in-chief and co-author of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being’s report The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change, author of the ABA’s widely distributed Well-Being Toolkit for Lawyers and Legal Employers and founder and principal organizer of Lawyer Well-Being Week, an annual event occurring every May. Transcript: CHRIS NEWBOLD:Welcome to the Path to Lawyer Well-Being, a podcast series sponsored by the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being, where we talk to cool people doing awesome work in the lawyer well-being space. I'm here with my cohost, Bree Buchanan.BREE BUCHANAN:Hey, Chris.CHRIS:And we're here with really one of the pioneers in our well-being space. It is always, I think, an honor to be the first guest of any podcast series and we are obviously thrilled to have Anne Brafford here with us. Bree, do you want to go ahead and kind of do a quick introduction of Anne, a dear friend of ours and again, somebody who's been doing incredible work on behalf of our profession.BREE:Absolutely. I'm delighted to introduce Anne Brafford, Anne, who is somebody I admire and who I genuinely like and I know that whenever I'm going to have a conversation with Anne, I will do it with a smile on my face. So, that goes for this podcast today too. Anne, thanks so much for being here today.BREE:So, Anne, just a little bit about her background, she started out in big law and spent some time there and then made a pivot over the course of her career and ended up going to the University of Pennsylvania and pursuing a master's in applied positive psychology and I can't wait to hear Anne talk a little bit about what is this positive psychology business.BREE:She has been a very prolific writer. She has published a book entitled, Positive Professionals. She's also been very involved in the lawyer well-being movement and has been a pivotal person. She's somebody when I think about the work that the National Task Force has done. But for her, we would not be where we are truly. She stepped into the position of editor in chief for the National Task Force Report and took seven or eight writing groups, very disparate styles and pulled it all together and added all the research and really made the report in many ways the incredibly preeminent document on lawyer well-being. And so, we owe so much to her.BREE:She's gone on to produce the ABA's Well-Being Toolkit, which is an open source document that has been downloaded and used by thousands. So, I don't want to just take all the fun away, Anne. So, I want to give people an opportunity to hear from you.BREE:One question we're asking everybody that's our guest, tell us what brought you to the lawyer well-being space. When I look at your bio, I see that pivot from big law over to pursuing that master's. Tell us a little bit about that, if you would.ANNE BRAFFORD:Yeah, good question. And thanks so much for having me as the first guest on the new podcast. And Bree, I always love speaking with you. And it leaves a smile on my face as well. So, this should be fun.ANNE:So, how I got into well-being, it's a long story that I'll try to make short. But it started as far back as I wanted to be a lawyer since I was 11 years old. That's when I first started saying I wanted to be a lawyer. And unlike so many of us, my childhood dreams came true. I actually kept the dream up, went to law school, which was pretty odd because I was the first kid in my family to even go to college, let alone law school.ANNE:So, when I got my law degree, it was really just one of the happiest and most proudest days of my life. And then I got a judicial clerkship and then I got this great job at Morgan Lewis Equity Partner. It was like, on the outside, everything looked really successful, and it was. I was very proud of my accomplishments.ANNE:But as I began getting a little bit older, I started questioning whether this was all that there was. Was I kind of living up to my 11-year-old dreams of what it was to be a lawyer, which is sort of impossible to do. But I kept asking whether is this all that I'm going to do in my one short life.ANNE:And so, really, it began to be a deterioration of meaningfulness for me. I became a lawyer because I wanted to make the world a better place. And I was an employment lawyer. As an employment litigator on behalf of defendants and I never felt bad about what I did. I thought I was protecting a law that really meant a lot to me, but wasn't enough.ANNE:And eventually, I couldn't answer yes anymore. And so, I ended up applying to get a master's of applied positive psychology from Penn while I was still practicing law thinking I was going to fix myself or fix my culture. I was going to fix something, so I could stay because I wasn't leaving.ANNE:But as I got more into it, I just started feeling a pull that I could either stay in law and kind of do this other well-being stuff part time or I could leave and really potentially make a bigger contribution to the legal profession by helping to make it a place where people have a whole kind of variety of backgrounds and interests can stay and be happy and thrive.ANNE:And so, I made a really hard decision of leaving law in 2014. And I kind of liken it to it was like tearing my arm off. I mean, it was a really hard decision.BREE:I'm sure.ANNE:Yeah. And then I resigned from my partnership position in the firm and then almost immediately started my PhD program in organizational psychology, which I'm still in the middle of. And so now, I focus entirely on the legal profession. But the individual organizationally, institutionally have really helping to use science, apply science to help make the profession, help it live up to its potential to be a place where lawyers can really feel like they're doing something good for society and also thrive themselves. And so, I didn't really leave the law. I'm contributing to the law in a different way now.BREE:I love that you've verbed thriving. That's great, thriving.CHRIS:Yeah. And I think it would be helpful for our listeners to, you've now been for the better part of five, six years, but even before that, what would be your assessment of kind of what the current state of lawyer well-being is. We know that the report was released three or four years ago, right? We think that that was a significant catalyst and a national discussion. It feels like we've been making progress but I just be curious on your current assessment of where we're at and what you think is on the horizon in terms of where we need to go.ANNE:Yeah, good question. I think it's, for me, I feel like it's a really exciting time to be in this area right now. And I've had this conversation with Bree as well. I think people who have been doing well-being legal profession for a while are feeling like there's movement now. We're starting to make progress in a way that's really exciting.ANNE:And I do think the National Task Force's report that came out in 2017 was a catalyst for that, that there already was so much talk and action going on in kind of small cells and that the report then really catalyzed thinking organizations around this idea of well-being.ANNE:And now, I don't think you can talk to a firm or a lawyer who hasn't thought in some way about your well-being and that was not true. When I was growing up as an associate, well-being wasn't talked about really at all. And it was sort of considered, it's your problem not mine, where I think now organizations are getting more onboard and saying, this is really a team effort that we are responsible to each other for this.ANNE:So, I think that's great progress. I think we're still at the very beginning though. I think, well, where I'm hoping to see the evolution will go to is from this individual level, which is really where the movement is primarily focused now. So, things like stress relief, meditation, resilience, these more individually focused programs, nutrition, physical fitness. These are a lot of the things that I see that firms are doing and I see at least around and that's fantastic. It's a great place to start. And it's probably the easiest place to start.BREE:Right, absolutely.ANNE:But I think, yeah, the next part of our evolution needs to be more organizationally where and I think firms are starting ... They're sort of at the beginning of that now. I'm seeing this as more widescale culture change that if we really want to promote well-being, we have to seriously look at the cultures that are recreating the ill health that we're seeing in lawyers, like what about the way that law firms, and I come from a law firm background, but when I say law firms, I really mean all kinds of legal employers. But what are they doing and not doing to support well-being and seriously, looking at their policies and practices. And how can we change those.ANNE:And I think then we also need to evolve to more of an institutional level. Or people raise their eyebrows when I say it, but even things about how our court system is run, how judges treat lawyers, how clients, inhouse clients treat their outside lawyers and how the outside lawyers treat their clients.ANNE:I was a litigator myself thinking about the judges, and multiple times and judges deny lawyers' request to move something because they had a vacation or they weren't feeling well, or judges just being disrespectful. And lawyers sometimes being disrespectful to judges as well.ANNE:But I do think it's an institutional wide challenge of how can we rethink our system so that lawyers can still be their best and do their best for their clients, but also be well themselves. And I think we've made great progress, but we have a long way to go.BREE:No kidding. Yeah. And I also talk a lot about the fact that it's not just individual lawyers that we're trying to get to change the way they go about their work, but it's the culture change, and that's really hard. And so, I know that when we were writing the report, there was discussion about what are sort of the levers of the legal system that we can push to try and bring about some shifts to this, and particularly around, you've talked about with legal employers. And I know that you currently go out and speak to major law firms on these topics and what they can do differently. Can you give us some examples of what a law firm, a midsize or large law firm could do to bring about some culture change so that well-being is prioritized?ANNE:Yeah, I think the first place for organizations to start, and I actually think it might be the number one recommendation the National Task Force Report, number one or number two, but it's about leaders. And I truly believe this. And my book that you mentioned when you're introducing me, Positive Professionals, that's really what it's focused on, leaders and law firms.ANNE:And by leaders, I mean, partners and anyone who is responsible for supporting and influencing others. And I think a lot of partners don't actually think of themselves as leaders if they don't have a formal leadership position, but they really are because they have such an impact on other people.ANNE:And the organizational science part of this shows that leaders really are the creators of culture. They are the most important lever when we talk about creating cultures and changing cultures. And so, often when I talk to firms, what I'm talking about is focused on partners and how they interact with associates. So, many of our firms, although this is changing, but many of our firms have not thought about doing any kind of sort of leadership development with their aspiring partners and their current partners. And so, we think there's many partners that want to be better, want to do better, but just have never had the skills, tools or training to do so.ANNE:And I so I think that is the first place to start of really talking to the partners about how their own kind of supervisory skills, but also with their role modeling to the associates and to not just associates, the staff and everyone around them that you can come out with the best well-being policy and your professional development people and your well-being director can have really good words to say. But if the partners aren't doing it, that's what everyone else is going to follow because they're what staff and associates and all the other lawyers, they want to do well. And so, they look to the partners to know what that looks like.ANNE:So, if say they see partners that are not sleeping themselves, that are typing emails in the middle of the night, that aren't taking vacation, that are rude to others, like that's the pattern that they're going to follow.BREE:Absolutely.ANNE:And so, it's one of the things that I always underscore when I'm talking to partners is that everyone is watching you very closely. The higher you get up into an organizational hierarchy, the more people are watching you, both for what is the value system here and what do you think of me.BREE:Right.ANNE:And so, although you might not think of yourself as any different, oh, I'm still the same Anne Brafford, I just have a new partner title, like nope, you're actually different because people are treating you differently, and your behavior has a much bigger impact on them both for their own well-being and for them watching what's valued.ANNE:And so, I think there are other levers, but I think that one is so important and such a challenge, that that's where we should just be focusing for a while.CHRIS:Anne, are you optimistic that the cultural elements that position those leaders to move the profession forward is going in the right direction, the wrong direction or there's generational things that are in play, right? There's societal factors in play. It certainly feels like there's more willingness for folks to be vulnerable, which is a probably a driver that could be really helpful in culture shifts within the professions. I'm just kind of curious on your outlook of how optimistic are you? And what do you think are the kind of the underlying drivers that could either accelerate or hinder our ability to engineer this shift?ANNE:I think I'm always optimistic.CHRIS:We know that of you.ANNE:But I would say that my experience is that organizations are still all over the map. I would say like the ABA has come out with a wonderful ABA Well-Being Pledge, where many organizations, especially law firms have signed up saying that they're going to really commit themselves to lawyer well-being.ANNE:And I would say, even within that group who have made a public commitment, they're all over the map, that some of them, it's nice window dressing, but everyone else is doing it. So, we need to do it to show that we care about well-being.ANNE:There's others that I would say really are trying to figure this out. So, I think that at least now they're interested and asking questions, even the ones that just have it as window dressing, that's progress. It's better than what it was before. Once you start making public statements about your commitment, you're much more likely to start taking action because people are going to start questioning you. And you also want to be consistent with your public statements.ANNE:So, I think I am optimistic, but I think there are many obstacles to getting to where we want to go. Just our billable hour system, which is going to take a really long time to change, is everyone knows it's a problem. I don't know that you could find a single law firm leader that says they like the billable hour structure, but just no one has found a way to change it yet.BREE:Anne, I think that you're a heretic for saying that, I mean. I mean, to go ahead and call it out, I get up and talk. And I usually don't do this in a big room because I'm just afraid what's going to happen but really, if I can get around to it, the billable hours, the 800, 8,000 pound gorilla in the room until we have some shift with that, it's going to be a hard time to really change culture.ANNE:It is and I'm with you. I don't often talk about it in large rooms. I talk about it in small rooms, but I will also say that the science on it, on number of hours worked is really interesting. So, there was a big study in 2014 led by Larry Krieger on what makes lawyers happy? Let's stop talking about only what makes them sad. So, what makes lawyers happy.ANNE:And their study found that number of hours alone was not related to well-being or happiness, but billable hours work were. The more that billable hours rose, the less happy that people became. So, you could have two lawyers working the same number of hours but have different levels of happiness based on whether one felt like they were doing it freely and autonomously because it was their own choice versus feeling like they were forced to because of billable hours.ANNE:So, there's this idea of a basic human need that we have is autonomy. And it supports intrinsic motivation, like am I doing this because I enjoy it, because it's my choice to be doing it. And it's highly related to happiness and energy and all sorts of well-being that we care about. And so, it's not just that.ANNE:I think when people think about billable hours, it's often, oh, because we're being overworked. And yes, there is a lot of overwork in the profession. That's absolutely true. But there's also it's just harmful cultures that it's [crosstalk 00:19:04] worst.BREE:Yeah. What are you billing your time doing, which can be really mind numbing and it gets back to that meaning piece.ANNE:Yeah. And do I feel like I'm just making up hours because I have to. Am I having to find work when I really need to go take a job just because I need billable hours rather than because I'm so engaged in what I'm doing. So, I think billable hours is a challenge for a number of problems. But firms tend to be extremely competitive. And when you get to the partnership level, the way compensation works, there's all kinds of issues. I think the billable hours is just kind of the tip of the iceberg. But I do think there are a number of the ways that have just been standard practice within the legal profession that are posing obstacles that they're going to be hard to change, but again, I'm ready remain optimistic. It's just not going to happen overnight.BREE:Yeah, and I just want to commend everybody, the study that Anne just mentioned, it's called What Makes Lawyers Happy by Professor Larry Krieger, and it's really a great piece of work and maybe we can get Larry on the podcast.CHRIS:Yeah. It's probably a good time to take a quick break here from one of our sponsors. What a great conversation. And again, thank you for being here. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. —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—BREE:Welcome back, everybody. We have Anne Brafford with us today, who is the founder and owner of Aspire and also has been a pivotal leader in the National Task Force and lawyer well-being movement across the country. And one of the things we're going to talk about with Anne in this part of the presentation is about her pivotal role as being a founder of Lawyer Well-Being Week.BREE:And Chris is going to talk to her about that in just a minute but Anne, really one of the reasons I wanted you to be our first guest is that you can really speak to a foundational component of our work, which is how we defined well-being. And in fact, I remember when we were writing, you, as the editor in chief, kept pulling us back to, okay, we need to define these terms. We need to substantiate what we're saying with data and studies and all of the 200 plus whatever footnotes that were in the report and really tying us back to science. So, could you talk a little bit about how we came about to define lawyer well-being? What does that mean?ANNE:Yes, so this was set out in the report. We had a couple of pages of just saying, okay, we're all wanting to talk about lawyer well-being, let's talk about what we mean. And I need to give a shout out to Courtney Wylie and Patrick Krill, the three of us are the ones who really did the research and debated with each other and then offered it up, proposed it to the whole National Task Force for acceptance.ANNE:But what we did initially was to look at what other organizations were doing, both like corporate organizations and also organizations like the World Health Organization and other large organizations and how they were defining well-being and how they were approaching it.ANNE:And the first thing that was obvious is that this was a multidimensional concept. It's not binary, you're well, you're not well. It's a continuum and has lots of different dimensions. And the other thing that the World Health Organization agreed with, thankfully, was that it was, well-being isn't just the absence of illness. It's also the presence of full well-being.ANNE:And Bree, you'll recall that I wasn't only harping about the evidence, I also was always wanting to remind us to not only focus on the absence of illness in our report. And understandably, that's where a lot of people tend to focus because that's important of when people's lives are really being harmed and ruined by alcohol use disorders and mental health. You want to focus there on just helping those people get better.ANNE:But there's so many lawyers in the profession that although they don't have a diagnosable illness, they're not fully well. And so, we wanted to capture the full continuum of well-being and all of lawyers no matter kind of where they were in the continuum. And so, that's how we define well-being of really making sure the first thing we noted is just like the World Health Organization, we are defining this to mean both sides of this, curing illness and also promoting full well-being and then the multidimensional concept of this involves both mental health, intellectual health, physical health, of all the different areas of our lives. These work synergy synergistically to make us fully well.ANNE:And then when you look at one of the big dimensions that is important to lawyers, all of them are, but it's occupational health. As lawyers, are we fully well and we define that. And that's an area where I have focused more on lately, like what do we really mean? And how do we measure it? And is it just again, like so many people will focus on things like burnout or depression, but what else is it?ANNE:If we're looking at optimal functioning, what we want to look at is yes, we want the absence of illness, but we also want things like engagement, job satisfaction, high performance, low turnover intentions, like people who actually want to stay and thrive here.ANNE:So, I think even just getting into each dimension, there's more that we need to understand and figure out how to measure so that we know whether we're making progress or not. But that's basically the gist.CHRIS:One of the pages that I'll refer to our listeners to is page nine of the report, which I think has just a wonderful graphic of the holistic dimensions that I think you cite, the emotional well-being, the occupational well-being, intellectual, spiritual, physical, social. And I'm curious and just because of how much scientific research that you've done in your work on the occupational side, you've done some work as part of your master's program on building the positive law firm. And what does some of the research kind of say out there with respect to that part of the well-being definition that I think that you're spending considerable amount of time really waiting into?ANNE:Yeah, so my master's capstone was on building the positive law firm. And then that was further expanded in my book, Positive Professionals. And there's a lot of dimensions to that. The first thing I already covered, which is the importance of good leaders because they create culture.ANNE:I think that one of the other things that it's so important in the legal profession that gets missed is that working hard isn't the problem. That people who are highly engaged and love their work, they work hard and they work a lot of hours, but failing to take time to recover, that's when the wheels can start coming off.ANNE:And so, I don't think that there's so much focus on lawyers work too hard. I think we should just turn it and say lawyers need to recover. Good lawyers are going to work hard. Anyone who loves what they do and are passionate about what they do are going to work a lot of hours. But thinking about how we recover and there's a whole body of research just on what are the best ways to recover.ANNE:And I talk about it a little bit in my book, but it's things like just sitting on a sofa and watching TV is not actually the best way to recover and actually conserve energy. So, one of the best things for lawyers, people who are very cognitively invested in their work, so lots of brain power, one of the best ways to recover is actually physical activity. It's very engaging. It makes your mind come off your work. And also, just physical movement is really good for both our brains and our bodies.ANNE:And the disengagement from work is a really important component of recovery, of finding something that will engage your attention. So, thinking about what are called mastery activities, so art, music, sewing, knitting, anything that will fully absorb your attention is a really good and important activity for recovery because it helps you disconnect a little bit from work and also has other sorts of great benefits.ANNE:And I don't think we can talk about recovery without talking about the importance of sleep, which I do think is a challenge. When I was a lawyer at my firm, it was honestly like people would sort of be competitive about how little sleep they have had for the week. And that's toxic. Those kinds of things have to change.BREE:Yeah, and I talk about that when I go out and speak to new lawyers and just talking to them about the importance of sleep and how everything that you need to do as a lawyer is not going to be online if you're not sleeping and there's no honor in bragging about being powered by Red Bull. You're not going to get the best work product.ANNE:I was one of those people, like I'm embarrassed by some of the things. Guys, if you would know me back then, some of the things that came out of my mouth ... I was one of those people. So, I totally get it. It is hard to change. I'm still recovering on that whole sleep is good sort of thing. And I read all the science, like I'm absolutely convinced, but there's just this draw of I have to get more done. So, sleep is a really important thing to work on in our organizational cultures.CHRIS:Let's spend a couple of minutes in talking about something that in your capacity as a leader of the ABA's Law Practice Division's Attorney Well-Being committee, you kind of hatched an idea knowing that we needed to continue to keep this issue front and center and that was Lawyer Well-Being Week, which we just enjoyed.CHRIS:Anne, I just love your perspective on why you felt like that week was so important to sustain awareness of this particular issue, what will you ultimately learn from Lawyer Well-Being Week in terms of the amount of activity, which I think was enormous and encouraging and why it's so important that we continue to keep this issue front and center?ANNE:Yeah, so, Lawyer Well-Being Week had been on my mind for several years and very excited that it finally came together. And there were a number of reasons why I thought it was important. One was that there were so many people that wanted to contribute in some way but didn't know how. And so, I wanted to create one event that was big enough and diverse enough for a lot of different people to contribute.ANNE:And then second is just what you said, Chris, of keeping attention this important topic that we've all seen kind of fads come and go in the legal profession that something is there's so much energy and attention around it for a couple of years and then we move on to the next thing.ANNE:And this well-being just can't be one of those things. We have to sustain this lawyer. Well-being is too important for it just become another fad. And so, creating an annual event to really focus attention around the idea, keep attention on it, create a time and space for more innovation, discussion around it, firms get to see what other firms are doing just based on social media and by communicating with each other.ANNE:And so, we had the first Well-Being Week was just this last May. Unexpectedly, we had a global pandemic occur. And we had to pivot pretty quickly. Firms and other organizations have been planning some really cool in-person events that hopefully they'll still be able to do next year, but everything had to go remote.ANNE:And I will say I was pretty disappointed. A lot of people were pretty disappointed. But in the end, I think the silver lining was that people were even more open to the idea of needing to care about well-being in the middle of this really difficult time.ANNE:So, although we couldn't do a lot of the programming that we wanted, it may have even been better in that people were so much more open to this message than they might otherwise have been. And so, there was lots of engagement involvement by bar associations, law firms, in-house departments because I think everyone has become interested in well-being but also they were looking for stuff to get out to their lawyers during this time that they knew a lot of people were struggling.ANNE:And I do hope it continues to be absolutely raising awareness. But I also really emphasize innovation of really thinking about how do we move this forward. The meditation sessions and resilience sessions are really important, but how can we push Lawyer Well-Being Week to get organizations to think more culturally and institutionally as well.ANNE:And I've gotten very positive feedback about it. And so, we're hoping that it continues and that it will be an annual event for many years and that we just keep making it better and better and find even better ways to serve the profession.BREE:Absolutely. And it's definitely a priority for the National Task Force for 2021. So, let's hope we can get together and enjoy that in person.BREE:Anne, because you're really are, and I mean this, and it's complimentary, but I really mean it, you are a visionary and a thought leader in the space. And so, I'm going to push you a little bit to think about how do we know that lawyer well-being is done? It's fixed. We can check that box. I mean, when we sat in the room, the original founders in 2016, we talked about that this is a project that will take at least 10 years because we had a sense that it was a really a lot of heavy lifting. But we didn't really break it down to what would the world look like?CHRIS:Yeah. What does success look like?BREE:Yeah, right, Chris, what does success look like in the lawyer well-being?CHRIS:You're a metrics person, too, so, this is even better.ANNE:Yeah. So, I actually think those were two different questions. And I think what does success look like is a different question than when will we be done, because I don't think we'll ever be done.CHRIS:That's right.ANNE:Because the profession will continue to evolve. The world will continue to evolve. People's values will continue to evolve. And so, what lawyer well-being means and how we get there will be a forever project.ANNE:But the urgency that created the National Task Force Report had a lot to do with ill being, which was the statistics that got all of our attention on the level of alcohol use disorders and mental health disorders. And so, alleviating that I think is job one.ANNE:And how do we know that we've succeeded? I've thought a lot about that just with respect to Lawyer Well-Being Week, how do we know we succeeded. And I think like one, more simple one is, have we raised awareness about the importance of this issue? And how would we measure that.ANNE:But then, have we decrease the incidence of alcohol use disorders and raised the incidence of people's willingness to seek help? And I think no organization yet has been doing broad scale regular surveying to measure that, for a lot of reasons.ANNE:But I do think like that those would be the kinds of measures that I would want to look at first because those are the things that are potentially ruining people's lives. And these aren't mutually exclusive. But then also looking at the more thriving aspects of well-being or do we have high job satisfaction, high engagement? Do people feel that their work is meaningful? Those kinds of things which there's measures for all of that.ANNE:So, I think those things are hard to get out. That's costly to do all those things. But I do think that's how I would measure it. But I don't want to undermine the importance of our people realizing that this is important, like have we got people's attention. And I think, on that score, we've made incredible progress.CHRIS:Yeah.ANNE:Whether we've made a dent yet in alcohol use disorders and mental health, I'm not sure but we have to have that first level of awareness before we get to the next and then next, are we getting to full thriving, are organizational cultures fixed or institution? I'm not sure what those measures are yet, but I think that's a longer way off.CHRIS:Yeah, the full thriving I think is really an interesting component because again, the opportunity for folks to pursue a legal career and find personal and professional satisfaction, so many of I think of our colleagues ultimately will find that they may have made a wrong decision.CHRIS:And one of the questions that I ask oftentimes when I get up the podium at a regional or a state bar gathering is, would you recommend that if your son or daughter or one of their close friends came to you and said, "Should I go to law school?" That generally the answer is a little startling of a lot of people saying no. And to me, that says something about the systemic nature of problems that people can't maybe find what they are actually looking for or there's a false sense of expectation on what they thought it would be like, versus what it ultimately is.ANNE:Yeah, I think it's all those things. Even though I've left law, I would actually say yes, go to law school. There are so many great things about being a lawyer, but also stay true to the reason that you're going to law school.ANNE:That Larry Krieger, who we mentioned earlier has done on work on the evolution of values for law students throughout law school. And what he finds is that law school culture is channeled lawyers toward, well, the brightest and best go to the big firms. And that's great. There are lots of great opportunities at big firms and if that's the right fit, do that.ANNE:But there are other people like maybe me, that when I had a different value system but I wanted to do what the best kids were doing.CHRIS:Yeah.ANNE:And so, I was actually going to be a prosecutor and was looking for internships with prosecutor's offices, and a professor came to me and said, "What are you doing? You have good grades, you should go to a big firm." And I'm like, "Why would I do that?" I said, "That's not what I wanted to do when I came to law school." And he said, "You can always go from a big firm to a prosecutor's office, but you can't do the reverse. So, just go try it."ANNE:And so, I did. And I got into employment law, which I really liked, it was super interesting. And then you just get carried away with like, whatever the next thing is, I'm going to get that, I'm an achiever like so many lawyers are.ANNE:So, I do think like, yes, be a lawyer. There are so many great things about being a lawyer. It's super interesting work. You can make a positive impact, but stay in the right lane. Do what you think you'll love in 20 years and not just what seems prestigious right now.CHRIS:Yeah. Well, Anne, in our last question that I wanted to pose to you is one of the things that we're so excited about is the growing army of folks who are passionate about this issue. And this podcast was developed for those particular folks who are leading state task forces, working on subcommittees at the state and local level. Just be curious on your words of wisdom as you get to kind of address an army of well-being advocates across the country, any thoughts about just this fight, this culture shift, any recommendations or motivational words to really an incredible growing number of people who are passionate about this issue?ANNE:Well, get involved in Lawyer Well-Being Week. And part of resilience is anticipating failure along the way and figuring out when you face those failures, what are the 10 or 20 different ways that you're going to get around those obstacles?ANNE:And I think that that doesn't sound very inspiring, expect failure. I think it's absolutely important to the cause that we're undertaking because there are so many obstacles. But it's so important. So, expect that this is a long road. Things aren't going to change tomorrow and really think about what those obstacles are. And when you have a failure, don't feel like a failure, that think of the 20 different ways that you can get around whatever that obstacle is.ANNE:And that's how I've approached it, that when I have a door closed or hear a no, I'm going different ways to get to my yes, maybe not as easily as or as quickly as I wanted. But this is a long game, this isn't a short game. And so, just keep at it and really engage, get connected with people who feel as passionate as you do so that we can all help keep our energy up.BREE:I want to point out to everybody, we've been talking about Lawyer Well-Being Week and if you want to learn more about that, go to the National Task Force website, which is lawyerwellbeing.net. And all of the information, the great materials and worksheets and ideas for well-being is still up there. And it's applicable throughout the year. And so, I'm hoping people will use that.CHRIS:Anne, thank you so much again for your leadership, for your inspiration, for taking risks in your personal life to become a leader in our movement, for the work that you're doing on the science side of well-being. I mean, we are truly fortunate to have you amongst us and being a leader in our movement. So, thank you for being our first podcast guest.BREE:Thank you.CHRIS:Really cool. And we will be back with the Path to Lawyer Well-Being podcast in a couple weeks. Again, our goal is to do probably two a month, where we'll bring more great guests like Anne into the fold and talk about specific areas of lawyer well-being. So, for me, signing off. Bree, any final closing thoughts?BREE:Just a delight to get to spend time with you, Anne, as always. Thanks so much.ANNE:Yeah. Thanks for having me.CHRIS:All right. Thank you. 

Join Dr. Hood as she talks to Stephen Juge, an elite international attorney, about the challenges of law school and the legal profession. In this, the first of a two-episode series, they will explore how the legal profession has developed into what many see as a highly competitive, win-at-all-cost profession. What does this type of system do to law students? What does it do to lawyers? What does it do to clients?In the next episode, they will discuss the landmark study done by Patrick Krill, The Betty Ford Center, and The Hazeldon Foundation and what that study and the subsequent studies done by the American Bar Association mean for the legal profession.

Part of a Law 2030 Series on the impact of COVID 19 on the legal profession. Anne Brafford and Patrick Krill discuss issues related to COVID 19 and attorney well-being. In this conversation, Anne and Patrick discuss: * Some of the pre-existing challenges lawyers face around mental health, substance abuse and well-being * Ways in which the COVID 19 crisis is exacerbating existing issues or creating new ones * Specific behaviors leaders can use to engage teams during a crisis and in a remote work environment * Some optimistic thoughts on how the crisis could lead to deeper appreciation for lawyer well-being and a renewed focus on elements of life that bring happiness

Mark Yacano chats with Patrick Krill about the American Bar Association and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s study on attorney mental health and how to raise awareness of mental health issues facing the legal profession.

How can we make real changes within the practice of law to lessen the impact of stress on individuals in this profession? In this episode of the ALPS In Brief Podcast, Chris Newbold checks in with Dallas attorney and advocate for wellbeing, Brian Cuban, to discuss the state of lawyer wellbeing now, the lifesaving impact one lawyer can have upon another, and our ethical responsibility to step up for one another.  CHRIS NEWBOLD:             Good afternoon. This is Chris Newbold, guest hosting today for the ALPS In Brief Podcast. And I'm here in our offices in Missoula, Montana with attorney and advocate for wellbeing, Brian Cuban, who's in here from the Dallas area. I just spoke at our ALPS bar leaders retreat, and we thought this would be a great opportunity for us to have ... We have a similar passion in terms of seeing our profession improve on the wellbeing side, and so I thought this would be a great opportunity for us to just kind of have a conversation about where the profession's at. Where do we need to go? And Brian, you're obviously out on the speakers' network, kind of talking about this particular issue, your personal experience, and so forth. I think I'd like to start with just you kind of putting into your own frame of reference. What is the state of the profession right now when it comes to attorney wellbeing? BRIAN CUBAN:                  It's a state that is a lot better than it was a few years ago. We have much more awareness. We have many more engaged professionals from the bottom up, the lawyers, the bar professionals, the local bar professionals, the state bar professionals. And we have awareness in big law. We have awareness within the boutique and the solo practitioner. There are areas that we can certainly do better, and we can certainly be more impactful, but we are definitely light years ahead of we were just three years ago. CHRIS:                                   And what do you think has driven that improvement in such a short period of time? BRIAN:                                  I think you have to give a lot of the credit to the ABA and the Betty Ford Hazelden Report, and that would also be Patrick Krill, who authored that report, in bringing the issue to the forefront with the staggering statistics, because I think that was a catalyst in really changing the conversation. Whatever people think of the ABA, you have different opinions, but you can't deny that that report was a seminal moment. CHRIS:                                   And why do you think that the issue right now is capturing a lot of attention in the legal community in legal circles? BRIAN:                                  Well, because of that report and because of the cumulative awareness, now we are looking around us and actually noticing what's going on. We may have been aware of what's going on, we may have seen what's going on. When someone dies by suicide, we are aware of it and we grieve it. But we are now much better in taking a look at that, and deciding where things could've been done differently. And three years ago, four years ago, it was more about just grieving and handing out, in the issue of suicide, handing out the 1-800 hotlines. Now we are moving beyond that, and really look at how we can make systemic changes to at least lessen the odds of those things occurring. CHRIS:                                   You talk a lot about kind of the impact that one lawyer can have on another lawyer. Right? And the responsibility that we have to not be kind of casual observers in this. Talk about that a little bit more as it relates to how we looked at, engineer a culture shift in the profession, and how every lawyer can make a difference one by one. BRIAN:                                  Sure. I talk a lot about not minding your own business. We have to create a culture where we are comfortable, or even if we're not comfortable. Let me step back from that because that's not comfortable. It's okay to be uncomfortable not minding your own business. That's a human emotion. But we have to get comfortable understanding that for what it is and taking that step anyways. When we see someone struggling, when we think we might be able to, or we are wondering, you just don't know. Is there a drinking problem? Is there a mental health struggle? Maybe the person's just having a bad day. To be able to not mind our own business for one moment, step outside of our struggles, step outside of our busy day, our billing, the things we have going on, and say, "How are you doing? Are you doing okay? Do you know that if you're not, you can come to me, and we can talk?" That doesn't require anything but empathy. And every lawyer, every person has that ability. CHRIS:                                   Is that a tough conversation for an associate to have with a partner? BRIAN:                                  Absolutely. And we have to follow protocols. Law firms need to establish protocols for when people are struggling. That is not realistic to expect an associate to confront a partner. But big law all have EAPs, so there's that. We all have lawyers assistance programs. Do you know as an associate, you can call lawyers assistance program, and you can let someone know what's going on? And they're not going to out you. I know that is a tough pill to swallow, and I know you don't believe that. But you can make that call. You do not have to identify yourself in any lawyers assistance program in this country, and you can say, "I'm in this firm, and I think this guy is struggling." And they will take it from there, so you can do that. BRIAN:                                  Within big law, we can talk about big law and then move on to something. Go down, go down. Within big law, it's important to establish protocols that are nonjudgmental, where everyone has a path. Everyone in the firm has a nonjudgmental path, a path that they feel safe voicing their concern if they see someone they think is struggling. So I can't tell them what that path is, but there should be multiple paths based on where someone is in the chain, right down to the clerk. CHRIS:                                   Talk about your opinions on ... There's an increasing body of work out there that says that the economics of wellbeing are conducive to a stronger bottom line. Right? And as we think about talent acquisition, talent retention, I know you work a lot in kind of big law firms. Right? BRIAN:                                  Mm-hmm (affirmative). CHRIS:                                   I think there's a really interesting play on the horizon for those who lead our profession from a big law perspective to be thinking about a commitment to this issue that could translate economically for the firm. Talk about that. BRIAN:                                  Absolutely. And I think, I doubt there are any managing partners, senior partners, firm CEOs are the real big ones that are not aware of that issue. It is the messaging is consistent just in general in society about the impact of addiction and mental health issues on the workplace and the economic cost. So the challenge becomes: How do we translate that into risk management? And I think they are starting to do that. That is not what I do. I'm a storyteller, I'm not a risk manager. But I think we are starting to see an industry, and people who do that, to go to a firm and say, "This is how we translate this into risk management to increase value to you," save you money. That saves the client money because on the most basic level, and we talked about the Peter Principle of Recovery. Right? How your level of competence keeps decreasing, and you keep trying to adjust your mindset to stay within that, you tell yourself you're at a high level when you're struggling. BRIAN:                                  That can be, in a general sense, stealing money from a client because you were not effectively representing the client. That is affecting the firm's bottom line, and that is the most basic level. When a lawyer is struggling, and not functioning at the non-struggling level, he may not even, or she may not even understand what that level is because they've been in the middle of it, lacking self-awareness for so long. That is affecting the firm's bottom line. That can affect client retention because there are lawyers out there who are not struggling. Everyone's trying to get the business. Right? So you have to maximize the ... You have to minimize the risk by putting lawyers in a position to succeed and to hit the top level of competence and move beyond that if possible. Keep raising that level. And it's hard to do that when someone's struggling with addiction, problem drinking, depression. BRIAN:                                  And I see lawyers all the time that talk about, well, I'm struggling with depression, but I was killing it, doing this. And I can't judge that. I don't know their situation. But I can say anecdotally, and what I see in the data, that I don't see how a person can look at the big picture, step back, and say, "I was going through all that and giving a dollar for a dollar." So I think all firms are aware of that, and I think that is achieved through a risk management model. CHRIS:                                   Again, it's going to be interesting too as big law tries to recruit talent out of the law schools, how much top talented students are actually looking for a wellness play in terms of the life, work balance that I think, generationally, I think is becoming more common. BRIAN:                                  That's a good question. I forget what the study was. Was it Am Law? Did the Am Law survey just come out? CHRIS:                                   Mm-hmm (affirmative). BRIAN:                                  And I couldn't find it. I think it may have been subsumed in one of the questions. But I reached out to Patrick Krill, who does a lot of the risk management stuff, and who authored the ABA Betty Ford Study, and asked him if he knew if we are surveying firms on wellbeing, if that is part of the survey. And I don't know that he had. I'll have to look and see if he responded, or he had an answer. But I think that may be not so much as a conscious play, but as a lifestyle play. It's just part of an overall lifestyle. Looking at the overall lifestyle, can we say that someone's going to say, "What's their drinking culture? I'm not going there"? There's no way to know that. But in the overall lifestyle play, I think lifestyle and wellness will become major factors, as Millennials and Generation Z, who have different priorities on what they want their life to look at as lawyers and as human beings. CHRIS:                                   Yeah. Talk more about, it's an interesting time in our profession given the fact that we have four separate generations all operating at the same time. Right? BRIAN:                                  Mm-hmm (affirmative). CHRIS:                                   But there are also studies out there, particularly those that have been done within the law schools, that say some of these behaviors and substance abuse and so forth are starting earlier, and are becoming more prevalent for those who have been in practice, particularly in private practice, for less than 10 years. As you think about that dynamic, and Millennials and so forth, that's soon going to be the largest chunk of lawyers in the profession. And as you think about the generational aspects of wellbeing, what's your take on that? BRIAN:                                  I think Millennials definitely have a different vision of what wellness looks like than ... I'm a baby boomer. The baby boomers, I come from, my lawyers' culture was a drinking culture. And I think when we look at things like the Sober Curious Movement, and what the Sober Curious Movement is, is not looking at drinking in terms of whether someone is a problem drinker, is an alcoholic, but what it looks like as a lifestyle, and as part of a healthy lifestyle, and whether you want it to be part of the healthy lifestyle without being judged on whether you're abstinent or not abstinent, and what that means to you, whether you're an alcoholic or you're not an alcoholic. I think Millennials and Generation Z are going to look at this differently in terms of just, I want to do the things that make me feel good, and that may not involve drinking. And I don't want to be judged for that. I don't want to have to explain myself. BRIAN:                                  And I think that is going to be a much easier transition and a much easier conversation than it is for my generation because it's beginning. It is beginning. The Sober Curious Movement is out there. We have bars within New York. There aren't any in Dallas and Austin. And you see a lot of the progressive towns, where you have bars, they just serve mocktails. And they revolve the fun around other things besides getting drunk. You go out and you're drinking fake pina coladas without alcohol. And they revolve everything around those, around the mocktails. The mocktail generation, they may be that. CHRIS:                                   That's an interesting one. If you had to assess right now, wellbeing in the legal profession, one being it's at an all-time low, 10 being, I think lawyers are both healthy, happy, engaged, where you put that on the spectrum? BRIAN:                                  I would put we're at a three or four, three or four. And that's great, and that's great. CHRIS:                                   A lot of room for improvement. BRIAN:                                  A lot of room for improvement. Four is opportunity. Right? CHRIS:                                   Yep. BRIAN:                                  Four is opportunity. Yes. And one of the biggest challenges I think we have, and if you look at big law, we with the ABA, and this isn't a criticism of the ABA at all. I think with the Wellness Task Force and everything, they have laid out the groundwork for all levels to participate, all stakeholders, solo, medium, boutique, the bar associations, all the way up to big law, corporate. I think they are laying out that groundwork. But I think when we get further down into the stakeholders, the solo practitioner, the small firm, we have a lot more work to do. And I think in that chunk is where we have the most improvement to do in our messaging, and the most opportunity because we have other challenges when we get down there. BRIAN:                                  If you work at big law, you have health insurance. And I knew big law lawyers who have health insurance, and still can't find a reasonable psychiatrist or therapist. They've complained to me about it. We have this health insurance crisis on so many different levels. And big law within the spectrum, you have privilege. You have health insurance privilege because you're going to have it. And you're going to have the EAP, and you're going to have this, and you're going to have that. BRIAN:                                  I don't know what the stats are, but I know anecdotally that a lot of the solos cannot afford health insurance. So when you can't afford health insurance, what are your options? You're going to 12 step. You are going to county. A lawyer don't want to go to county and get free treatment, that's very shameful. Right? If you even have that option as a reasonable option in your city. A lot of cities have terrible county free health services. And so we have that stigma of a solo practitioner and the medium, I don't have health insurance. I'm a lawyer, I'm not taking advantage of free. I can't. So they don't tell anyone. It's shameful. So how do we solve that? CHRIS:                                   Obviously, in our book of business with ALPS, we specialize in small firms and solo practitioners. And 65% of the policies that we issue are to solos. And they're generally a higher malpractice risk because they don't have a support network around them. BRIAN:                                  Absolutely. CHRIS:                                   You can't stop into Brian's office and say, "Hey. Let's have a conversation about this particular case." You have to build networks. You have to build connections in very different ways, which makes it I think, much more challenging. BRIAN:                                  And it does. And it's a challenge where you're struggling. It's going to be dependent on the particular situation. But you're making what would be decent money, you have a family. You can barely, after everything, then you care barely support your family. And you're more able to speak to this. You have a deductible that you can't meet anyways, even though you have health insurance. That's as almost as being uninsured. So we have all of those issues, and I don't know what the solution is to that. But that is one of the things that is a huge barrier to wellness within the profession, health insurance and the ability to pay for getting well, the ability to find people to get us well. We are becoming a cash only society in terms of wellness. BRIAN:                                  I consider myself very lucky because I have a psychiatrist, I've been seeing for 15 years, and he treats. I have one of the few treating psychiatrists out there with his therapy. But we also have the ghost networks that you may be familiar with. And I'm getting off on tangents, where you can't, even if you have health insurance, you can't find a treatment provider because they don't take insurance. CHRIS:                                   Where do we go? A lot of good activity now happening. You've got Pledge. You've got some state task forces going. Got a lot of discussion. Societally, we're seeing more vulnerability to talk about these issues, whether it's Hollywood stars, or sports stars, there's just more discussion, which I think is healthy. If we're a three or four right now, how do we get to a six or seven? How do we start to move the needle? Culture shifts in any society- BRIAN:                                  It's one person at a time. It's one person at a time. If you're talking, there's no magic pill to culture shift. We talked about this. It is one person at a time. There's one bar association at a time. There's one law firm at a time. And you hope, you hope, that the Malcolm Gladwell theories kick in, and you hit a tipping point. But it is much more, again, it is much more on different levels societal. If I can't afford treatment, what's the difference what the path is if I can't get there? Why should I tell anyone if I can't afford to get there? In Texas, we have a fund where if you go to them, a lawyer can get treatment. I believe it's an endowed fund privately. And maybe someone will correct me on this when they listen to it. But we have to find different ways to ... It's more than just laying the path. People have to be able to walk on it. BRIAN:                                  And if you can't afford to get the help, other than 12 step, and 12 step is great, Smart Recovery's great, Refuge Recovery is great, but they're all mutual aid. Mutual aid is not treatment. Mutual aid is maintaining connection, which is important. If you can't afford the treatment, and you have no way through that path, that's a huge problem that goes beyond the legal profession. When we talk about the legal profession, what we can do, I think we have to have a more societal view of that. How do we correct that? CHRIS:                                   Yeah. There's an interconnectedness to a lot of different- BRIAN:                                  You can't sever this. You can't sever out health insurance accessibility from all the other issues within the profession because most of the profession is solo and small. CHRIS:                                   And even on a tangent, one of the reasons I got involved in the wellbeing movement was I feel like there is a gap in expectations for what people think practicing law will be like, and ultimately what they find that it's going to be like, whether that happens in law school, or whether that happens because of law school debt. That again, to be a good lawyer, one has to be a healthy lawyer. And more and more, people are finding themselves boxed into a spot where they're actually doing something that they're not finding professional satisfaction in, which is then causing ... It can cause other things to kind of spin off from there. BRIAN:                                  I agree. I agree. Every lawyer is a story. Every lawyer is more than just the person under stress. Every lawyer brings their entire history of trauma, of however they grew up, family. CHRIS:                                   Family. BRIAN:                                  They bring it all through the door of that firm. They bring it all to the courthouse. So whatever that stress is may not just be the product of what's going on at that moment, the case, fulfilled expectations, unfulfilled expectations. It may be the product of a life story that has shaped someone that made them more susceptible to those issues. Does that make sense? CHRIS:                                   It does. BRIAN:                                  So we have to address the story and not just the moment that the lawyer is in. CHRIS:                                   Yeah. Anything else that you want to kind of relay as we talk to our policy holders and other interested listeners about just kind of the current state of attorney wellbeing? BRIAN:                                  If we want to change the paradigm of attorney wellbeing, for me personally, I think the most powerful tool is continue to encourage people to tell their stories. Keep telling the stories. Everyone identifies with aspects of other people's lives. There's going to be something to identify with. The connections, stories bring connection. Keep bringing people in to tell stories. Just encourage that. And I think through the power of storytelling, we will start to see more and more people tell their stories, and then they'll tell their stories. And I think that is how. CHRIS:                                   That reduces stigma. That reduces vulnerability. BRIAN:                                  That's right. I think as we reduce stigma, we will better empower lawyers to seek recovery. CHRIS:                                   Yeah. Brian, thank you. BRIAN:                                  Thank you. CHRIS:                                   We appreciate your time, and we appreciate your perspectives. And obviously, you're doing wonderful work in the storytelling side of the ledger because it's important that through the experiences of you and telling your personal story that it makes a difference. BRIAN:                                  I think law firms need to realize, and I think big firms are starting to do this, is creating a wellness program has different levels. There's storytelling. There is risk management. There is- CHRIS:                                   Scientific studies. BRIAN:                                  Yes. And there is the pure wellness aspect. How do we reduce stress? How do we become happier? What can we do to allow our lawyers, within the framework of our representation of clients, to feel better about themselves and what they do? Law firms are in a business. This is a business, and they are not yogis. We have to be realistic. Law firms are there to represent clients at the highest level possible. What holes do we need to fill to make that happen? Because that is what we do. We represent clients. And so we have to fill all these different gaps, the storytelling gap, the risk management gap, the wellness gap. CHRIS:                                   Got it. Again, thank you so much. And I hope you enjoyed listening to this podcast. As you know, ALPS is committed to being a leader in the wellbeing issues of the day affecting the legal profession. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you have any other ideas for topics on the wellbeing, please let us know. Thank you.   Brian Cuban, the younger brother of Dallas Mavericks owner and entrepreneur Mark Cuban, is a Dallas based attorney, author and addiction recovery advocate. He is graduate of Penn State University and The University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Brian has been in long term recovery from alcohol, cocaine and bulimia since April of 2007. His first book, Shattered Image: My Triumph Over Body Dysmorphic Disorder,” chronicles his first-hand experiences living with, and recovering from, twenty-seven years of eating disorders, and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). Brian's most recent, best-selling book, The Addicted Lawyer, Tales of The Bar, Booze, Blow, & Redemption is an un-flinching look back at how addiction and other mental health issues destroyed his career as a once successful lawyer and how he and others in the profession redefined their lives in recovery and found redemption. Brian has spoken at colleges, universities, conferences, non-profit and legal events across the United States and in Canada. Brian has appeared on prestigious talks shows such as the Katie Couric Show as well as numerous media outlets around the country. He also writes extensively on these subjects. His columns have appeared and he has been quoted on these topics on CNN.com, Foxnews.com, The Huffington Post, Above The Law, The New York Times, and in online and print newspapers around the world. Learn more at www.briancuban.com.

Are you a jerk partner? If so, we’re betting there’s a supervising attorney in your past whom you’re channeling. In today’s episode, we're focused on the cycle of dysfunction in which terrible-boss behavior is passed down from generation to generation inside law firms. To talk about the phenomenon are Kathleen Pearson, chief human resources officer at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and Patrick Krill, founder of Krill Strategies, a consultancy that works with law firms on mental health and substance abuse issues.

This episode debuts a series of conversations between Akin Gump chairperson Kim Koopersmith and thought leaders in and around the legal industry. In this episode, she speaks with Patrick Krill, an authority on addiction and mental health in law firms. Among the topics covered: what a 15,000-lawyer survey revealed about mental health distress well-being in the workplace the importance of early intervention. For more information on Akin Gump, please visit the Our Firm page on akingump.com.

Some people diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder need prescription stimulants to function at the best of their abilities. But there are others who don’t have the diagnosis, but take the medicine illegally because they think it will help them perform better. It's a problem that law schools and the legal profession need to become more aware of, says Patrick Krill, an attorney and licensed and board-certified alcohol and drug counselor. Krill speaks with the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward about the extent of the issue and the dangers of illegal prescription stimulants. Special thanks to our sponsor, LawPay.

Some people diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder need prescription stimulants to function at the best of their abilities. But there are others who don’t have the diagnosis, but take the medicine illegally because they think it will help them perform better. It's a problem that law schools and the legal profession need to become more aware of, says Patrick Krill, an attorney and licensed and board-certified alcohol and drug counselor. Krill speaks with the ABA Journal's Stephanie Francis Ward about the extent of the issue and the dangers of illegal prescription stimulants. Special thanks to our sponsor, LawPay.

Baker Hostetler lawyer Lynn Garson talks with Law.com columnist Patrick Krill about building a successful career while managing depression. In Part 2, LeeAnn Black of Latham & Watkins discusses what her firm is doing to dispel the stigma of mental health challenges. Legal Speak is brought to you by Econ One, offering economic expertise, consulting and dispute resolution, and data analytics.

Recent research indicate that lawyers are at a higher risk for anxiety, substance abuse and depression than those in the general population. This susceptibility begins in law school and eventually has an impact on society by affecting people who rely on lawyers to manage their everyday legal problems. This episode will speak with a range of access to justice advocates about status and mental health in the legal profession. Patrick Krill, Principal and Founder of Krill Strategies Doron Gold, Staff Clinician Homewood Health Yukimi Henry, Manager, Academic/Personal and Wellness Coordinator at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law Resources Member Assistance Program https://www.lsuc.on.ca/map/

Patrick R. Krill, JD, LLM shifted from the practice of law to addiction counseling at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. In partnership with the American Bar Association, Krill collaborated on a study of substance abuse among members of the legal community surveying approximately 15,000 lawyers in 19 states. Mark was able to sit down with Patrick to discuss the study and what can be done to combat addiction and promote lawyer well-being moving forward with a particular focus on solo attorneys and young lawyers. This is the second episode in the Wellness Podcast Episodes. ALPS In Brief, The ALPS Risk Management Podcast, is hosted by ALPS Risk Manager, Mark Bassingthwaighte.   MARK:                  Hello. Welcome to another episode of ALPS in Brief, the ALPS risk management podcast. We're coming to you from the ALPS home officer in the historic Florence building in beautiful, downtown, Missoula, Montana. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the ALPS risk manager, and I have the pleasure today of sitting down with Patrick [Krill 00:00:25]. Patrick has been involved with the National Task Force for Lawyer Wellbeing, and we've been having some podcasts on lawyer wellbeing, and it's really a pleasure to have Patrick with us. Patrick, can you take a few moments and just introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about yourself. PATRICK:             Sure, sure, Mark. Thanks for the invitation to join you today. Quickly, my background is that I'm a former practicing attorney who after about seven and a half years in the profession, realized that I was, as many people at some point in their career do, I was looking for something else and so I made the not easy decision to return to school and I actually pursued a Masters degree, earned a Masters degree in addiction counseling. I knew that counseling, something in the sort of psychology field, was a little bit more aligned with what I was trying to do and what I was seeking in my professional journey to be more in a helping profession. So I got my Masters in addiction counseling and I did my clinical training at a place called Hazelden, which has now become Hazelden Betty Ford, as the two treatment centers merged, and I was then hired as the director of a treatment program for attorneys, judges and law students at Hazelden Betty Ford. I was with that organization in total for about six or six and a half years, during which time I had the opportunity to counsel hundreds of lawyers and judges and law students from US and some international patients as well, who were struggling with substance use disorder, so what we would typically think of as addiction or substance abuse, but often they were also struggling with a mental health disorder as well, like depression or anxiety. And so I really did, through that work, have the opportunity to understand many of the challenges that lawyers face both in the onset of addiction and depression, but also in what will be probably interesting to your listeners, how do you go back into the practice of law and really maintain whatever wellbeing you may have established while you were away, healing and getting well. Because, as you know, the practice of law is quite demanding and it can be quite stressful and it can put a lot of strains on people. So I was there and I then I left there in 2016 to launch my own consulting practice and I now work primarily with large law firms and midsized law firms to help them navigate addiction and mental health problems. So whether that's helping them draft policies, or doing in-house training school, or when crises emerge, helping them deal with those crises. It's a variety of things that I do in that space, but it's all related to addiction and mental health. That's where I've been professionally and what my experience looks like. In relation to that, I'll just mention quickly two things, I was the lead author of the 2016 ABA Hazelden Betty Ford study on addiction and mental health problems in the legal profession, which gave us the most robust look at these issues in terms of data that we've ever had. It was a comprehensive survey of about 15,000 lawyers in 19 states and all geographic regions of the country. What we found there really did lay the groundwork or served as the predicate for the second thing that I wanted to mention, which was the National Task Force on Lawyer Wellbeing in the report published, that group was formed largely in response to what that ABA study found. From there, we then brought together stakeholders from around the profession, formed this task force and worked for about a year on a report that outlines things that all different sectors of the profession can be doing to try and reduce the prevalence of both substance abuse problems and mental health problems and to just sort of improve the overall wellbeing of lawyers and the profession generally because, I'll just conclude by saying this, the quick and dirty or thumbnail version of where we are in the legal profession, is we have a lot of problems as it relates to the health and wellbeing and psychological distress of practicing lawyers. So we've got a lot of work to do. MARK:                  Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I have taken a look at the study, the Hazelden study you referenced and authored, incredibly well done. I have been doing some lecturing on it in recent times, and what one of the surprises for me was ... I've been in the risk management sector here for 20 years now, and we've been doing our part, there's lots of us involved in trying to deal with mental illness and addiction issues, and I always thought that we were making progress, but if there's anything that I learned from the Hazelden study is over the past 20 years, it seems to me the problem has gotten more severe. I was really surprised by that, looking at older studies and data sets, so you are absolutely spot on, we've got a lot of work to do. I think the task force is a great place to start. Can you tell us a little bit about the work being done in the area of lawyer assistance and impairment? Where is the task force taking us? PATRICK:             Sure, yeah. So what the task force report did, really, it broke out recommendations for various stakeholders in the profession. So for example, there is a set of recommendations for the judiciary, things that they can be doing within their own sphere of influence to improve lawyer wellbeing, there are recommendations from law schools, there are recommendations for professional liability carriers, legal employers, lawyer assistance programs, and it's meant to provide tangible, concrete recommendations that each of these different groups can look to and begin to incorporate in their own world. There are also general recommendations for the whole profession to try and reduce the level of incivility and toxicity in the profession, which as you might imagine, feeds into depression. It can also feed into substance abuse in the form of self medication. Just as a quick aside, I can tell you that a lot of the patients that I treated in my program would report that they never really even liked drinking that much, or certainly it was never their intention to find themselves addicted to alcohol or drugs, but it was really self-medication. It was the only way that they knew how to blow off steam. It's just a form of dealing with psychological distress and then it turned into its own problem. We know that that's a real phenomenon in the legal profession specifically. But beyond there, beyond that, there are other recommendations for the profession, for individual stakeholders. I would encourage anybody listening to this podcast to simply Google or perhaps you can publish it as a companion to this podcast or otherwise circulate through  your listeners, the task force report, it was published ... Open access, there are no restrictions on its use, you can copy it, distribute it, do whatever you want with it, there's no restriction at all on that. I would encourage people to take a look at it and see what they might be able to take from it and bring into, for example, their own local bar association or their own other professional group that they might belong to in the profession. So it's just out there in the public domain for lawyers to begin incorporating. But beyond that, there are also formal efforts underway at the state level, to bring the recommendations down from the national, to the state, to the local. So for example this past week I was at the National Conference of Bar Examiners Annual Meeting and I was on panel with a couple of my task force co-authors, and we were surveying the audience, there were about 40 or so chief Justices from jurisdictions around the US in attendance at our session, and we were surveying the audience, and it's clear that in more than a dozen states around the country, the chief Justices are taking the lead on this initiative and they're saying we should form a statewide task force to look at implementing these recommendations at the state level. They really are trying to filter it down in their jurisdictions. And those states that aren't already forming their own internal, if you will, task forces, are being encouraged to do so, and I'm sure that a lot more are going to be coming online over the course of the next 12 to 18 months. That's how you can visualize this, if you will, changing the culture of the profession, which is what we set out to do. It was this national report intended for the whole US legal profession, all of the different sectors and stakeholders. But now in terms of implementation, since there isn't one national body that, for example, controls the profession, it really does come down to statewide and then even local implementation of the report recommendations. MARK:                  I will see that we get a link to that for our listeners. We definitely will post that with the blog. As I listened to what you're talking about, you made a comment about transitions, and I'd like to explore that briefly in this way, what do you think, if you will, the roadblocks long are as a profession, has there been much discussion or look at that? How do we remove the roadblocks to the degree that you see them? PATRICK:             Yeah. Well, I mean that was also one of the goals of this task force report to suggest some things that we can do. I can tell you my view, which is also consistent with the task force view, is that one of the biggest roadblocks that we have to lawyers to taking care of themselves and getting help when they need ... Let's just frame the issue more specifically, let's focus, just for now, on the more narrow issues of addiction and mental health problems. When it comes to those specific issues, when lawyers are struggling or they think they may be struggling, what keeps them from raising a hand or reaching out, picking up the phone, trying to get some sort of help, telling a colleague they're struggling, is a fear of what that's going to do them professionally, a fear that it could jeopardize their reputation, jeopardize their clients, possibly it could somehow impact their license, and so there's just a lot of fear around these issues. That's why lawyers tend to try to deal with the problems by themselves, on their own, or to just ignore the problems and pretend like they're not there. So to the extent that we can change that culture, that we can begin to destigmatize seeing a therapist, destigmatize going to treatment, destigmatize being in recovery from addiction or having overcome depression or chronic anxiety, that's going to go a long way towards improving the landscape around these issues. That's one area that we need to work. The other is really chronic, the chronic stress and the demands of the profession. Now, some of that is probably not likely to change, I mean if you think about client demands, if you think about the expectation of being available all the time that technology has now brought into our lives, some of that is just ... I don't have easy answers for how you solve that, but what we can do is to try to reduce the level of toxicity and incivility amongst and between ourselves. If we, as a profession, begin to just be a little bit more civil and maybe take a little bit of the adversarial nature out of our adversarial system, that, again, could reduce some of the stress and anxiety that lawyers experience which leads to other problems. MARK:                  In my experience, again, in terms of reading various articles and studies, lots of this initially is directed to Bar Association, directed at large firms, these kinds of things, but the reality is a tremendous percentage of lawyers practicing, at least in the United States here, are in the solo law firm setting. Do you have thoughts or does the report in terms of the recommendations ... Do they address this segment? If so ... I just, again, I'm curious of your thoughts, how do we deal with the problem on the front lines of the solo, small firm setting? PATRICK:             Yeah. Well, I think you're absolutely right, the majority of lawyers don't practice in large or really firm of any size settings, and they are in fact solo or small firm lawyers. The report doesn't include solo practitioners as a stakeholder, if you will, for the reason that it was really geared towards institutions rather than individuals because the thought was about making change at the system level, the systems of the profession. That said, I know that lawyers who are in solo practices or small practices, they often face really, really ... The burdens they face are greater than lawyers practicing in larger farms and the challenges they face in terms of being able to take care of themselves are also sometimes greater. For example, if you're a solo practitioner and you're addicted to alcohol and you know it's causing a problem and you know you should probably get some help, you just can't go away or you don't have the resources, you can't take time away from your practice, you don't have anyone to help you, that's a real challenge. Similarly, if you're in solo practice and you're struggling with depression, you don't have somebody that you can offload some of your work to for a period of time so there are real logistical challenges that solo attorneys face that aren't present in the bigger firm setting. Unfortunately, in that arena, we don't have resources that are as robust as they should be systems. We have lawyer assistance programs in most states around the country, have a lawyer assistance program that is in some ... Some of them are very well developed and very well staffed and they have great programming, others in less populous states, they might be just a less effective resource because they don't have as large a staff or they don't really have the ability to serve as many lawyers. But that's one place that solo practitioners have historically been able to find some assistance when they don't have the resources to come along with being a larger firm. So to the extent that anyone out there is not familiar with your state's lawyer assistance program, I would encourage you to explore it because they may in fact be a really good resource for you and have some, if not, live counseling sessions that they would offer or groups that they may facilitate that you would be able to attend. Chances are they're going to at least have the ability to direct you to other resources and to provide content and just put you on the right path. MARK:                  Yeah. I want underscore for listeners that these programs are confidential. PATRICK:             Yes. MARK:                  I think at times people are afraid to reach out. Again, as you mentioned earlier, I don't want to be labeled mentally ill or something like this, but the resource that you're talking about here, in many, many states, is really a very good resource. It is not about weeding out the week among us, it is about helping, those of us that have these challenges and struggles to get back on track and to get back into the profession in a stronger, more competent, healthy way. So I think, again, to those of you listening, if you're personally struggling with a problem or know someone who is, please don't minimize the value of this particular resource. PATRICK:             Yeah, I agree with that and I just want to pick up quickly on something you just said about it getting back on track. I've worked with a lot of lawyers who have gone through the rehabilitative process, and if I haven't worked with them professionally, I've known them, and you really can come out, not only as good as you were before, but better. So you can have increased confidence, and increased performance, and focus, and reliability, and stamina, and clarity, I mean there's just so much value in getting ahead of the problem and doing something about it and getting some assistance. It is, by no means, is it an indication of a weakness or a flaw. In fact, I think that getting help and saying I need some help, I need to take care of myself for a period of time, that is in fact demonstrative of good judgment, and that in my view, makes you more professional. MARK:                  The last brief topic or issue I'd like to talk about is when I think about, again, the solo, small firm setting in terms of the majority of lawyers practicing here, and also just thinking about some of the data in the study, which surprised me, and that's that younger lawyers are really struggling, even in the law school setting. It seems to me  that that in terms of the institution or an institution that can really assist in changing this long-term, I mean this isn't going to happen overnight, but is working with law schools to change some things, is there anything going on in that arena, in that space? PATRICK:             It is, and you're right, because that is essentially the beginning of our professional journey and that is also where a lot of the problems start, it's where a lot of the mindset really takes hold that if you have a problem you better keep that to yourself. So there is a lot happening at the law school level there within the American Bar Association's commission on lawyers assistance programs, which I'm a part of, we have a lot of energy devoted to facilitating change in law schools, but I know a lot of individual schools are beginning to take a long, hard look at this. Some schools are being forced to, Harvard Law School, for example, which is arguably where some of the best and brightest lawyers in the country, they recently published a study on the health and wellbeing of their own law students because the students forced the administration to conduct the study because they knew that there was a lot of distress happening all around them. The results of that were pretty, in their words, grizzly, and so the students themselves are beginning to wake up to these issues and they're really tuning in to the increased focus on lawyer wellbeing and they're saying, this isn't what I want for my professional life, this isn't what I want waiting for me after the end of three years and all of this hard work. So there's change happening at the grassroots level there, which I think is very encouraging because that is where the change needs to start, because if you come into the profession, law school is a transformative process, it changes the way people think, it changes their attitudes around things like substance use and mental health, and it really kind of makes them view their reputation as being more important than anything else. If we can start chipping away at some of that problem thinking, that's going to do a lot of good for the younger generation. MARK:                  Well, Patrick, I really, really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today and I really wish tremendous success for you and your fellow members of the task force. We're off to a great start. I should say you're off to a great start, and it seems like we're getting some real traction more and more at a grassroots level, and I really hope that that continues. To our listeners, I would like to say thanks for listing in yet again. If in future you have a topic of interest that you'd like to see discussed on the blog, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at mbass@alpsnet.com. That's a wrap. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye.  

Multiple surveys conducted by the ABA have identified an elevated risk of anxiety and substance abuse within the legal community. In this episode of On Balance, hosts JoAnn Hathaway and Tish Vincent talk to Patrick Krill about anxiety and substance abuse within the legal profession including relevant studies and resources for both lawyers and employers that help cultivate wellbeing in the workplace. They also discuss the common issue of lawyers and law students being unwilling to ask for help and what the industry can do as a whole to address this issue. Patrick Krill is director of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation Legal Professionals Program. In that role, he helps addicted attorneys, judges and law students to prepare for and overcome the distinctive challenges they face in their recovery from chemical dependency. Mentioned: The Path to Lawyer Well Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change

In this episode, I am excited to have Harvey Freedenberg on to talk about how a daily meditation practice can revolutionize how you perceive the world and potentially help your firm. Harvey Freedenberg is Firm Counsel at the law firm of McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC, a firm of approximately 135 lawyers in Harrisburg, PA. He will soon be retiring after 40 years of practice that included insurance defense, general commercial and intellectual property litigation. Since August 2015, he's been engaged in a daily mindfulness meditation practice. He's participated in a week-long retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, and has completed an eight-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course. Topics Covered Harvey goes into both how he found himself practicing meditation daily and the benefits of his retreat and the MBSR course he is completing. How he went about introducing his firm to his meditation practice and how they received it. What the benefits that lawyers can see personally, professionally, and health-wise are when they adopt a consistent meditation practice. He also dives into his past work in loss-prevention work for his firm and how a healthy meditation practice could help curb incidents in firms. Harvey talks about resources he would recommend to lawyers who want to start meditating or improve their meditation practice. For more information on Harvey, find him at: Twitter: @HarvF Sources mentioned: https://www.headspace.com/   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 Harvey Freedenberg: [00:00:01] There's really no separation between what you're experiencing sitting on the cushion or on a chair, and the experience that you might have stopped at a traffic light or talking to a colleague about a case, or dealing with a family member. Intro: [00:00:18] 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: [00:00:40] Hello my friends, thanks for being with us today. In this episode, I am so happy to have Harvey Freedenberg, who is the firm counsel at the law firm of McNees Wallace and Nurick, which has approximately 135 lawyers, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He will soon be retiring after 40 years of practice that included insurance defense, general, commercial, and intellectual property litigation. Since August 2015 he has been engaged in daily mindfulness meditation practice. He's participated in a week-long retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn, I am totally jealous by the way, at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies and has completed an eight-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course. We have lots of things in common and to talk about, so I'm really excited. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:01:30] Thank you, and I'm happy to be here. It's really a pleasure when we've interacted on social media. But this will be the first time we'll have a chance to chat so I'm looking forward to it. Jeena Cho: [00:01:37] Yeah, thank you so much. So I'm curious, what led you down this path of practicing mindfulness? Harvey Freedenberg: [00:01:46] Well it was something that I had dabbled with years ago, and didn't really have any kind of understanding how to go about it. I would say it was probably in the 1990's, and I was one of those people who tried it a few times and thought that the goal was to make my mind blank. And when I couldn't do that I sort of put it aside. So as you said, a little over two years ago in August of 2015 I had just read an article in The New Yorker magazine about the Headspace app. And reading that coincided with a period in which I had a couple of cases that were causing me quite a bit of angst, shall we say. And I thought, you know I'm going to give this meditation a try, to see if I can turn to this to perhaps relieve some of the stress I was feeling from this litigation; it was a couple of particularly contentious cases. So I downloaded the app, which offers 10 free ten-minute sessions, and I have to say I was pretty much hooked from the first session. I gained a pretty quick understanding of how the process of meditation was supposed to work, with the guidance of Andy Puddicombe, who was the one of the founders of Headspace. And the timing was right and it just clicked for me. And I've continued as you said on a daily basis since that time, which was late August of 2015. So it's now been about 27 months. Jeena Cho: [00:03:23] Yeah, I want to also give a shout out to Headspace. It's such a wonderful program, and I think what it's really excellent at doing is making it a part up your daily diet, just like brushing your teeth. And I think the way that Andy guides you through the process and really explains what meditation is all about, because I think so often there is that misconception that meditation means that we sit quietly and that our mind goes blank. And then when of course that doesn't happen and there's lots of thoughts and sometimes very distressing thoughts, then we become discouraged and say I'm not doing this correctly. And of course as lawyers we are very much focused on doing things correctly. Now I'm using my air quotation marks here. So I am a huge fan of Headspace. Do you still use it? Harvey Freedenberg: [00:04:11] Yes, I still use it. I have been through all the packs as they call them, which are basically structured courses that run either 10 days or 30 days around a given topic. So for example, there's one on stress, there's one on anxiety. There are a number that they started last or I guess earlier this year on various sports and fitness activities. And you work through those on a day-by-day basis and they are all organized around that theme. So yeah, I'm finding that very useful. And I've branched out into other guided, unguided meditation. As you mentioned, I've been to a retreat, which I'm happy to talk more about. [00:05:00] But that was really the door that opened it for me, and since that time I've recommended it to a number of attorneys in our office. My brother has become an avid meditator as a result of my telling him about it. So it's something that I think is a good entryway for people who might be on the skeptical side about whether or not they can meditate. Jeena Cho: [00:05:25] Yeah I think it is a really great doorway for entering into your own mind, which is what meditation is all about. Did that happen before or after you took the MBSR course? Harvey Freedenberg: [00:05:43] The retreat was before, I'm actually just finishing up the MBSR course right now. That sort of grew out of the retreat. I decided I would say after about a year or so that I wanted to have a retreat experience, and I was familiar with the Omega Institute from a couple of friends of mine who had attended other programs there. It's located about a four hour drive from Harrisburg, so it was very convenient. And I had read a couple of Jon Kabat-Zinn's books, "Wherever You Go, There You Are," "Coming to Our Senses." And if I have ever anyone who I consider a sort of meditation and mindfulness mentor, I would say he would have to be that person. So when I saw there was an opportunity to study with him and with his son, I jumped at it. So by the time I got to the retreat, which was in May of 2017, I had about 21 months of daily meditation. [00:06:50] So I considered myself a fairly experienced meditator. It was when I when I got to the retreat (this was not a silent retreat by the way, although significant portions of it were silent, so during periods at meals or when we were not actually engaged in practice) I talked to a number of people who had been through the MBSR, the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course, and that got me interested in taking the course. And I found that there was an instructor here in Harrisburg that was offering that course, so it was convenient for me to take it and I started in October this year. [00:07:28] So the retreat was just a way of I thought deepening and strengthening my practice, and it was it was quite valuable. It was a different experience from sitting down and meditating 15 or 20 minutes first thing in the morning, which is the typical practice that I have. We were meditating from 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. until about 9 in evening, with breaks of course. There was yoga, there was both sitting and walking meditation. There were discussions in the group, so it was a pretty intensive experience. Again, not as intensive as a silent retreat, but certainly something that gave me more of a foundation in a meditation practice. Jeena Cho: [00:08:20] Yeah. What did you learn or when I say what did you get out of the retreat I don't mean you go to get something out of it. But what did you realize, what did you learn about yourself, or what insights did you gain? Harvey Freedenberg: [00:08:37] Yes that's striving, if you're going to get something out of it you're striving, which was something we were cautioned against. Well I think that is the largest takeaway I got from that retreat was that meditation is really about life. That as John repeatedly said, "You're not here to learn how to do some trick or to operationalize a technique." It's so much more than that, and that everything that's happening in that retreat experience and of course you hope when you walk out of it and come back to your daily life, is part of a mindfulness practice. [00:09:32] And there's really no separation between what you're experiencing sitting on the cushion or on a chair and the experience that you might have stopped at a traffic light, or talking to a colleague about a case, or dealing with a family member. So it's kind of a seamless integration. I would say that was the strongest takeaway that I took from that experience. Jeena Cho: [00:09:58] Yeah, what a delightful realization that mindfulness is not something that you do here, and then there's the rest of your life; that it's really an integrated experience. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:10:13] Right. And that's one of the biggest challenges, is to take the experience that you're having, of sitting in silence and watching your thoughts, of not reacting to them, letting thoughts go as they're going through your mind, focusing on your breath; that's the kind of meditation and I'm doing. Translating that experience into your daily life when you get up out of the chair and you have to go to work or some other activity, that you need to have those reminders that this should be seamlessly integrated with your life. Jeena Cho: [00:10:58] Yeah, definitely. Have you tried to take this work or this practice to your law firm, and if you did how was it received? Harvey Freedenberg: [00:11:07] I did. I have, and I've been very pleased with the results. There's a little bit of a backstory that. Your book has something to do with that, "The Anxious Lawyer" which I was very excited about. I don't remember when I first read about it, but I remember I was meditating at the time, and as soon as I saw this book was coming out I placed my order for it. So I had it on the day it was published, and I read it very avidly. And I recall you and Karen Gifford, your co-author, did a series of webinars, I think it was in conjunction with the National Association of Women Lawyers, I think that was the name of the organization, right? So I participated in those, I think that was in the fall of 2016. And one of the nice benefits was that you kindly gave everybody who was in the seminar two copies of the book. So I had the copy I purchased, and I thought you know this would be a good introduction to mindfulness meditation to lawyers in the firm. So I sent out a firm-wide e-mail and I said, I have two copies of this book and I included a link to the Amazon description so they could read a little more about it. I said I'll raffle these off, send me an e-mail if you're interested. We have about 135 lawyers at our firm, I think 30 lawyers responded; roughly a quarter of the firm. And I raffled them off and I thought, well there's some interest here. [00:12:53] And sort of on a parallel track with that, again this was in 2016. One of the things that I do as part of my responsibility as firm council is to attend an annual meeting that our malpractice insurance company holds every June, because part of my duty is lost prevention. So I handle the ethics issues and I also deal with preventing claims against the firm and if necessary, defend those claims. And there were a couple of things that happened at that meeting. One was a gentleman named Patrick Krill, who you might be familiar with. Jeena Cho: [00:13:35] Yeah, I do know him. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:13:36] Who was the organizer of the study co-sponsored by the American Bar Association and the Hazelden Foundation on mental health in the legal profession, presented the findings of his study. And they were quite alarming. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to use that term. Jeena Cho: [00:14:00] No, definitely not. The results were that basically a third of the lawyers in our profession are suffering from depression, stress, anxiety, and very, very heavy rates of problematic drinking. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:14:12] Right, and probably some drug addiction thrown in there, which I think he said was under-reported. So that was sort of another piece of the puzzle. And then third was some discussion about a trend in the in the professional liability field, that insurers were starting to see a spike in claims arising from mistakes that were the kinds of things that good lawyers generally don't find themselves getting in trouble for. That is, conflicts of interest and other problems are more the source of malpractice claims. [00:15:02] And so there was some discussion about what might be driving this. And some of the concerns surrounding technology, the pace of legal practice. The fact that we're basically on 24/7 because I can turn on my smartphone at 11:00 on a Sunday night and find an e-mail from a client. And so with that information, I went back to the firm and I thought about this some more and I said, this is something.. all the issues that are being talked about here, whether it's the issues relating to mental health or problems in practice that might contribute to mistakes, are the kinds of things that I think meditation and mindfulness potentially can be helpful in addressing. Jeena Cho: [00:15:53] Right. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:15:54] So for several years I was the chair of a committee we have at our firm called the professional and personal development committee, which in part focuses on life issues. In addition to things that will benefit attorney's practices, but we put a lot of emphasis on wellness at our firm, on making sure that people stay physically and mentally healthy. And I thought this was a program that the committee might be interested in, and I pointed out that I had 30 lawyers who said they were interested in getting a copy of your book. Jeena Cho: [00:16:32] Yeah, so you had a little bit of data. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:16:35] Yeah, so they eagerly embraced the idea and we agreed on a time to do it. So it was about two months ago that I did a lunchtime presentation. I think we had 25 people sign up for it. Our main office is in Harrisburg and we have several regional offices around the state and elsewhere, and a few people called in, several other people e-mailed me and said they were sorry they could not attend because they had a scheduling conflict, so we had about 20 people in the room. I did about a one-hour presentation, which included a brief guided meditation. Five minutes or so, I didn't want to do it any longer than that. And I got a great response. I know of at least one or two people who at least said they have continued to try to meditate since that time. So I think it was a really good introduction to the practice. [00:17:40] So that's how I brought it to our firm, and I think it's certainly something that lawyers generally should be introduced to and will benefit from. Jeena Cho: [00:17:51] Yeah, which leads me perfectly to my next question, which is what are those benefits that you think lawyers can gain from practicing mindfulness? In your own life or in your own law practice, what type of benefits have you seen? And what are sort of the practical implications for other lawyers? Harvey Freedenberg: [00:18:14] Well I have to break this down into two parts. I sort of joke about the first part of this, which is I wish I had discovered this oh I don't know, 25 years ago when I was a busy litigator. By the time I started meditating, I was definitely in the winding-down phase of my active litigation process. But I know enough of it, and I certainly can reflect enough on my experience as a litigator, that first as a way of relieving the inevitable stress that comes with a busy litigation practice. It gives you an opportunity to have something to turn to when that stress intensifies. And I think it certainly is beneficial, I can think of occasions when I was in a difficult courtroom battle or in a deposition with a particularly unpleasant lawyer on the other side, that being able to have the mental space that I think meditation creates would have been very helpful to me. So I think it's an extremely practical tool that a lot of lawyers would benefit from if they could incorporate that into their practice. [00:19:40] So that's the one piece. The other piece is, and this may be.. I won't say it's unique to me because there are lawyers in other firms that do this job. But I have found it to be extraordinarily helpful in the work that I have done as the firm counsel. What happens typically, I have other people on an ethics committee I don't do this all by myself for a firm of our size, so there are two other members that work with me on loss prevention issues and several members on an ethics and conflicts committee. But the vast majority of questions have come to me over the nine years that I've been doing this job. And they come from every area of the practice. I would say the majority have to do with conflict issues, but they could deal with anything from difficulty with an opposing counsel, inadvertently receiving a document, what do would do with it? An improper communication that somebody has made with our client, I mean the whole gamut of issues that arise in regards to professional conduct. So it's sort of like a helpline and I've got to be prepared to respond to all these questions. And it's certainly been a great value to me in becoming a better listener, sort of listening for the question maybe below the question that I'm being asked. And to help the lawyers in our firm and to help me sort of clarify what our values. Not every question is as simple as, do we have a conflict or don't we have a conflict. There are a lot of judgment calls that go into this job and in handling, I've literally had thousands of interactions with our lawyers over the time that I've served. [00:21:55] And I think having a mindfulness practice helps you clarify what your values are, to shift your perspective to look at something from a variety of different angles. I love the idea, I know you're familiar with it, the beginner's mind. I don't approach these consultations with the idea that I necessarily have all the answers, and therefore I'm willing to listen and to sort of allow my perspective to take shape. And I think all that is just enhanced and deepened by a mindfulness practice. [00:22:39] And then the other aspect, if I can go on for one more minute about this, is on the loss prevention side. These can be very difficult conversations, for anyone who's ever had them. When a lawyer comes to you and says, "I think I made a mistake," or, "I did make a mistake," and you're the one in whom that person is confiding, you're dealing with what can be a very fragile situation. And I think you need to approach it an empathetic way. The lawyer who you're talking to has probably been beating himself or herself up for at least 24 hours, maybe lost some sleep over the issue. And in addition to that, they are imagining all of the horror of the consequences that they think are going to occur as a result of what they believe their error might be. So they're engaged in catastrophizing about that. Your job is to sit there, even in a situation where you say, well this might be bad. And not to respond to it, not to react to it in any kind of an impulsive way. Not to do anything that's only going to exacerbate that person's psychological distress. [00:24:24] I like to think I had some of those qualities before I started meditating, but I assure you that they are a lot better than whatever I had. Since I have been meditating, because I'm very conscious now of the thought process that I'm going through. So it's just, it's kind of a long-winded answer and there's a lot in there, but there are just so many ways in which this has enhanced the way that I practice, and the way that I really look at what the practice of law is all about. Jeena Cho: [00:25:02] Yeah. And I know to be true what you're saying just from my own experience and just having worked with lawyers on bringing mindfulness into their own life. You know, for me I feel like it actually has made life clearer. It just feels like we all sort of walk around with these blinders and these filters, but it feels like I can see life with just so much more clarity. And so when my mind is doing the catastrophizing like you say, I can go oh, I'm catastrophizing and I'm literally imagining the worst case scenario because I missed a deadline and I know, maybe forgot to file this thing. And the mind is doing that thing where it inevitably leads to, like I'm going to be disbarred and then I'm going to be homeless. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:25:56] Right, that's it. And the mind doesn't sort of stroll down the road to those, the mind races to the worst possible consequences of what might happen. And this acts as a brake on that. So it's very helpful to have that, I think that kind of approach to it. And I think I have some of the feeling that you have, that I think I am able to see some things more clearly. You know this is not a panacea, it's not going to transform someone's personality overnight. But I think there is an evolution that takes place over time, and if you ask people who are close to me about certain behavior traits or certain personality traits that I had before I started meditating and to compare that to now, they will tell you there's been an improvement. So I would say don't ask me, if you want to know whether meditation is having an effect, ask your spouse or your close friends and I think they will tell you that it has. Jeena Cho: [00:27:14] Yeah, it's so funny because my husband also meditates with me. And there will be days where for one reason I don't meditate for a few days, and he'll actually notice and go, "Have you been meditating?" And I'm like, no. And he's like, "Maybe you should." So it's apparently very noticeable when I'm not meditating. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:27:34] Well one of the things about Headspace, and it's not without some controversy, is they have something called a streak, where they will tell you how many days in a row you've meditated. And I've had this very long streak, and some people derive that idea. They say, you know it's not about counting and striving and all that, but to me it's useful to track how much time you're doing it, how dedicated you are to it. And I don't know what I would do if I didn't meditate, I wish I was committed to physical exercise as I am to meditation, because I can't imagine what a day would be like if I didn't sit down for at least ten minutes to meditate. [00:28:22] I have made it an absolute priority in my life, and I try to do it first thing in the morning because I find I'm most alert then. I find if I do it late at night I'm more likely that maybe nod off, which is not the ideal. But it's just, it's like brushing my teeth or eating or getting dressed. Jeena Cho: [00:28:44] Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I found not only my ability to respond to difficult situations, but also like I'm able to just experience more joy in my life that I didn't notice before. And I think a lot of that is that we as lawyers spend so much time sort of in that space of catastrophizing, and also we have the negativity bias. Where we're constantly looking at all the things that's not going right in our life, and we don't have that counter-balance. And I feel like meditation has really served as a counter-balance. And you know, even being grateful for something that's really important and critical, like oh I have a healthy body, or I have a roof over my head. Or I have you clean water. [00:29:33] Just so many incredible blessings, and I think often we can just get into this mode of looking at life with this grim lense and saying, oh everything's not okay, and look at all these things that are not going my way. And we really just forget the incredible amount of blessings that we all have. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:29:53] Yeah, and the problem is that our professional training.. I mean some of us come to profession with that kind of mindset, but our professional training exacerbates that if we are already that way, or inculcates that if we aren't. And that is to look at things like, what's the worst case scenario. If you're a litigator, you're by definition in a situation of conflict. One of the things that's occurred over my 40 years of practice is of course there's much more emphasis on alternative dispute resolution, mediation, and things of that sort. But those are still situations of conflict. And then you throw in the fact that lawyers are I think by definition perfectionists; everything has to be done exactly right. You know, you read and re-read a contract or a plea to make sure that you have not missed anything. So all these things are sort of reinforcing that kind of negative self-critical mindset, and that makes it very hard to walk outside your office and look up at the sky, or pick up a leaf and look at it, or focus on what's happening in the moment. You know, John Kabat-Zinn likes to say, "This is the only moment you have. This moment that you're in right now is all you are doing. If you're living in the past with regrets about what you did last week or last month, or your anticipating something in the future, you're missing out on what's happening right in front of you. [00:31:46] And it's easy to do that as a lawyer. There's always a deadline coming up, there's always a trial next month or six months from now. Your phone's ringing, your clients are upset about what's going on in a case. So I think you need something to anchor you. And I found that meditation for me has been that anchor. Jeena Cho: [00:32:10] Yeah, yeah. So true. I remember when I did the eight-week mindfulness based stress-reduction class, there's like a day-long retreat that you go on. And we were doing walking meditation and I saw this giant, beautiful rose bush and I walked over to it and I smelled the roses. And it's so cliché, like smell the roses. But I did, and it was just one of those blissful moments, and I remember being like this is why they tell you to smell the roses. I mean, like you know its so cliché. Like oh, smell the roses. But how often do we actually pause to do nothing but savor and smell a rose, which is like this incredibly delightful experience. So now I take it to heart and I make a point to actually go smell the roses when I see a rosebush. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:33:02] Well we just had our retreat for the MBSR course, and I had a similar experience watching a duck glide across a still pond. To stand there and say, when have I done that? I don't want people to leave this podcast with the impression that you're going to be walking around this blissful smile on your face and all of life's stresses will suddenly bounce off of you. It's not that way, but just the fact that more times a day than you could ever imagine you're going to stop, you're going to take a deep breath, you're going to look at something in a new way. You're going to focus on a problem in a different way that you wouldn't have if you were wearing the blinders of your conventional thinking. Suddenly these things are going to start adding up and give you a much richer and fuller perspective on life. [00:34:10] At least that's been my experience. And in conversations with lots of other people who are doing this as well, I don't think there's anything unique about me by any means. Jeena Cho: [00:34:21] Right. Yeah, I remember going into my first MBSR class and I was just so stressed and so anxious. And typically they start by asking the group, you know what brings you here. And you kind of go around and everyone shares. And I'm like, oh! There are 49 other people in this room that have the exact same thing that I'm struggling with. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:34:44] The idea of as I've heard it expressed of "just like me." If you look at people who are doing something, or if you're critical of somebody, you're being trained through this process to take a step back and say you know, that person wants the same kinds of things that I want. Maybe they're not going about getting them in the most skillful way, but they're no less human than I am. And it gives you a very different perspective on the people that you interact with. Jeena Cho: [00:35:24] Right, yeah that idea, "just like me," was so critical for me. Especially for the litigators out there and the lawyers that are handling really contentious cases. Because there are just people that you come across and you're just like, I really do not like this person and I have nothing in common with this person. And you can really start to personalize every interaction with this person. I had this one particular opposing counsel, and she and I were just not getting along, to put it mildly. And we were doing that thing where we would send one nasty e-mail after another, trying to find each other. [00:36:01] And something clicked inside my head when I learned that concept of "just like me," because I realize you know just like me, just as I find her to be incredibly difficult and I don't want to be on this case with this woman, she probably feels the exact same way. And just like me, she too wants peace and happiness and joy and safety and security; all of these very, very human things. And I think we can often sort of lose sight of that, our common humanity. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:36:34] Well you mentioned the e-mails, sending off nasty e-mails. And that at times has been the bane of my existence, both as an attorney, a litigator representing clients, and on occasion as firm counsel. Of course not too often because I've tried to reinforce that message to our lawyers, but think about the way e-mail, (which has been around basically for 20 years, I'd say since the mid 1990's) people send the most outrageous things and do it in such an impulsive way. And they live to regret it. If you have something that's going to intervene between writing that nasty e-mail that's going to get you or your client into a lot of trouble in that case and clicking the send button, that's a really valuable skills to have. [00:37:38] And there have been times when I've completely rewritten an e-mail, when I said no this is not the right tone. I just had to get this down, get it out of my system. Now I'm going to go back and re-write it. So I think mindfulness gives you the space that is going to have you sending fewer of those e-mails, or reacting to the bait. You know how there are certain lawyers who's game plan is to try to get you to lose control? Every litigator has them, they have one or two or three of those. [00:38:17] One of the worst things about caller ID is, you now know you're going to have a phone call with that nasty lawyer you can't stand because you see the phone number or the name of that person. At least in the old days in my practice, the phone would ring and I would pick it up. Now you have an opportunity through mindful to say.. and one of the things I've started doing, this is fairly recent, is I will let the phone ring three times before I pick it up. I've had to educate a couple of lawyers in our firm who give me one ring and then they hang up. But the point is you know, take a couple of breaths, get yourself grounded. It's kind of a mini-meditation that you're doing, and then you're able to field that (what you know is going to be a stressful phone call) with a little more mindfulness. [00:39:17] I think that's a technique that, you don't have to be meditating to do that. It certainly helps to get into that meditative state, but it's something that I think is very valuable. And then when the other attorney starts hurling insults at you or at your client, you're less likely to get into an escalating war of words. And that could be very valuable. Jeena Cho: [00:39:40] Yeah and often mindfulness is talked about in the context of there's a stimulus and there's that knee-jerk reaction, and mindfulness gives you that ability to pause before your knee-jerk reaction. Which then becomes a response, so you can sort of respond with the best intentions. Sometimes we send off e-mails and it might not get us or our clients into trouble, but we just know that was not my best work. That was not my most genuine, I didn't show up as my best self when I sent that e-mail. Which was a little bit hitting below the belt or was unnecessarily unkind, or you know whatever that may be. [00:40:23] And I think as lawyers we have that obligation to try to show up as our best selves, and to really be clear about our intention and what we hold to be true and what we value as sort of the core of who we are as lawyers, and how we're going to show up for every case or every situation. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:40:43] Well one myth that I would like to offer my small debunking of, is the idea that a meditation practice and mindfulness are somehow going to make you soft, weak, ineffective, not aggressive on behalf of your clients; and none of those claims are true. I would say if anything, they're going to make you a better lawyer. Because you're not going to leap to instant judgments. You're not going to think that you know all the answers and find yourself closing off avenues of thought or investigation that might help your client's case. So when I've heard that objection, I think that's one of the easier ones to debunk. I think it makes you potentially much more powerful and much more effective, because you're learning more about how your own mind works. And you know as a lawyer, that's our tool. We don't have machines, we don't have MRI's or x-ray machines, we have our minds and we have our thought process. So anything that contributes to clarity of thinking and soundness of judgment and empathy, that's a good thing. And those are all qualities that meditation fosters. Jeena Cho: [00:42:23] Yeah. So I guess to kind of wrap things up, now that we've hopefully shared very fully all the different benefits and why lawyers should practice mindfulness, what are some resources that you would recommend for lawyers who want to start meditating? Harvey Freedenberg: [00:42:41] Well I'm allowed to say this because I know you're not a soft promoter, so I would strongly, strongly recommend your book "The Anxious Lawyer" that you and Karen Gifford wrote. The thing that I think is beautiful about that for lawyers is that as distinguished from the many, many hundreds of fine meditation instruction books that are out there (and I've read a number of them), this is specifically geared toward lawyers. It has a lot of information about your experiences and Karen's experiences in practice, and how the techniques of meditation and mindfulness are applied. So if you're looking for a book to get started, I would certainly highly recommend "The Anxious Lawyer". And then Headspace, As I said has been a great app for me. Another app that I've experimented with a little bit is Dan Harris' app, 10 Percent Happier, which has a variety of instructors in the app and it's I think maybe a little glitzier than Headspace. Either one of those. And then there are lots and lots of apps out there, Insight Timer is another one that has free meditations.. Jeena Cho: [00:44:03] Right, that's the one that I use, yeah. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:44:06] So there are plenty of resources out there, but I think your book is as good a starting place as any. And it's also got a program, a week-by-week program for eight weeks to introduce somebody to a mindfulness practice. And it's very clearly written, there's no jargon in there, so go buy Jeena's book. Jeena Cho: [00:44:34] I appreciate that, that's very kind of you. Harvey, for the folks that want to connect with you or ask you questions, or just want to pick your brain. what's a good place where they can go and do that? Harvey Freedenberg: [00:44:51] Well I think the best place Jeena, since I'm transitioning out of my law practice, would be on Twitter. My handle there is @HarvF, "H-A-R-V-F". I've also created a couple of lists there, one is on mindfulness and meditation, which has several hundred people that are involved in various aspects of meditation. So you might want to check out that list. So that's probably the best place to get in touch with me right now. Jeena Cho: [00:45:25] Wonderful. And you are very active on Twitter, and I always enjoy reading what you have to say. So definitely go connect with Harvey on Twitter and I will also include his Twitter handle in the show notes. And my final question to you is, the name of the podcast is called The Resilient Lawyer. What does it mean to be a resilient lawyer to you?. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:45:50] I love the name of the podcast, and I thought a lot about this. To me, it's somebody who keeps the practice of law in its proper perspective. And it is someone for whom the various aspects of life, which would include work as a lawyer, family, community service, exercise, sleep, nutrition; all the things that go into healthy living. And through mindfulness and meditation, in my case a practice of mental and emotional self-care, that all of those elements are in harmony or balance. I think if you can achieve that or strive in that direction, that you will be well on the path to becoming resilient. Jeena Cho: [00:46:45] I love that answer. Harvey, thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom with me and the audience. I really appreciate it. Harvey Freedenberg: [00:46:54] Thank you Jeena, it's been a real pleasure. And thank you for all you're doing to spread the message of mindfulness. Jeena Cho: [00:47:04] Thank you. Closing: [00:47:05] 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.

In this new podcast, we speak to Patrick R. Krill about addiction in the legal industry & the new report from the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being.

Between 21% and 36% of practicing attorneys exhibit drinking behaviors that could be considered hazardous, harmful, or possibly alcohol dependent. 28% of licensed and employed attorneys are struggling with either mild, moderate, or severe depression, and 19% are battling with clinically significant levels of anxiety. How prevalent are mental health and substance misuse issues in the profession and what can young lawyers do to help reduce these numbers? In this episode of the ABA Law Student Podcast, host Fabiani Duarte speaks with Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation Legal Professionals Program Director Patrick Krill about the prevalence of substance misuse and other mental health concerns within the occupation. Patrick explains his motivation for encouraging the creation of this study, mainly a lack of relevant drug use and mental health data, and explores possible reasons as to why so little research of this kind has been done on attorneys. He also explains the tools he used, like the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (Dass 21), to measure alcohol consumption and mental health concerns among the pool of 15,000 attorneys surveyed. The conversation then shifts to an analysis of the survey results which show that young attorneys within their first 10 years of practice have the highest rates of mental health issues and problematic drinking. Patrick expounds upon these statistics by revealing that 90% of the individuals surveyed identified alcohol as their drug of choice. He wraps up the interview with some suggestions on how drinking culture can be decoupled from the legal profession and provides tips for law students on identifying if they struggle with mental illness and substance misuse and resources for those seeking help. Patrick Krill is director of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation Legal Professionals Program and a licensed attorney, board certified alcohol and drug counselor and graduate-level instructor in addiction counseling.

In this month’s Asked and Answered, the ABA Journal’s Stephanie Francis Ward speaks with Patrick Krill of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s legal professionals program to find out more. Krill is currently finishing a study in conjunction with the ABA to research substance abuse, depression and anxiety in legal profession.