Podcasts about Seyfarth Shaw

LVN Board members Keith Maziarek and Justin Ergler sit down with Stephen Poor, Chair Emeritus at Seyfarth Shaw. The trio discuss the inevitable changes impacting law firms, from the integration of non-legal professionals to the ongoing debate around the billable hour in the age of AI. They also examine why forward-thinking leaders found early resistance to now-common ideas, and give their perspectives on the future shape of law firms, talent development in a tech-driven world, and the enduring importance of the human connection. It's a candid look at the evolution of the legal profession and it is also a special episode in collaboration with the Pioneers and Pathfinders, Stephen's podcast.

Hold on to your hats - we've finally made it.  Welcome to the 400th Episode Spectacular - recorded live at the LegalWeek Leaders in Tech Law Awards show. This year's LegalWeek conference, hosted by ALM Media and Law.com, was held in New York City from March 24th through March 27th.  More than 6,000 of the biggest names in the industry gathered at the New York Hilton Midtown for the four-day conference.  And yes ... Legal Speak was there conducting live interviews with some of the industry's biggest names - including this special celebratory show. We put together an amazing lineup of six guests to commemorate this milestone.  Joining Patrick Smith and Cedra Mayfield were ALM Global CEO Bill Carter, Emily Lipincott, Senior Legal Futurist at Filevine and a Monica Bay Award Winner, Stephen Poor, Chair Emeritus at Seyfarth Shaw and a Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Gina Passarella, Senior Vice President of Content at ALM, Bridget McCormick, President and CEO of the American Arbitration Association, host of the AAAi podcast and a Monica Bay Women in Legal Tech Award Winner and Vanessa Blum Vice President of Legal Product Innovation at ALM. Enjoy !!! Hosts: Cedra Mayfield & Patrick Smith Guests: Bill Carter, Emily Lipincott, Stephen Poor, Gina Passarella, Bridget McCormick & Vanessa Blum  Producer: Charles Garnar

One of the greatest challenges a nonprofit board of directors can face is managing conflict with and potentially terminating an executive director. While no board wants to find itself in this situation, it's crucial to be prepared. In this episode of the PBPA podcast, Alex Drummond with Seyfarth Shaw and Lori Shapiro with Pro Bono Partnership of Atlanta discuss how boards can navigate conflicts with their executive director and what steps to take if termination becomes necessary. We'll cover key tips and legal considerations to ensure fairness to the executive director, maintain oversight of the nonprofit, and prepare the board members themselves.

Katie Schwarting is a real estate lawyer and partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her practice focuses on commercial mortgage-backed securities such as conduit and single asset, single borrower and Freddie Mac securitizations, and collateralized loan obligations. She works with servicers and special servicers on legal issues regarding asset management, compliance, default strategies, audit, and regulatory and disclosure requirements. Away from the office, Katie serves on the board of trustees for the Charlotte Museum of History as vice chair. She's also a member of the Mortgage Bankers Association Commercial Board of Governors and serves on the advisory board for Duke University Alumni Giving. Recently, she was honored alongside a small group of private practice lawyers as a top rainmaker by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA). WHAT'S COVERED IN THIS EPISODE ABOUT HABITS OF A SUCCESSFUL RAINMAKER Building and maintaining a large client base as a team leader and successful rainmaker requires more than just great legal work. It demands a willingness to learn, adapt, and implement business development strategies—some of which might look very different from what worked in the past. In this episode of The Lawyer's Edge podcast, Elise Holtzman interviews Katie Schwarting, a real estate lawyer and partner at Seyfarth Shaw, about the not-so-obvious habits that helped her grow and sustain a thriving book of business. Katie shares how she got started with networking to land her first client, how she takes the pressure off potential clients, and how she balances growth with retention—ensuring she doesn't lose existing clients while bringing in new ones. Plus, she reveals what it takes to build a powerhouse team and why leadership plays a critical role in rainmaking. 2:20 – Why Katie prioritized business development while growing her legal practice 4:13 – How becoming a rainmaker opened doors to leadership, management, and firm-wide impact 9:44 – The role of listening in Katie's approach to business development 11:33 – How to maximize conferences and networking opportunities to attract new clients 18:14 – The one thing Katie never does when meeting a potential client—and why it reflects an abundant mindset 22:02 – What it takes to build a book of business as a team, rather than as a solo effort 26:26 – How to strike a balance between attracting new clients and nurturing long-term relationships 33:10 – The unique challenges and opportunities of being a rainmaker as a woman and/or person of color 38:19 – Why intentionality is the key to long-term success in business development MENTIONED IN THE SURPRISING HABITS OF A SUCCESSFUL RAINMAKER Katie Schwarting (Seyfarth Shaw) | LinkedIn Seyfarth Shaw LLP | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter/X | YouTube “How to Get the Most ROI From Your Next Conference” Get Connected with The Coaching Team at hello@thelawyersedge.com The Lawyer's Edge SPONSOR FOR THIS EPISODE… Today's episode is brought to you by the Ignite Women's Business Development Accelerator, a 9-month business development program created BY women lawyers for women lawyers. Ignite is a carefully designed business development program containing content, coaching, and a community of like-minded women who are committed to becoming rainmakers AND supporting the retention and advancement of other women in the profession.  Early Bird Registration is now underway for our 2025 Ignite cohorts. If you are interested in either participating in the program or sponsoring a woman in your firm to enroll, learn more about Ignite and sign up for our registration alerts by visiting www.thelawyersedge.com/ignite.  

Member Testimonials Panelists’ Previous Episode Links with Bios Show Notes Gratitude for Event Thank you to Ron Gart of Seyfarth Shaw for arranging to host this event and for participating in the Iconic Journey in CRE Board. Iconic Journey in... Continue reading

In this concluding episode of Season 3 of "Ideas to Innovation," we reflect on our journey through the episodes published in 2024 that highlight the conversations we've enjoyed with some of the brightest minds in education, healthcare and intellectual property law.     In episode 6 in February, we explored America's literacy challenge with documentary filmmaker Jenny Mackenzie. Jenny shared her personal connection to literacy and discussed the innovative strategies being used to promote reading rights across the United States. Her insights into reading proficiency and educational reform were both eye-opening and inspiring.     March brought us a conversation with Renée Aguiar-Lucander, CEO of Calliditas Therapeutics, in episode 7, who detailed the groundbreaking journey of Tarpeyo, a drug that promises to revolutionize the treatment of kidney disease. Renée explained the innovative path to FDA approval, setting new benchmarks in the pharmaceutical industry.     We delved into the impact of artificial intelligence on intellectual property law in episode 8 in April, with Jay Myers from Seyfarth Shaw and Arun Hill from Clarivate. They provided valuable insights into how AI is transforming trademark searches, infringement monitoring and strategic brand decisions while addressing the ethical challenges that come with these advancements.     As we wrap up Season 3, we hope the episodes have informed, inspired, and entertained you. You can also listen to the Season 3 episodes from 2023 – our end-of-year episode summarizes the five stories we shared between September and December.      "Ideas to Innovation" will return later this year with more stories that showcase the power of human intellect and innovation.     Stay curious, and thank you for listening.  

On this episode of Labor Relations Radio, Cary Burke, a labor attorney with Seyfarth Shaw returns to discuss a number of topics, including a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Administrative Law Judge's recent decision that a manager visiting an employee's LinkedIn profile was ‘surveillance,' the potential for the NLRB to issue a Cemex Bargaining Order at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama, as well as a number of other potential NLRB actions we might expect in the months ahead.Follow Cary Burke on LinkedIn here.Related:UAW Has Path to Reverse Mercedes Loss Under New Labor StandardLabor Relations Radio, E95—Seyfarth Shaw's Cary Burke on the 'retroactivity' of Cemex Bargaining Orders and moreFor all prior episodes of Labor Relations Radio, go here.__________________________LaborUnionNews.com's Labor Relations Radio is a subscriber-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber here.

On this episode of Labor Relations Radio, Cary Burke, a labor attorney with Seyfarth Shaw returns to discuss a number of topics, including a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Administrative Law Judge's recent decision that a manager visiting an employee's LinkedIn profile was ‘surveillance,' the potential for the NLRB to issue a Cemex Bargaining Order at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama, as well as a number of other potential NLRB actions we might expect in the months ahead.Follow Cary Burke on LinkedIn here.Related: * UAW Has Path to Reverse Mercedes Loss Under New Labor Standard* Labor Relations Radio, E95—Seyfarth Shaw's Cary Burke on the 'retroactivity' of Cemex Bargaining Orders and moreFor all prior episodes of Labor Relations Radio, go here.LaborUnionNews.com's Labor Relations Radio is subscriber-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, become a subscriber. Get full access to LaborUnionNews.com's News Digest at laborunionnews.substack.com/subscribe

Described as one of the most volatile aspects of employment law, paid sick leave laws are increasing (and changing) at a rapid rate. Listen in to this episode with Josh Seidman, partner with Seyfarth Shaw and co-lead of the leaves of absence management and accommodations team to hear about emerging trends and common employer mistakes to avoid!Resources:Hear Josh Seidman share more guidance on paid sick leave laws during the 2024 DMEC Annual Conference in August. Peruse the agenda and register: https://dmec.org/conferences-and-events/annual-conference/Visit the DMEC Paid Sick Leave Law Updates page for news and information provided by the Seyfarth Shaw team: https://dmec.org/resources/paid-sick-leave-updates/

In this episode of Ideas to Innovation, we delve into the transformative influence of artificial intelligence (AI) on intellectual property (IP) and trademark law. Our conversation with guests Jay Myers, Director of Innovation for the Intellectual Property Practice Group at the Seyfarth Shaw international law firm, and Arun Hill, Senior Consultant, The Clarivate Center for IP and Innovation Research, unravels the complexities of integrating AI into legal practices.   Our discussion illuminates AI's capacity to streamline trademark searches, enhance infringement monitoring, and inform strategic brand decisions. Yet, it also confronts the ethical dilemmas and practical challenges that accompany AI's rise in the legal domain.    As we peer into the near future, our guests speculate on an era marked by increased efficiency and higher-quality decision-making in IP law, driven by AI's augmentation of human expertise. This vision underscores the importance of balancing technological advancements with the indispensable elements of human judgment and ethical considerations.   This episode offers invaluable insights into how organizations can leverage AI to navigate the complexities of IP law, striking a balance between innovation and the critical human element of legal expertise.   Join us to explore how AI is not only automating tasks but also augmenting the capabilities of IP professionals to achieve higher-quality outcomes for their clients.  

In episode 21 of Careers in the Business of Law, Stephen Poor talks with David about the long arc of technological change in law, the evolving technical skill sets as well as perennial soft skills, and the growth of the strength of access to justice initiatives such as The Bail Project and the Filing Fair project. They also talk Mississippi Delta blues.   Today's guest is Stephen Poor.  As Chair Emeritus of Seyfarth Shaw, a global law firm, Stephen Poor has significantly contributed to legal innovation, particularly through leading SeyfarthLabs, the firm's R&D arm. Renowned for pioneering SeyfarthLean, a method that enhances legal service efficiency, his leadership from 2001 to 2016 earned him the 2011 Legal Innovator of the Year award. With a foundation in employment law and ERISA litigation, Stephen now shares his expertise on technology's impact on law, change management, and process improvement through writings and his podcast, "Pioneers and Pathfinders." https://www.seyfarth.com/trends/pioneers-and-pathfinders-podcast.html   Music Stephen mentions:  Mississippi John Hurt: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1FdwVX3yL8ITuRnTZxetsA?si=FM6jBiAVSRm_zGf-GvJotQ Mississippi Fred McDowell: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0elA30wLp3RmiPaGtU2jhQ?si=AqDicv5LTMKTLaPpCBHQpA Bukka White: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2gSskdDhLQCx3CQd6XKDhp?si=LAiFl6aFQ8Kg2WlYlmc2Qw Sister Rosetta Tharpe: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2dXf5lu5iilcaTQJZodce7?si=BzrOciq3T9y3GqwwXf5lqA Blind Willie Johnson: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5kO4xdEKLuHHHPreu3UmkZ?si=NshgryeQRTWplLlq6jDm-w   Access to Justice projects Stephen mentions: The Bail project: https://bailproject.org/ Filing Fair project (Stanford): https://filingfairnessproject.law.stanford.edu/   Time stamps: (0:09) - From Yesteryear's Cutting Edge to Today's David Cowen introduces Stephen Poor, Chairman Emeritus of Seyfarth Shaw, discussing the remarkable journey from past legal technologies to today's podcasting age. "When you started your career, did you think that you'd be recording podcasts that would go out into the universe and live forever?" Stephen reflects on the unforeseen advancements in technology and how they've transformed legal practices and reminisces about the early days of his career. "What was cutting edge?...The secretaries had mag card typewriters … which was awesome." (1:59) - The First Technology Committee Stephen discusses his involvement in his firm's first technology committee, comparing the debates over 25 vs. 33 megahertz computers to today's terabyte-scale discussions, illustrating the rapid evolution of technology in law. (2:59) - Talent in the Legal Field: Then and Now "The type of talent that you look for...hasn't really changed," Stephen explains. He highlights how attributes like intelligence, curiosity, and connectivity have remained vital, despite massive changes in technology and operations. Stephen points out the significant shift in legal workplaces over the decades, from traditional lawyer roles to diverse professions like data scientists and marketing specialists, enhancing law firms' capabilities and client services. (5:42) - Evolution vs. Revolution in Law Delving into the dynamics of change in legal services, Stephen discusses the impact of generative AI and other advanced technologies on the legal industry, contemplating whether the changes represent evolution or revolution. (7:00) - Navigating New Technologies Stephen emphasizes the role of law firms in helping clients navigate the "bewildering array of solutions" presented by generative AI and other emerging technologies, highlighting the importance of adaptability and informed guidance. (8:28) - The Transformation Ahead Stephen opines that the future of law will be dramatically different, driven by the capabilities of generative AI to change how legal services are provided. (11:38) - Radical Curiosity in Young Lawyers Stephen discusses the challenges and benefits of the radical curiosity exhibited by the newer generation of lawyers, seeing it as a necessary trait for driving change within the legal profession. (13:42) - Senior Leaders' Insights In a reflective conversation about senior leadership in law, Stephen shares how experienced leaders exchange insights and experiences that could guide the newer generations facing similar challenges. (18:09) - Access to Justice and Technology Stephen highlights the role of technology in enhancing access to justice, sharing personal stories and examples of how new tools are making significant impacts in legal accessibility. (20:44) - Supporting Justice through the Bail Project Stephen discusses his daughter's role as general counsel for the Bail Project, illustrating how nonprofits are utilizing new approaches to reform traditional systems like the cash bail system, advocating for broader participation and support.   For more on Cowen Podcasts, Career Coaching, and Leadership Networking Events, please visit www.Cowengroup.com 

We kick off our new "Love & Legal Tech" series this week where we embark on a journey to explore the personal and professional lives of couples in the legal tech industry. We are excited to interview couples who share in the excitement of weaving their professional endeavors into their personal relationships. We think this is going to be a great series where couples get a chance to tell their stories of how they balance what one of our guests describes as "Work-Life-Integration." Our inaugural guests, Alex Macdonald and Cassie Vertovec share their unique story of how a solid professional collaboration slowly turned into a deep, personal connection.  Alex, the Chief Strategy Officer at McCarter and English, LLP, and Cassie, the Practice Director of Corporate and Director of Practice Strategies at Barnes & Thornburg, began their journey in the legal tech world at Seyfarth Shaw.  Over the years they have found themselves leading teams together, moving across the country, isolating together during the pandemic, and most recently working in similar firms. They navigated their careers with mutual respect and understanding, highlighting the importance of communication and shared values in both their professional and personal lives. They provide insights into the dynamics of working as a couple while maintaining a balance between work and persona life. Which is no easy feat as they are both intertwined with the legal profession. Their story is a testament to the idea that professional collaboration can lead to personal growth and deeper connections. Our hopes with the "Love & Legal Tech" series are that we not only offer a glimpse into the lives of a couple navigating love and legal tech but also shed light on broader themes within the legal industry, including the shift towards greater tech integration and the challenges and opportunities it presents. Our sincere thanks to Cassie and Alex for sharing their story with us on this series premiere. Listen on mobile platforms:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠ |  ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ Contact Us:  Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@gebauerm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@glambert⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads: @glambertpod or @gebauerm66Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jerry David DeCicca⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Transcript

Many lawsuits against employers for requiring COVID-19 vaccines remain in U.S. courts. Dawn Solowey, a partner in the labor and employment practice of Seyfarth Shaw, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about these court cases, the rise in public discourse around religious and medical exemptions, and implications for other workplace issues like diversity training and protections for LGBTQ individuals.

Episode Summary: Cary Burke, a Partner with the law firm Seyfarth Shaw, joins host Peter List to discuss the ramifications of the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) recent Cemex decision—including the potential retroactivity of so-called Cemex bargaining orders. In addition to Cemex, Burke and List discuss a host of current and possible future labor relations issues.To reach Cary Burke, go here.Visit Seyfarth Shaw's website here.For all prior episodes of Labor Relations Radio, go here.__________________________LaborUnionNews.com's Labor Relations Radio is a subscriber-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a subscriber here.

Episode Summary: Cary Burke, a Partner with the law firm Seyfarth Shaw, joins host Peter List to discuss the ramifications of the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) recent Cemex decision—including the potential retroactivity of so-called Cemex bargaining orders. In addition to Cemex, Burke and List discuss a host of current and possible future labor relations issues.* To reach Cary Burke, go here.* Visit Seyfarth Shaw's website here.For all prior episodes of Labor Relations Radio, go here.LaborUnionNews.com's News Digest and Labor Relations Radio is a subscriber-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, become a subscriber. Get full access to LaborUnionNews.com's News Digest at laborunionnews.substack.com/subscribe

Ranging from physical altercations to verbal harassment, workplace violence can disrupt the harmony of a nonprofit's workplace, impacting productivity, morale, and most importantly, the safety of employees or clients. In this episode of the PBPA Podcast, we'll delve into the legal framework surrounding workplace violence prevention as our guest, Adam Young with Seyfarth Shaw, answers questions about risk assessment, policy development, and employee training.

One of your employees has just provided their 2 weeks' notice. After what might be an initial shock (or relief), what do you do? In this episode of the PBPA Podcast, Rayne Towns with Nokia and Cary Burke with Seyfarth Shaw review legal considerations in offboarding nonprofit employees. From non-solicitation agreements to securing your organization's assets, join this conversation with employment attorneys as they share tips to guide a smooth and compliant offboarding process.

Today's guest is Adam Lasky, a partner at Seyfarth Shaw, where he focuses his legal practice on helping clients win and navigate government contracts. While Adam represents contractors on a wide variety of government contracting issues, his primary focus areas are bid protests, SBA regulatory compliance issues, joint venture and teaming agreement transactions, and claims/disputes. In this episode we discuss what makes SBA regulations so complicated, calculate small business standard size and what is affiliation. As a small business you are constantly attesting to your size - so if you are mis-certifying your size and someone finds out, there are large penalties. What happens when two companies have to bring their size together? Different size standards for loans versus contracts? And yes it matters for loans also.  Over the past decade, Adam has successfully represented government contractors in bid protests before the Government Accountability Office (GAO), U.S. Court of Federal Claims, FAA Office of Dispute Resolution for Acquisition, administrative agencies, and state courts. During that time, he has protested and defended well over a billion dollars in procurements and contract awards across a wide variety of industries, and has achieved amongst the highest GAO bid protest sustain rates in the nation. Adam is also the author of several articles and books chapters on bid protests, including “A Practitioner's Road Map to GAO Bid Protests” and “Roadmap to Bid Protests at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims” (ABA 2010 & 2018), and the bid protests chapter of “Federal Government Construction Contracts” (ABA 2d and 3rd eds.). This is an episode for companies that are in growth mode or they see that in their future. Growing by teaming or taking on mentors, Joint Ventures are all common strategies. But given the uncertainty between rules, regulations and policies, who to turn to, what is applicable and why it all matters is a crucial part of the equation to remain compliant while growing.  Let's welcome our next giant, Adam Lasky. 

IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER: 02:18 - Who is Tim? In his own words 10:01 - What does the future of work look like within the next 5, 10, 25 years?  18:59 - Which jobs are in danger of being automated away and which ones are here to stay?  24:39 - What does the future of SALES look like specifically?  28:09 - What are some further resources to look up in order to think effectively about the future of work? MORE ON TIMTim Gerend is executive vice president and chief distribution officer at Northwestern Mutual where he leads the career distribution, marketing, and strategic communications organizations to bring the company's value proposition, brand and story to life. Gerend also serves as a member of the Senior Leadership Team, which oversees Northwestern Mutual's strategy, execution and operations. As the leader of the company's distribution system, Gerend's focus is to accelerate a positive transformation of the company by bringing together advanced technology and the most trusted advisors to improve the overall client experience. This also means growing the largest and most diverse field of advisors that reflects the markets the company serves. Gerend joined Northwestern Mutual in 2002 and has held a variety of leadership positions spanning Law, Field Compensation & Planning, Enterprise Compliance, and campus planning. As lead for campus planning, Gerend oversaw the planning and design of the company's state-of-the-art Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons, which opened to the public 2017. In addition to his leadership at Northwestern Mutual, Gerend is a thought leader in the Financial Services Industry. He is an advocate of professionalism and high standards and for developing the next generation of financial advisors. Gerend previously served on the Advisory Board for the Center for Ethics in Financial Services and on the CFP Board's Center for Financial Planning. He now serves as Trustee of the American College. Before joining Northwestern Mutual, Gerend was an associate in the Commercial Litigation Practice Group at Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago. He is a graduate of Butler University with a B.S. in economics and received his J.D. from the University of Notre Dame. In the community, Gerend is passionate about supporting opportunities for young people to grow toward their potential. He serves on the board of the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and the board of Milwaukee College Prep, a leading charter school that serves Milwaukee's inner city. Gerend and his wife Sandy have four children. They are active members of St. Monica's Parish in Whitefish Bay. For fun, Gerend enjoys all sports and anything outdoors, especially cheering for and supporting his kids in their various activities. Northwestern Mutual LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/northwestern-mutual/ Tim's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-gerend-67753425/ Northwestern Mutual Twitter - @NM_Financial Northwestern Mutual Website - https://www.northwesternmutual.com/ MORE ON RAMPED: Check us out at www.rampedcareers.com Interested in becoming a Ramped Professional? Sign up here: https://www.rampedcareers.com/onboarding/signup Interested in becoming a Ramped Corporate Partner? Email us at sales@rampedcareers.com

Kris Rivenburgh discusses why there will continue to be less website accessibility litigation in 2023. Recently rulings in California and New York are favorable to business owners and will result in less demand letters and complaints filed. Kris offers accessibility services including WCAG 2.1 AA manual audits and remediation at https://accessible.org. Kris also wrote the book on ADA compliance for digital assets. You can find out more about The ADA Book at https://ADABook.com. Seyfarth Shaw's blog is available at https://www.adatitleiii.com. YouTube video with captions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63FtRnKZus4 Transcript: https://adabook.com/website-accessibility-litigation-ada-lawsuits-decrease-2023/

Kris Rivenburgh discusses what ADA website compliance means and the current legal landscape surrounding digital accessibility in 2022. Kris also explains the big impact very important rulings in California and New York courts will have for private entities (these rulings are favorable to businesses). Kris offers accessibility services including WCAG 2.1 AA manual audits and remediation at https://accessible.org. Kris also wrote the book on ADA compliance for digital assets. You can find out more about The ADA Book at https://ADABook.com. Seyfarth Shaw's blog is available at https://www.adatitleiii.com. YouTube video with captions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyCWfnsz2Fg Transcript: https://adabook.com/ada-website-compliance-2022-legal/

CHRIS NEWBOLD: Hello, wellbeing friends. Welcome to the Path To Well-Being In Law Podcast, an initiative of the Institute for Well-Being in Law. As you know, my name is Chris Newbold. I serve as executive vice president of ALPS Malpractice Insurance. You know, our goal here on the podcast is to introduce you to thought leaders doing meaningful work in the wellbeing space within the legal profession, and in the process, build and nurture a national network of wellbeing advocates intent on creating a culture shift within the profession. As always, I am joined by my co-host, Bree Buchanan. Bree, how are you doing today? BREE BUCHANAN: I'm doing great, Chris. Great to be here. CHRIS: Good, good. As you all know, Bree is the president of the Institute for Well-Being in Law. Bree, we have some really exciting news to share about the institute and the journey that we're on to engineer this culture shift. Would you maybe give us a clue as to the breaking news that I think that we were so excited about? BREE: Nobody could be more excited than me because you said, you know, Bree is the board president. Well, up until this news, I had two jobs. I was the acting executive director, so I am just delighted to let people know we have hired our first full-time staff person and that is our inaugural executive director. Her name is Jennifer DiSanza. She comes to us with a whole host of experience in wellbeing issues and particularly with the law students. For many reasons, we wanted to bring Jennifer on board, but also strategically, we really realized that's where she's coming from is the future of our profession. And also, aside of where we know there's a lot of behavioral health distress and stress on the youngest members of our profession and the law students. So we're just thrilled to have Jennifer on board. CHRIS: Yeah. See, I had the privilege of serving with you Bree on the hiring committee. Boy, we have a dynamic leader now that will be working day-to-day to think about advancing wellbeing in our profession. You know, there's so much work to be done as you well know. We're actually planning on having Jennifer as our next podcast guest, which will be awesome to be able to just talk about the vision, why she's passionate about this work. It will also happen to be after the conclusion of some strategic planning that we as a board will be doing. So things are just really aligning well with both what has transpired, where we're going, and then focusing on what lies ahead in terms of some big issues that we have to tackle as we think about the wellbeing of lawyers and legal professionals in the profession. With that, today we're going to circle back to, we've spent considerable time in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion. You know, we had anticipated a three part series on this, but sometimes you extend an offer and you get somebody who's so awesome that you sit there and go, we have to expand this even further. Right? BREE: Along came Kori. Yeah. CHRIS: That's right. Along came Kori. And when Kori came along, we're like, okay, we're breaking the rules. We're totally bringing Kori into the mix. And so we were really excited to welcome Kori Carew to the podcast. Bree, would you be so kind to introduce Kori? And again, this is I know a podcast that we've been very excited and looking forward to. BREE: Absolutely. So Kori is a people inclusion strategist, an advocate, a speaker, a writer, a status quo disruptor. Got to love that. Child of God, wife and mother of two curly-haired, wise, energetic, fierce, spitfire daughters. Her family is multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-religious and spans multiple nationalities. She brings a fierce love of community and belonging that transcends differences to work, ministry and life. She loves to sing, cook, entertain, dance in the hallways at work, we need a video component of that, and read. Equipping leaders to be inclusive, to interrupt bias and disrupt the status quo. At her day job, she focuses on developing and implementing strategies for individual career and diversity and inclusion success, and helps organizations build bridges across differences and improve inclusion. BREE: When she's not working, she focuses her voice and talent on issues of gender equity and rights, inclusion, and human and civil rights, serving in her church and community, and cherishing her phenomenal tribe and community. She's energized by helping people live their very best lives. Kori was the Director of Strategic Diversity Initiatives for seven years at Shook, Hardy. And then she came over to Seyfarth and is now the Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer there and oversees their really spectacular wellbeing program, Seyfarth Life, and a whole host of other initiatives we're going to hear about. So Kori, welcome to the podcast. CHRIS: Yay. KORI CAREW: Thank you. I appreciate you inviting me to be on this podcast and also very much the work that you are doing. This conversation of wellbeing for attorneys is such an important conversation. It's one that we probably started having too late, and it's one where diversity and inclusion, there's more work to be done than time. I'm super thankful for all that you do and all that you do to help our profession be better, so thank you very much. BREE: You bet. Kori, I'm going to start off. We ask all of our guests a variation of this question. What experiences in your life are drivers behind your passion for work around diversity, equity, and inclusion and belonging and wellbeing? KORI: Thank you for that question. And of course, you're causing me to go down a bit of memory lane. You would think this is an easy question, but it actually is not. It's not as easy because it forces you to look in the rear view mirror and try to understand where the dots connected to where you are. Before I do that, I do want to make one small correction. Seyfarth Life is an incredible initiative at Seyfarth that I am super proud of and one of the things that energized me about joining the firm. It has a steering committee that leads it. It's four partners at the firm, all of whom have a connection to wellbeing and mindfulness. My department and my role actually does not oversee Seyfarth Life, but we do work very closely with them. Because as one of the founding members, Laura Maechtlen noted from the very beginning, there's that intersection between inclusion and diversity and belonging and wellbeing, and the two work very closely together. But my department does not oversee Seyfarth Life. So just wanted to make sure I give credit to the right people. BREE: Absolutely, give credit where it's due. KORI: You know, because they're awesome and they do great work. In fact, if I may brag on them, out of the steering committee members, one of them is the chair of the largest department in the firm and an executive committee member and co-chair of the national diversity and inclusion action team. Oh, wait a minute. No, that's not right. Three are office managing partners. They're part of this steering committee, this leadership group, because they actually practice wellbeing and mindfulness and meditation in their own personal lives and allow it to influence how they lead. So I know Seyfarth didn't pay me to do a promotion, but I felt like I needed to shout some guys out. BREE: Absolutely. KORI: Our talent team helps them quite a bit in terms of organizing programs and handling the administrative and logistic things. Okay. So to answer your question, what are the experiences? I often say this and it is true that when I look at my life in the rear view mirror, how I ended up where I am makes a lot more sense as I connect the dots in ways that I probably couldn't have foreseen. For example, I never intended to be a diversity and inclusion professional. I actually never intended to go to law school. I started my university career as an electrical engineering major. When I came to the U.S., I wanted to build planes. That was my thing. I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. I wanted to build planes. I loved science. I could spend hours in the lab. One of the best gifts I ever got was a lab coat. My dad had a custom drawing board built for me when I was a teenager that I carried with me everywhere because technical drawing, engineering drawing was one of my top subjects. KORI: So a lot of things make sense in hindsight. I look at my family composition and my sisters and I were all born in different countries. We have different passports. We grew up in Nigeria, a country with over 300 different ethnic groups with different languages and traditions and customs, so there's that. My family is multi-religious, multi-ethnic, multi-national, multi-racial and there's just so much diversity there. You know, in the family tree, there's a granduncle that's a Methodist church bishop, and one that's an Imam. And my grandfather's father was a teacher, was a teacher of the Quran. And so all of that diversity is there in the family, but it probably influenced how my parents raised my sisters and I and how even through childhood, I was always the person who was connecting the dots between similarities between people. And today we would call that cultural fluency, this ability to recognize cultural differences and not judge them but just adapt to them and be able to say, okay, you know what? KORI: It looks to me like person A is looking through a lens that's different than person B, but they're looking at the same thing. So how can I get these two people to be on the same page? So there's that family dynamic. But another thing that happened when I was growing up that I do think influenced me quite a bit. I grew up in Nigeria. Most of my childhood, we had one military dictator after another. So I grew up with coos happening more often than I would prefer. There were times that things broke out into religious violence. You're talking about incidents where a few people are killed or a lot of people are killed and everything goes to standstill, everybody's on edge. You don't leave your home. When the students go on riots because they're protesting something and things get out of hand, you're turning off the lights in your home and sort of huddled together, trying to make sure that you stay together as a family until everything passes over. So that was also something that I grew up around and experiencing. KORI: And then my parents are from Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is actually my home country. If you ask me where I'm from, I will tell you I was born in Canada, grew up in Nigeria, but I'm from Sierra Leone. Because in my culture, you're where your father's from. So my entire identity has always been that I am from Sierra Leone. In the '90s, Sierra Leone began to experience a very brutal civil war, which calling it a civil war is actually inaccurate. You have a bunch of people with weapons who terrorize the population for 11 years. And it's been one of the most brutal wars that the world has seen at least in recent times. And that impacted my family in the sense that we lost people, in the sense that I hadn't been back to Sierra Leone for a long time. And it kind of started with my mom not feeling it was safe enough for us to go and visit, with grandparents living on the run and being sick and dying and me not seeing them in a long time because of just this state of chaos. KORI: And all of this fueled how I ended up going to law school, wanting to do human rights work, wanting to be a human rights lawyer, feeling as if I learned so much about the American system and the role that the legal profession played in terms of maintaining democracy and freedom and wanting to multiply that. Right. But then I go to law school. I graduate. I fall in love with a boy who I actually started dating in college, and I ended up in Kansas City because I followed a boy. You know, career took a different turn, ended up being a defense lawyer. And then you fast forward to doing an evaluation and me going through a process of saying, okay, I've done a lot of the things I wanted to do. I've achieved a lot of the things I wanted to achieve. I wanted to try cases. I wanted to build this reputation. I wanted to be successful in A, B, C, D. KORI: And I started taking inventory of the things I was passionate about, the skills I developed, the experiences I had and where I was losing time. You know, where was I given my time in community? What were the things that I could lose myself doing in such deep flow that I don't even recognize that time has gone by? And that journey ended up leading me to inclusion and diversity work and I haven't turned back since. There's some aspects of the legal profession I miss. I miss trying cases. I miss solving problems for clients. It may sound like the weirdest thing, but boy, playing around with evidence, rules, and figuring out how to get things in or keep things out is a nerdy love of mine. And so those are just some of the experiences that I would say led me to this love for helping people build bridges and I'm empower people to succeed despite the challenges, and being able to create just a level of cultural fluency amongst groups of people so that we understand how much better we are together as opposed to isolated from one another. So that's a long answer. BREE: Well, what an amazing life you've had to date and an incredible background that informs your work at a depth that I know Chris and I can't even begin to imagine. CHRIS: For sure. Kori, how long have you been more squarely centered on the inclusion and diversity side of things? KORI: I have been for 11 years now full-time diversity. What I realized, you know, somebody asked me a question similar to this, how long have you been doing diversity work, which is different from what I usually hear. I actually did the inventory and realized that, you know, 29 years ago, when I first came to the U.S., that was when I actually started doing presentations. At the time, we called them multiculturalism. We started doing presentations on bridging differences, on being able to understand different cultures and how you navigate it. And so I've been actually teaching on diversity, inclusion, cultural fluency leadership topics now for 29, 30 years. But it being my full-time job, that happened when I left litigation and moved over to Shook, Hardy & Bacon. CHRIS: Okay. I think a good point to maybe start the conversation is, you know, again, your perspective is so unique and informed. For diverse members of the profession, can you talk to our listeners about some of the more challenging aspects of the last couple of years? KORI: Yeah. So the last couple of years have been tough for everyone. This pandemic, it's been brutal and it's impacted us in so many different ways. We've lost our sense of certainty to the extent that we didn't had any. We've lost our ability to have some kind of predictability, something that is a core need, a core need for many of us. Well, not for many of us, for everyone. It's actually a core human need. And so we've been sort of thrown into this whirlwind of uncertainty with no deadline, right? We went from thinking, well, I'll speak for myself. You know, since I'm not a scientist, I foolishly thought, well, maybe in two weeks I'll go back to the office. And then it was a month. And then I thought six weeks. And then I thought for sure by summer 2020 we'd be able to go out and about and things would be quasi under control. And here we are, you know, some 28, 29 months later and we still have COVID. I'm sick right now recovering from COVID after avoiding it for almost 30 months, I get it. KORI: So you have that benchmark that is impacting everyone and the uncertainty that we've seen with everything going on around us. But as with everything, I think people from historically underrepresented and marginalized groups, what happens is the things that... There's this saying that the things, and I'm going to probably say it wrong. And it may be an African American saying, but it's this thing that what gives some people a cold will give others the flu. And so what you've seen then is populations that have been historically marginalized and underrepresented and haven't had access to full equity, had been impacted very differently by the same storm that we're all in. So we're all in the same storm, but we're not in the same boat. We're experiencing it differently. So communities of color, we know got hit by COVID much harder. KORI: And you have that intersection between race, between housing inequity, between education inequity, between healthcare inequity and healthcare access, all of those things coming together to adversely impact some groups more. So if you are someone who is Brown or Black, or from one of these historically marginalized communities, and you are going to work during the pandemic, or you're working from home, you are more likely to have family members who have been directly impacted by COVID, right? You are more likely to have lost family members. You also, generally speaking are more likely to be in a position where you are in an extended family situation where you are responsible for more people than just yourself. You know, one of the things that we know, for example, that impacts generational wealth is that those of us from communities of color oftentimes are responsible not just for ourselves, but for extended family members. KORI: So you have that dynamic playing, then you have the racial pandemic, which has been going on, but in the last two years have come to fevered pitch. And so the daily trauma of dealing with racism and microaggressions then gets compounded by all the incidents, George Floyd, Charles Cooper, and all the other incidents that have been bombarding us from our television screens, from the news reports, from articles. And so now all of a sudden everything is right in your face and you're dealing with all of it at the same time. And so those are some of the things that are professionals from "diverse communities," from underrepresented marginalized communities have been dealing with. And our reserves have been tapped into and overstretched to where for some of us, it feels like it's been just too much. BREE: Absolutely. It's unimaginable just how much to carry on in that space. All of the things that you just described, this litany of horrors is on top of just the day-to-day difficulty as been expressed to me, and reading in my friends of people of color, just the microaggressions and just how hard it is. Just take away pandemic and everything else and the racial reckoning, how hard it can be just to get through the day. I can't even imagine. It is absolutely just too, too much. Kori, there's so much to unpack here. I wanted to kind of pushing us along here talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion and talking about belonging and overlaying that. I mean, when I started looking in the legal profession, we talk about DEI, it was diversity then DEI, and now we're getting into some of the really, to me, needy and interesting stuff around belonging. I know that you created a belonging project at Seyfarth. Could you talk to us about the importance of that, and also about this project that you got started at Seyfarth? KORI: Sure. Let me separate them out. Belonging is a conversation that more and more of us are having, and it is fairly new to the conversation when you're talking about diversity and inclusion. It started with we talked about diversity, and then we started talking about diversity and inclusion, and now we've included equity and belonging. Belonging goes to that sense, that feeling that each of us have when we belong and we feel like we are part of a group and that we belong to something that is bigger than us. It is also a core human need. Brené Brown has this phrase that she says that we have three irreducible needs, and they are to be loved, to connect, and to belong. What we know from the research is that when we don't have belonging, it impacts us. It is wired into our DNA to belong to something. KORI: So we will either have healthy belonging, or we will seek a belonging that may not be healthy and may not be good. This is where you can queue in hate groups and cult because they will do anything to belong. We will also conform to fit in so that we have a quasi sense of belonging. The problem though is that when we don't have belonging, we actually see physiological, physical, spiritual, mental, psychological impact on our wellbeing. It impacts our sense of health. Forget our sense of health. It actually impacts our health, right? We know that exclusion and the lack of belonging actually results in increased depression, increased high blood pressure, increased diabetes. Incidentally, a lot of the same things that racial trauma and microaggressions also causes on the human body. And so if we don't have that sense of belonging, then we are not able to actually actualize that sense of inclusion where everyone is able to be leveraged and their differences and their strengths leveraged so that they can succeed as they want to succeed. KORI: And without belonging, you don't get wellbeing. But conversely, without wellbeing, you can't cultivate that sense of belonging. And so those two things are intertwined as well as this concept of engagement, which also is in the mix, right? You can't create engagement unless you have social connection and belonging. And so all of these things come together. Unfortunately, in many of our organizations, they're treated as separate, right? In many organizations, you have the wellbeing function being managed in a way that it doesn't speak to diversity, doesn't speak to belonging at all. So imagine now we just talked about COVID and we talked about how COVID has impacted everyone. Then imagine you're developing a wellness initiative or a wellbeing initiative and you're not stopping to think, oh, wait a minute, because of diversity, this pandemic has impacted people in different ways. KORI: And so I can't just trot out a wellbeing program without factoring in diversity and how diversity has resulted in different people experiencing this pandemic differently. Similarly, we fail when we try to, for example, have a wellbeing initiative that doesn't stop and think, oh, wow, we're not talking about racial trauma. We're not talking about microaggressions. We're not talking about the impact of implicit bias and exclusion on the psychological and physical wellbeing of the people in our organization. And so what's happening is these concepts are tied together, but in our organizations and most of our organizations, we're not doing DEI and incorporating wellbeing and we're not doing wellbeing incorporating DEIB. Instead, we're acting as if they're completely separate and they're not. CHRIS: I mean, I think it goes without saying, we, I think as human beings, sometimes we compartmentalize of there's this and then there's that. I think that from the infancy of the institute, I think we've emphasized the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of, has to flow through everything, every lens that we look at from the wellbeing perspective. But I have to admit, it's been more challenging than I think, than we've appreciated because sometimes we look a little bit myopically at some of these issues without broadening our lens. That's the perspective that I think that you can bring our listeners that, again, this intersection of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging with wellbeing, I guess I'd be curious on just, how can we merge? Right? Because again, even the fact that there's organizations that work over here and organizations that work over here, and we really should be just the coalition and the umbrella and the totality of how it all works together is something that I don't know that we appreciate the magnitude of. KORI: Well, and the only way we can appreciate the magnitude is if we have these honest conversations. But we also have to have the conversations around the structural and the cultural underpinnings, right? How do we have conversations about wellbeing that take into consideration differences? That take into consideration, okay, we're telling people, hey, we have therapy or we have EAP, or we have whatever the organization offers. But how do you do that and also acknowledge that for some communities that there is a stigma around maybe going to a therapist? How do you have that conversation with those communities? Or that racial bias and racial aggressions are having an impact on people, but you have an entire generation of Black people, for example, who have survived by plowing through all the challenges that the world has put in front of us. And to sit down and talk about the way in which racism has impacted us is asking us to put our shields down, which means opening up ourselves to attack, which means possibly being accused of playing the race card. Right? KORI: All of things that you may have grown up in a time where we just didn't talk about that in mixed company, we only talked about that with each other. And so there are all these layers, all these layers. I recently listened to a friend of mine, Ratu Basin, and she was talking about how it feels for her as someone of Indian heritage to see how much yoga, for example, has been whitewashed. There's so many conversations to be had even in the wellbeing space, even when we're talking to people about things like self-care. Well, what are you recommending? Because some of the things we tell people to do for self-care, go get a massage, who can afford that? What culture support that kind of self-care? And is that really self-care or is that treating a symptom? Should self-care and wellbeing be about a way of life and a way of working such that we don't need these emergency [inaudible 00:32:26] like solutions to fix the symptoms, right? KORI: And that's the big conversation and that's the conversation I'm hearing some lawyers begin to ask where they say, the organization says they care about wellbeing, but we're getting these other messages that say it's productivity and hours and billables that matter, right? How do we shift the culture and how we're embracing these topics in a way that makes it more meaningful? I just realized, I didn't even answer your second question about the belonging project, but yeah, this is the stuff that to me, I see a lot of potential for us to have really good conversations that can lead to solutions that are more inclusive of a diverse profession. BREE: Kori, you're clearly such a thought leader and a visionary in this space. Can you talk a little bit about how do we get change to occur in a profession, the legal profession that is so reluctant to change? Even more so than general society. Where do you see the bright points of really being able to make some change? KORI: Can you repeat that question? BREE: Yeah. Just about how do we get change to occur in the legal profession? You know, this is a profession that is just so stayed and slow and bound up in tradition. This is the way we do it, that sort of thing. And here you are with these fabulous ideas, working with a very large law firm, having come from another very large law firm so you're in this space. What are your ideas for actually getting real change to occur? Where are the pressure points, I guess? KORI: Well, I think some of the pressure points are actually external. You asked me a question earlier about the last two years, something that I didn't mention that has impacted a lot. It's impacting individuals from underrepresented groups, but it's also impacting our organizations. Is this fake cultural war that is also going on, you know, regardless of what political party you're in, I think we can acknowledge that for the last six years, there has been an attack on everything that we are trying to accomplish in diversity and inclusion. White is now Black, Black is now white. And if we are in a state of being, for example, where I'll use Florida as an example where someone can say, we want to ban any training if it makes someone uncomfortable. What you're essentially saying is let's keep the status quo the way it is, even if the status quo supports white supremacy. KORI: Even if the status quo is inequitable. You would rather keep the status quo than have an uncomfortable conversation. When it comes to the legal profession, in particular, law firms, because of how we are constructed. A law firm essentially has multiple owners. It's not like a corporation that has a board of directors and has shareholders. Let's say you have a law firm of a thousand people and 300 of them are partners. You have 300 people running around who think that everybody should have an equal say in every single decision. It's one of the reasons that law firms function so differently from other companies and why decision making is so different. Everything we do is different. You know, we put people in leadership positions not because they're leaders, but because they're great trial attorneys or they're great business generators or whatever, whatever the criteria is, but rarely is it because someone actually is a good leader. KORI: And so we have this culture that we have built that really makes it difficult for us to have real hard conversations on the things that really matter, on the things that really can make change. So imagine that law firm now sitting in the last six years and even more so in the last three years. I can tell you when it comes to diversity, inclusion, many of us are throwing our hands up and saying, so how in the hell are we supposed to have this conversation then? If you're saying, oh, we can't talk about white privilege because someone says, oh, that offends me. Or we can't talk about systemic racism because someone's going to say, oh, wait a minute, if you say systemic racism is real, then that's anti-American. So we are living in a time where the terms racism, the terms CRT have been completely redefined to where they mean nothing that even resembles what they actually mean. KORI: And then we're over here arguing about these fictitious decisions, these fictitious definitions, and we're not actually doing the hard work that needs to be done, right. Because if you won't even acknowledge that systemic racism is real, then how do we evaluate the systems to see where we may be having inequitable results and then changing those systems? Because if you deny a thing exists, then we can't even address it. BREE: Absolutely. KORI: And so that's probably one of the biggest challenges I see, but also the biggest opportunity. And if anything is going to change when it comes to diversity, we have got to get more courageous about having difficult conversations, but conversations that are worthwhile, they are important. Nothing about creating equity is comfortable and cozy and touchy-feely, it's hard work. It requires us to say some things that we maybe may not have faced before, but we don't get to change what we won't face, what we won't acknowledge, and what we won't be honest about. It's like, you can't write a new end into the story if you won't acknowledge the truth of the story. That's the whirlwind that I think we are in now, not just as a profession, but as a country and a society. BREE: Absolutely. What an incredibly difficult place to be? Yeah, go ahead, Chris. CHRIS: Well, I was just going to say, I want to unpack that more. Let's do this. Let's take a quick break and come back because I mean, my burning question and Kori began to sort of thinking about it, which is what's the pathway to better, more productive, honest conversations, right? Because I think that you're right. The question is, how do we create the environments for ultimately that societal discussion to occur in the most productive way? So let's take a quick break and we'll come right back. — ADVERTISEMENT: Meet VERA, your firm's Virtual Ethics Risk Assessment Guide developed by ALPS. VERA's purpose is to help you uncover risk management blind spots from client intake to calendaring, to cybersecurity, and more. VERA: I require only your honest input to my short series of questions. I will offer you a summary of recommendations to provide course corrections if needed, and to keep your firm on the right path. Generous and discreet, VERA is a free and anonymous risk management guide from ALPS to help firms like yours be their best. Visit VERA at alpsinsurance.com/vera.   — CHRIS: Okay. We are back with Kori Carew, our esteemed guests and the chief inclusion and diversity officer at Seyfarth Shaw. Kori, we were just getting into the, I think the discussion. I feel like we're going deeper than even I had thought we would in the conversation, which I love. You know, as we think now about we need to have the honest conversations, right. And so I would just be curious on your opinion as what's the pathway to get there. If we appreciate that there's a lot of noise and the volume levels are high, and there's a lot of yelling, frankly, on both sides of the equation. What's the pathway toward problem solving, thoughtful discussion, intentional discussion that ultimately advances the dialogue? KORI: Thank you very much for that question. Honestly, it's one I've been thinking a lot about. You know, I did do a TEDx in 2017 and the impetus for that TED really was that question that you just asked, which was, there's a lot of yelling and not enough dialogue that allows us to move into action. Since I gave that TED, I've sort of watched what's been going on in organizations and in the country. I don't think I would change anything about that TED, except that there are a few more things that I would emphasize. One of the first things that we have to do if we truly want to make progress, and I'm going to steal a Nigerian thing, tell the truth and shame the devil. We are avoiding being honest with ourself about so many things. Whether it is just being honest about the experiences people have in the organization, or being honest about where the gaps are, or being honest about what the failures are, or even individual honesty. KORI: That self-awareness to say, you know Kori, you talk a lot about wellbeing and you talk a lot about leadership, but the reason you talk about those things is because you were searching for something that you did not have in the leaders that you grew up under, right? So you were trying to create something for others that you didn't have, but you are also trying to create it for yourself. And there are many days that you totally suck. There are many days that you are making very bad wellbeing decisions. There are days that you are not as inclusive as you would want to be, but it's okay. And the only way you're going to get better is by acknowledging where you're not doing it right. Now, think about that when we're talking about gender or race or LGBT inclusion or disability inclusion. If we as individuals and we as organizations are not willing to be honest about our history, what has happened and what is happening, then we don't even have a starting point. KORI: And the way that we do that is very, very cliché. Getting comfortable with what is uncomfortable. I remember when I first started saying that, when I was at Shook, Hardy & Bacon and it wasn't even a thing many people were saying, and now people say it so often that it has lost its meaning. But it truly is the beginning point. And in too many of our organizations, we are shutting down any discussion or any movement in the name of trying to get consensus, or in trying to water things so much that they're meaningless, right? Or being so hyperworried about future possible hypothetical litigation that somebody may have over something that they don't like that they heard as opposed to possible litigation over people who do not feel like they are being treated equitably. You know, it's like we have to choose our heart. And so it's either the heart of sitting in the discomfort and learning things we may not want to learn, challenging ourselves, reaching deep to say, you know what? I don't really like that. KORI: When you talk to me about Christian privilege, this is a true story. Okay. True story. A [inaudible 00:46:22] of mine talked about Christian privilege. We're talking about something. She said, "Yeah, but there's also Christian privilege and people never talk about that." And can I admit to you that I was like, "Oh, is she for real? We're talking about racism and she's talking about Christian privilege." That was my initial reaction. But I sat with it. You know what? She was right. Because she was Pagan and I'm Christian. I've never had to use PTO for Christmas. My holidays are respected, they are recognized, they are centered, they are prioritized. But other people in this country who are not Christian do not have those privileges. Now that's a benign example because it's not one that makes people get as upset as some of the other topics. KORI: But the first step has to be a commitment to sit through the discomfort, sit through what may rub you wrong, and acknowledge that just because something is uncomfortable or just because something offends you does not mean the thing is wrong or it is offensive. And in many of our organizations, we haven't even gotten past that first part. Then the next part has to be a commitment to learn more. We have to operationalize being able to say to each other, tell me more, and not just, oh, I didn't like that training, or I didn't like what I was learning. But to say to yourself internally, okay, I didn't like that. But rather than projecting how I'm feeling it in this moment, I'm going to put myself in the position of saying, tell me more, help me understand why that bothered you, help me understand why you feel that way. Because until we're willing to do that, we're not going to learn. KORI: And without knowledge, we have no opportunity for growth. Growth comes with new knowledge. Growth comes with practicing new skill sets. Growth comes with trying things that you haven't done before. But if you're more invested in protecting the status quo than you are fighting for change, then the status quo will always win. And the status quo right now, it's not working for a lot of people from a lot of underrepresented and marginalized communities. Those are some of the things that have to happen. Oh, Chris, something else I want to add. Both sides. We got to talk about this both sides thing. Not every opinion and argument is equal, and that's something else that we're not willing to address head on. We've allowed inclusion to be so redefined that some people think it means anything and everything is of equal footing, right. KORI: But someone saying in the workplace, we need to be more inclusive of people with disabilities is not the same as someone saying, I don't think disabled people should have to work here. And sometimes what is crouching in is people want to hide behind inclusion to spew hate or bigotry or an excuse not to make the change and growth that is consistent with the so-called values of our organizations. I'll pause there because you're about [inaudible 00:50:05]. BREE: Yeah. I just want to comment to our listeners Kori's TED Talk, just in your browser, put in Kori Carew and TED Talk. I really encourage people to check it out. It is powerful and profound. So Kori, I'm going to ask you a question here that we also tend to ask this sometimes near the end, if you could look for, I don't know, five years or even a decade. If we can do a decent job around changing hearts and minds and attitudes around diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and wellbeing too, hopefully, how would the profession be different? What do you want to see? KORI: My goodness, my goodness, my goodness. Excuse me. That cough came up. If we could actually accomplish all these things that we've been talking about for 20 years, we would see leadership teams that are more humble in their approach, leadership teams that are people-centric, organizations that are listening to employees and actually care about what employees want. We would no longer be having conversations as if it's either you focus on the bottom line or you focus on employee happiness. Like we will understand that without happy employees who are engaged and doing fulfilling and meaningful work, we actually don't have a great bottom line to talk about. Right? Our organizations would look like inclusion and wellbeing and belonging, it's just part of the business strategy. It's not this separate siloed thing. It's not this thing that we talk about when we are worried about how the woman or the gays may react. Right. KORI: But it's just something that is operationalized into our values, into our competencies, into how we evaluate people, into how we promote people, and that we are constantly in humility, learning from each other. Right. So that even when somebody who's a chief inclusion and diversity officer, here's a phrase and someone says, "Did you realize that that was ableist?" That I would say, "I didn't. Tell me more." And once you tell me more, I changed my language, because we understand that we're always going to be moving. We're always going to be learning something new and there's always an opportunity to be better. And if we do that, we will also see different representation at all levels. We will actually have critical mass of diversity in our organizations. And then I would be unemployed. CHRIS: I was going to wrap up with this though, Kori, like if I was to serve up to you 500 managing partners, that were, again, I think one of the things that you've already mentioned is every individual in an organization is either additive or perhaps distracts from the culture that you're ultimately trying to create. A lot of the wellbeing discussion is about connecting and emphasizing wellbeing with decision makers and those who set the tone of organizations. And so my question to you is this, if I served up 500 managing partners of all sizes of firms around the country and they came and Kori was the keynote, what would be your message to them? KORI: My message to them would be that they are ridiculously in charge, that things happen in their organizations because they allow it, or they create it. And that by choosing to focus a hundred percent on their inclusive leadership skills and up in their ability to interrupt bias, to be culturally fluent, they could transform their organizations because where the leader goes, everyone else follows. BREE: Right. CHRIS: That's great. That's awesome. Well, again, Kori, you have certainly cultivated my curiosity, which I know is one of the things that you strongly advocate for. Couldn't be prouder to have you on the podcast and the sharing of your perspective. We got to get you more platforms for you to be able to shout loudly about these particular issues, because again, we got a lot of work to do, right. We know that there's a lot to be done in terms of realizing the potential of this profession, to realizing the potential of historically underrepresented and marginalized lawyers within our profession. Bree, I think that we all would agree that even as we pursue our wellbeing mission, that so much more has to be done on the diversity, equity, and inclusion perspective that integrates in the intersection there between those two that lanes need to merge in a much more substantive way. KORI: Thank you. CHRIS: Thank you, Kori. KORI: I appreciate it. I appreciate you having me. I appreciate you allowing Justin to come and hold my hand because she's my blinky today. I appreciate you inviting us to talk about what we're doing at Seyfarth and just my perspective as an individual separate from Seyfarth. Again, I've said this before, the work you're doing is so critically important. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for everything that you do to promote wellbeing in the profession. So important. CHRIS: Awesome. Well, again, thanks for joining us. We will be back with the podcast probably in a couple weeks with our executive director, Jennifer DiSanza, which we are so excited to be having her join us as we talk about the future of where this movement is going. Thanks again, Kori. And to all our friends out there, we will be back in a couple weeks.

A legal industry pioneer, Jan Anne Dubin is CEO and Founder of Jan Anne Dubin Consulting. Jan is an award-winning consultant with over 35 years of experience leading, innovating, and serving as a change agent and connector. Celebrating more than 10 years of delivering value and results to more, JADC assists organizations and individuals to better serve client needs by focusing on developing long-term relationships, strategic communications, revenue generation and by building brand, profile, and visibility. Jan serves as an executive coach, providing strategic guidance and counsel to organizations and individuals by assisting them to achieve breakthroughs. Jan has coached hundreds of lawyers, law students, and marketing professionals, including corporate law department and law firm leadership as well as high-potential individuals. Jan is a career-long champion of diversity and inclusion and is passionate about her work in this area. She serves as a strategic business partner to the Association of Corporate Counsel and has worked with ACC to create an executive coaching program and career development workshops. She is a partner to Seyfarth Shaw's The Belonging Project having created a three-part series for them on Empowered Resilience: Tools for Thriving in 2021. She is also an advisor and business partner to the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute and provided instrumental assistance to create and deliver its forum on Women's Transformative Leadership: Empowerment by Improving Participation and Representation. Jan served as the Chief Growth Officer of LifeXT, LLC (lifecrosstraining.com), where she was responsible for new client engagements by educating organizations on LifeXT's wellbeing tools and resources. Prior to starting JADC, she served as the first North American Business Development Director for Baker & McKenzie LLP and as the Director of Client Relations for DLA Piper US LLP and its legacy firms, where she held various senior management and leadership roles for more than 17 years. Selected by StreetWise, Inc., as one of 20 recipients of its 2019 Inspiring Chicagoan award, Jan was also selected by Chicago Business Journal as one of its 2018 Women of Influence. Jan was inducted in 2017 as a Fellow into the College of Law Practice Management (COLPM) and in 2016 into the Legal Marketing Association Midwest Chapter's Hall of Fame. She has been recognized by Today's Chicago Woman magazine as one of 100 Women Making a Difference and has received the Anti-Defamation League's Distinguished Community Leadership Award. In 1994 Jan was recruited by former First Lady Michelle Obama (then executive director of Public Allies Chicago) to join its board of directors; Jan later became its board chair and today serves on the emeritus board. In 2020, Jan was recruited to serve on the i.c. Stars Chicago board and has been active in the Anti-Defamation League's Women of Achievement annual dinner committee, having previously chaired the fundraising event for 27 years. A 1994 M.B.A. graduate of The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, she holds a B.S. degree from the University of Kansas, William Allen White School of Journalism. Jan lives in Chicago with her fiancé David Abrams and Shetland sheep dog Quinn. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/freeman-means-business/support

From a humble beginning to being named one of the Best Lawyers in America, Denice Tokunaga has had an unconventional path to success in commercial real estate – one she admits she struggled with until recently. Today, Denice is a real estate partner at the law firm Seyfarth Shaw in Seattle, working with some of the biggest players in e-commerce. As e-commerce has evolved over the years, so have the needs of her clients and her role in industrial real estate transactions. Denice stresses the importance of being flexible and ready to pivot when it comes to working with clients and developing your career. To learn more, visit www.builtpodcast.com.

In today's Hot Spotting Real Estate Podcast we are chatting with our first real estate attorney on the show, Annie Malo!Annie is a Senior Associate at Seyfarth Shaw.Topics DiscussedAnnie shares her unique journey how she went from a farm in Alabama to a top nationwide law firmAnnie provides insight on how she decided to focus on Real Estate lawDiscussion on some sticking points when it comes to the lease negotiation processHelpful tips on how to speed up the lease negotiation process Detailed discussion on acquisitions and advise on how to avoid or mitigate the chances of losing a dealAdvise for law students who may be on the cusp of choosing their focus in law "Alessandra Wants to Know" segment of the show*How to contact our guests*Annie Malo – anmalo@seyfarth.comW: +1 (617) 946-4891Annie's Website/LinkedInSeyfarth Shaw Website

How many times in your career have you heard; your network is your net worth? If you're like the average person, we don't always prioritize or value networking in our respective industries. In fact, you may cringe and shudder at the thought of going to a networking event.  For Robert T. Syzba, networking comes easier when the focus is on meeting people and making connections. This perspective has helped Robert pivot from his earlier career in the entertainment industry to become a partner at Seyfarth Shaw overseeing Labor & Employment.  “The biggest problem with networking is the fact that it sounds so scary, and the fact that people make it out to be a lot more than that is interesting” -Robert T. Syzba  Robert's Reasons and Tips for Networking Discussed:  When you don't network, there is a void in your professional development  Focus on meeting people, making connections, and making new friends  It's not always a direct benefit, but it is an opportunity to build your reputation  Tips for introverted people to find other ways to network without social pressure  Networking requires you to extend yourself, no way around it.    Robert was recently selected to the 2022 edition of the Best Lawyers in America. He shares about the surprising turn of events that lead him away from music and performance to a closely connected legal career.  Connect with Robert T. Syzba:  Linkedin  Website    Leaving a review of this podcast is encouraged and greatly appreciated.  Check out Beverly Williams' book: Your GPS to Employment Success  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paid leave may not be an “employee benefit,” strictly speaking, in the same way that health coverage and retirement coverage are. But providing it has become a significant pressure point for employers, especially as an increasing number of states and localities have erected their own mandates over the last decade. In this episode, host Jason Hammersla talks about this slow-motion explosion of paid leave mandates with one of the nation's foremost legal authorities on the subject: Josh Seidman, a partner in the Labor and Employment department of Seyfarth Shaw, LLP. Together, Jason and Josh talk about the history of state and municipal paid leave statutes, how to think about them in their present form, and what the future holds. We also, somehow, touch on a couple of classic cinematic comedies.  View Josh's bio here: https://www.seyfarth.com/people/joshua-d-seidman.html Council members can access the State Paid Leave Atlas here: https://www.americanbenefitscouncil.org/atlas

In construction, cost escalation is not an uncommon thing as the price of raw building materials fluctuate often.  More recently, prices have been increasingly volatile since the start of the pandemic due to swings in supply and demand as well as political posturing.    In this episode, James Newland of Seyfarth Shaw's construction practice discusses cost escalation and the remedies during and after negotiations have commenced.   

FPS Podcast #33, Avoiding Fraud in Federal Contract Claims, I talk with Seyfarth Shaw's Teddie Arnold and Stephanie Magnell.  As a contractor, you have the right to file for a claim for a number of reasons.  However, you may want to make sure you are on solid ground to file the claim against the government or you could be looking at a number of actions the federal government could take against your organization as explained in this podcast.   

Annette Tyman, Partner at Seyfarth Shaw, and Co-Chair of Seyfarth's People Analytics Group, discusses pay equity and ways you can narrow the pay gap through pay audits, reviews, and more.

The CandEs Shop Talk Podcast welcomes back Chris DeGroff, Matt Gagnon, and Jerry Maatman, law partners at Seyfarth-Shaw, as they discuss their latest annual report on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) legal enforcement and court rulings. Listen in on how improving candidate experience impacts recruiting and t he business bottom line.

COVID-19 prompted the “greatest exodus of women from the workforce in all of history,” explains Camille Olson, a Partner at Seyfarth Shaw and a Trustee of The Conference Board. In a new episode of CEO Perspectives, she joins President and CEO Steve Odland to discuss this alarming trend. Tune in for insights on: Reasons behind the exit: From caregiving responsibilities to childcare demands to heightened stress, why are more women leaving their jobs than ever before? Overhauling outdated practices: Only 57 percent of women are currently participating in the workforce. What can companies do to better attract and retain female employees? Policy at play: Would updates to federal and state laws help more women feel knowledgeable about their rights, and therefore more willing to stay at their jobs? Generational shifts: The composition of workers is changing. Do millennial women approach work differently than their predecessors?

Laurie Robinson Haden is a 1998 graduate of the Law School. During her time in Bloomington, she served as an Associate and then Executive Notes Editor of the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies. In addition to a spectacular career working at Epstein Becker & Green, Seyfarth Shaw, and at CBS Corporation, Laurie is the founder, president and CEO of Corporate Counsel Women of Color. Corporate Counsel Women of Color is a non-profit professional organization, which Laurie created in 2004 to support and advance women of color as attorneys and to foster diversity in the legal profession.It now has more than 4700 members.

Get a case law update on state and federal wage and hour laws in this podcast, excerpted from MCLE's 6/8/2021 live webcast, Preventing & Litigating Wage & Hour Cases. The full program is available as an on demand webcast or an MP3 here. Get 24/7 instant access to hundreds of family law eLectures like this one—and more—with a subscription to the MCLE OnlinePass. Learn more at www.mcle.org/onlinepass.Speakers:Robert A. Fisher, Seyfarth Shaw LLP, BostonDeepa K. Desai, Fisher & Phillips LLP, BostonBrian J. MacDonough, Sherin and Lodgen LLP, Boston

What you'll learn in this episode: Why legal marketing became a legitimate business function in the 90s, and how Jan was at the forefront of this new field Why Jan patterned her early legal business development materials after the architecture industry How a sense of belonging impacts people's work, and how law firms can cultivate that quality within their business How the pandemic highlighted the need for resiliency within lawyers and law firms What strategies Jan uses to work with her clients, and what qualities to look for in an executive coach About Jan Anne Dubin: A legal marketing industry pioneer and thought leader, Jan Anne Dubin is an award-winning consultant and executive coach with global experience leading, innovating, and serving as a change-agent, and connector. Jan has led hundreds of cross-functional legal teams which have helped to build and deepen client relationships generating in excess of $100 million in revenue. For more than three decades Jan has occupied a unique niche in the legal services industry, where she has worked with leadership of global, mid-size and boutique law firms and corporate law departments, with law firm marketing professionals and other senior professional staff, and with law students. Jan concentrates on providing value-driven business solutions focused on business development, client service, marketing, branding, and strategic communications. Jan serves as an executive coach to hundreds of leaders and managers, including high potential individuals and those seeking both to work at a peak performance level and to achieve the next level of career development. As a career-long champion of diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging, Jan is passionate about working with women and diverse individuals and helping them achieve their career objectives. Offering goal-oriented, practical executive coaching solutions, Jan provides perspective, guidance, tactical suggestions, and strategic networking resources for individuals and their organizations to determine and achieve goals and objectives. Her philosophy of executive coaching is to focus on the core skills of leadership development and executive presence; strategic communications; client service; business development; and enhancement of a personal brand, profile and visibility in support of an individual's strengths while improving weaknesses that otherwise may hinder performance. Jan serves as a strategic partner to the Association of Corporate Counsel where she helped to create their in-house counsel executive coaching program and career skills workshops. She is a business partner with the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute and helped co-create and chair their Women's Transformative Leadership: Empowerment by Improving Participation and Representation forum. Additional resources: LinkedIn Transcript: If Covid taught us anything, it's that agility is necessary for long-term success. Law firms and individual lawyers sometimes need a shot in the arm to move to the next level, and that's exactly what Jan Anne Dubin specializes in. As Founder and CEO of Jan Anne Dubin Consulting, she helps individuals, and therefore their firms, become the best they can be. She joined the podcast to talk about her time at the forefront of legal marketing, the trends that emerged during the pandemic, and how she helps her clients step into leadership roles. Read the episode transcript here.  Sharon: Welcome to the Law Firm Marketing Catalyst Podcast. Today, my guest is Jan Anne Dubin, Founder and CEO of Jan Anne Dubin Consulting. She is an award-winning consultant who assists clients by helping them develop long-term relationships. She has coached thousands of lawyers, law students and marketing professionals and garnered many accolades along the way. We'll hear more about the work she does today. Jan, welcome to the program. Jan: Thank you, Sharon. I'm delighted to be here with you again. Sharon: Jan, tell us a little about how you started working with lawyers because, as I remember, you're not a lawyer, but I know you've worked with so many. Jan: Thanks, Sharon, for asking that question. Yes, I started my career after graduating from the University of Kansas with a degree in journalism thinking that I might want to go law school down the road. I felt the best way to get some experience was to apprentice as a paralegal at a law firm and gain real insight, and then make the decision to go to law school. Subsequently I got hired by a firm in the early 80s to head up their recruiting work and do some paralegal work. So, I gained the skills, as I used to laugh and joke about. I got to do big, paralegal-type projects once and then never again, such as attending a bankruptcy hearing on the last day of the year when you're helped with a very large multi-million-dollar real estate closing. My challenge after 3:00 p.m. was to somehow convince a teller at a bank that they had to accept the funds before 3:00 p.m. so the closing could take effect on the current year.  Subsequently I got involved in marketing and business development in the mid-80s, when I was asked to take on a role in decisional recruiting but not to tell anyone. At the time, I was maybe the eighth law firm marketer in the country. I'm number 32 according to my LMA number, which is ironic, given the profession is somewhere upwards of probably 10,000 people today. For me, it was an opportunity to learn. Subsequently I made a choice not to go to law school, but in the early 90s while working full time at a firm called Rudnick and Wolf—which is today known DLA Piper—I went to business school full time while working full time at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. That was my journey into law firms.  What happened also along the way was that I was given some extraordinary opportunities to be the first coming in to build the department and build the function of recruiting and then marketing. When I got to Rudnick in the early 90s, my job was also to start delineating, within the construct of marketing and strategic communications and business development, each of those separate functions as they were evolving with the profession. I felt really fortunate to be at the ground level. Legal marketing has sparked a very complex half-forward as it has over the years.  Sharon: Are you a natural networker? How was it that they said, “Can you handle marketing?” Did they even know what marketing was then? Jan: To answer the question if I am a natural marketer, my parents are probably smiling down at me from heaven saying, “Yes. You have to say yes.” As the record reflects, I was once known to have sold rocks and notebook paper to my parents' neighbors, which they thought, as endearing as my parents were, absolutely horrifying. I also had a lemonade stand at the end of my driveway, which was the sort of gatekeeper for the beach. Every car was stopped by a police officer who used to park at the end of my driveway. He would pull people over long enough to ask if they had a beach sticker and allow me to sell them a nickel cup of lemonade, which I did often. After that, at a young age, I was very outgoing. I became shy, but I used my tools of people skills and knowledge and the power they brought to get more comfortable as I progressed in my career to network with people. I was good at listening to people, understanding their needs and, conversely, thinking about insight, information and the other people I could connect them to. Stringing those dots together is probably one of my superpowers, if I have any. Sharon: You say you come from a family of architects. Did you see a lot of focus on business development with them? Jan: Yes. In my early career in the 90s at Rudnick and Wolf, it was a confluence of things that were occurring: the globalization of the world and certainly the legal profession, the advent of technology and the computer being used beyond a secretarial function, the world growing such that the lawyers that historically had relationships and allegiances to firms changed. As lawyers were leaving with portable business and coming in as laterals or joinders with other firms as a result of groups leaving, the pressure for business development increased.  I remember in the early 90s, also with the failure of the savings and loan industry and the development of the FTC and the FDIC, a lot of firms that historically had done real estate work found themselves now doing the same work for the government in workouts and restructuring of failed bank loans. I think some of the first proposals I worked on were very labor-intensive government proposals. The first time I saw one of these documents, I had no earthly idea what to do with it. I remember calling a colleague of mine who was the director of marketing at the accounting firm Laventhol & Horwath, which has been extinct for probably 30 years, to ask him about it. Then, I actually went over to my father's office. Architects typically pitched business on spec, and they were very familiar with the whole process of pitching as a result of the business development process.  I looked at what those responses to requests for proposals or information looked like and began to pattern our business development materials after that. Little by little, we created and grew a library of documents very similar to the pitch materials that law firms use today. Today they're more sophisticated. They've got many more areas of practice specialties as well as nuances that delineate one firm from another, but it certainly was the beginning in the 90s, probably five to seven years before a lot of firms were engaging in pitch activity. I started to do that, and I loved that work. I loved the thrill of new business and helping lawyers solve problems. A lot of times in a pitch scenario, you have to create hypotheticals; you have to create financial models to demonstrate pricing. I liked the puzzle aspects, thinking through the challenge and figuring out unique solutions to win work.  Sharon: You were way ahead of your time there. One thing that really intrigued me—well, a lot of things intrigued me while we were talking—but you talked about how you helped lawyers and other executives in this business so that people found their fit within an organization. I thought that was really interesting because, to me, it's like the organization is a static animal; you can't come in and change that as much as you have to come in and find your place. You fit here and that's it, or you don't fit. How do you help people find a fit? Jan: I would challenge that comment a little bit in terms of organizations being static. I think if the pandemic and the responses to social unrest over the last 18 months have taught us nothing, it's taught us that in order to survive and thrive going forward, we have to be nimble. I think that comes from organizations needing to shift course quickly and correct and adapt and those within them, their people—their greatest asset—having to follow suit and do the same. I think one of the interesting things that happens during a time like a pandemic is the volume of innovation that comes out of it. People also have to think of their careers from a resiliency perspective and truly think about what's going to make them happy within an organization.  Historically, as we look at the diversity, equity and inclusion spectrum, those were processes that firms put forward to retain their best people, but the dot at the end of the sentence of DEI is belonging. How do organizations help people feel like they belong? Equally important, how do people who are trying to manage and direct their careers over time seek out to find belonging? That's a complex journey, and part of that requires us to figure out, sometimes with the assistance of an executive coach, what the means and what that looks like, so that people aren't just parking time and doing an O.K. job, but they're really thriving in the work that they do, and if they're not currently with the right organization, taking the steps necessary to either turn their current function into one that's tenable or finding the right next opportunity. One amazing thing I saw over the course of the pandemic is the number of transitions that occurred. Over the course of the last 16 months, I've probably done 30 programs for the Association of Corporate Counsel, for Seyfarth Shaw. They have a program and a project called The Belonging Project, which is focused on a combination of career discussions related to finding resilience and strategic networking in this remote work-from-home environment. It's interesting to hear stories from law firms and those in-house counsel that have onboarded with organizations and never actually met their colleagues until recently, and the comments that come out. I did a program for Women in the House for the Association of Corporate Counsel two weeks ago. One of the comments one of my panelists made was the fact that people were surprised that she was as petite as she was, given she had a much more dominant presence on Zoom calls. I think they were surprised when they actually met her, which is an odd thing to focus on. It's interesting.  To your point, some organizations are static. Some are, but I think they've found that they need to adjust and be more nimble, whether they are dragged into this process by individuals wanting or needing something different or by experiencing tremendous growth or transition. I think the dramatic change that we have endured has impacted organizations to be more flexible, and I think they will only continue to do so going forward. Sharon: I do understand what you're saying. What I mean by static, the corporate world is very different. The law firm world is very different than it used to be. I think everybody understands that they have to make—not concessions, but they have to adapt; they have to make people happy. When people are satisfied, they feel exactly like what you're saying. It's interesting; every organization still has a personality. As much as you bend over backwards or you have people work from home, there's still a personality. I guess that's what I mean by static. Jan: Yeah. I think the opportunity over the last months has allowed for organizations to refine that personality and soul search as an organization to figure out the traditions that are valued, what's their import to people, and what are some new traditions that need to be embraced. Looking at written and very thought-provoking conversations that have come out because of the social unrest this country has experienced, it is refreshing to see people who have concerns and truths that they don't want to suppress any longer. I think the dialogue has become more raw, more real, and hopefully it paves the way for things that are meaningful and significant in firms.  Firms are looking at old traditions that are outmoded and need to be replenished, or they're looking at things that matter, things that are woven into the fabric of the firm. Having smart, talented management people to help organizations figure that out is critical, especially in light of this environment. People are beginning to return to work or some hybrid of work-from-home and in-office work, and they need to make sure that not only is the organization intellectually one that somebody wants to associate themselves with, but also one that's safe and supports an environment that people are comfortable working in. Sharon: Right, every organization today has to think about that, people feeling safe and comfortable. Those are important words. The other important word you used was one of my favorites that I ponder a lot. It has to do with resilience. You talked about how you kept all your resilience during this pandemic and how that meaning is going to change for lawyers, for professionals, post-pandemic. Can you tell us about that? Jan: I think resilience is the watchword of this time that we're in. Midstream during the pandemic, I interacted with two types of people. One was so stretched and they were doing the work of one-and-a-half to two people because their organization had a hiring freeze. They literally went from project to project and worked many more hours from home or a remote environment than they ever did being in the office.  Then there was another approach of folks that had not enough to do, and they were all of a sudden seeking out new avenues. That was a lawyer looking for innovative ways to a go down business development path, trying to figure out how to stay in contact. You saw some creative things that came out of that, as well as the proliferation from law firms at the onset of the pandemic of more material in the form of more newsletters and webinars and podcasts than anybody could ever watch in one lifetime. Thank goodness, I think people have backed away from jumping on everything and throwing the kitchen sink at clients and prospects to being more thoughtful and strategic about what people care about, what aligns with their needs.  I think firms have done some interesting things in the resilience area. You see more firms taking seriously the need of well-being and ways to create healthier lawyers and staff within organizations. That's particularly important. Of this whole concept of well-being, resilience is a big piece of it. People being mentally, physically fit and feeling safe and secure in the environment they're working in is important. People also see this need to give back to others. There's probably never been a greater need, certainly within our large urban cities. Homelessness has multiplied, and the challenges and demands they have are greater when you've got more people on the street. A lot of the shelters and single-room occupancy dwellings they historically would have stayed in were closed due to Covid. Figuring out how to fill those needs, how to help those that are hungry, has been particularly critical.  For me, I came up with some random and some strategic acts of kindness that I felt needed to guide my path starting early in the spring of 2020. I was fraught with the challenge as I was furloughed from my law firm clients. What would I do? I worried about what would I do long-term to replenish that work and what I would do in the short-term to stay sane and intellectually challenged. I took on some pro bono projects that were meaningful to me. One was a project called Milkmaid, where I worked with friends of mine that were partnered with Jose Andres and World Central Kitchen. It's a catering company out of Evanston, Illinois called Soul and Smoke. At this point during the pandemic response, they have donated more than 150,000 meals to those in need in the Evanston and Englewood neighborhoods of Chicago. At the beginning, I called them to say, “How can I help? I have time. I have money. I have limited money, but I have a lot of resources that I can bring to bear.” One of the first demands they had was milk, so I started by calling a number of bottling companies to identify a source for milk and getting nowhere quickly in that process. By fluke, about a week after I had started making those calls, I say a story on ABC Channel 7 News at 4:30 that talked about farmers that were frantically pouring milk back into the earth because cows need to be milked, but they had no demand and no distribution of the milk. I wrote the names down quickly and started to map out each of the locations for the various farms and their proximity to Evanston.  On my first call, I talked to Max Tillges—actually, I talked to his wife first, who had to call to him out on the farm. I explained I was a small business owner, and I knew who he was. I was not looking to get milk at a discount, but I was looking to access a quantity of milk beyond what we could buy locally from any of the grocery stores. I needed pasteurized milk, and I needed to have it delivered in a safe, refrigerated manner to Evanston once a week. We started a project I called Milkmaid, which was the delivery of 200 gallons of pasteurized whole and 2% milk once a week. This program ran for a 12-week period. At the end of the 12 weeks we shut it down, as milk was back in plentiful supply at the local grocery and actually less expensive per gallon than the costs we were paying for milk.  It was an interesting experience from my perspective. I never spent a lot of time dealing with farmers or understanding the challenges they had. I was also pleasantly surprised how easy it was to coordinate the resources between Tillges Farm and the Soul and Smoke folks, and their ability to coordinate with the Montessori School in Englewood, which was part of Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen project to get milk and food to people in need in the community. Sharon: Wow! That was quite a project. I give you a lot of credit. That's quite an undertaking, besides the fact that you were busy and trying to do what everybody else was to keep their own lives going. We talked about in-house counsel and that you work a lot with in-house counsel. It always surprises me. You're an executive coach also, but what do you do? What is the presenting issue? Jan: Sure, it's a number of things. Let me start. Throughout the last 30 plus years, I've had some relationship with the Association of Corporate Counsel. Initially it was through Rudnick and Wolf and then Piper, Marbury and DLA Piper, where I was the lead point person for that relationship. It's extended beyond that up until today. About six years ago, they came to me as they were looking to develop their career resources for in-house counsel. Initially, it was to help those in-house counsel in transition with career needs. The first year we focused the executive coaching resources on career transitions. Subsequently, I found that more discussions related to those that weren't looking necessarily to make a move out of the organization but were looking for ways to own their roles and strengthen their leadership skills and executive presence differently than they had done. So, we started to focus on that. In concert with that, I helped create a series of programs that looked at aspects of building a personal brand, developing thought leadership and a social media profile, strategic networking similar to what law firms do, but very focused on the in-house counsel audience. It was done with the understanding of how somebody in-house can build their network, both with others in a very large law department and with their internal clients who are the business units. In some instances, a general of a bank will have internal interactions with customers at the bank as well. It's a lot of the same intellectual challenges that law firm partners and associates go through in thinking about how to build their book of business, but more with an internal focus.  I've worked with ACC and its members for a number of years in the area. I am on the career website for ACC. I'm one of probably 20 coaches or so that are there. I do some gratis work for in-house counsel that's interested in exploring something different. That could be, again, leadership development; it could be wanting to get to the next level of development with an in-house organization; it could be somebody that's been managing counsel that wants to become a general counsel, and we're talking through the steps to successfully accomplish that. For others it might be inculcating a more robust diversity program within the construct of the law department. If there's any question about the evolution and how much law departments have changed, just looking at the launch of the organization clock which very specifically looks at the operations function. Historically, a role that a general counsel would have served in is now often supported by somebody that's got a purely operations function and is looking at improved functionality as well as cost reduction. I think it makes the role of GC or chief legal officer of an organization even more challenging, and it starts to relate differently to other C-suites within the structure of the organization. That's a quick overview of the type of work I've done with in-house counsel. Sharon: Well, it sounds very interesting. Is it usually an individual who will come to you?  Jan: It depends on the project. I get brought in by organizations. Often law firm leadership or law department leadership will bring me in to talk about the big challenges they may have. Sometimes it's specifically regarding an individual they think might be stuck, if you will, in their career and needs some help. These are productive individuals that may need some improved skills in a specific area. It could be strategic communications; it could be hygiene, and when I say hygiene, I don't mean body; I mean discipline in following rules. Things like timekeeping, where they work, how they interact with folks in the office. A lot of times an executive coach can be a sounding board to try to help an individual erode things that are in their way. Oftentimes, it can help them see themselves as others do. It can help them get out of their own way and allow them the ability to thrive in what they're doing. Sometimes it's unlearning habits and patterns that have been developed and adopted over many years. Sharon: Jan, thank you so much. There are different feelings I'm feeling. First of all, your knowledge is amazing, and your experience is amazing, but I know there's an aspect of frustration here. There must be so much satisfaction once you get past a roadblock or when a person sees the value you're bringing and how you can make a difference. Jan: Yeah, Sharon, you really hit it on the head. It's an incredibly intimate process, to assure somebody that they can trust you and have confidence. I always say to people that are interested in hiring an executive coach, “Kick the tires hard on the person you're going to meet to make sure they have the skill set you're looking for and the personality to meet with you.” I know as a coach—and I learned this lesson over many years as a law firm marketing person—you can't push a string. You've got to be met with the same energy that you as an executive coach bring to the table. They need to want to not just articulate change, but to put in the heavy lifting that's required week after week to bring about the change they want to see. It's an incredibly rewarding experience. Without getting into specifics, I can say the pinnacle of my opportunities came a few months ago, when one of my clients asked me to attend a senate confirmation hearing. They were a Biden appointee who has now been confirmed, and they asked me to attend their senate confirmation hearing, It really was one of my proudest moments, both for the this individual and also to be valued enough by this person to have them want me to come with them. It was quite exciting.  Sharon: It was quite a compliment. I can see why. Jan, thank you so much for talking with us today. I really appreciate it. There is so much depth in what you say, so thank you. Jan: Thank you, Sharon. You've made the conversation flow very quickly. Thank you for your time and for allowing me to share my thoughts. Sharon: I'm so glad to have you. Thanks a lot.  

NDAs sound like the perfect option to protect all information anytime your nonprofit talks to a third party, so you should always sign one. Right? In this episode of the PBPA Podcast, Dan Hart from Seyfarth Shaw talks to us about how NDAs really work and when they may be beneficial for a nonprofit. He also shares insight on specific NDA terms and what to look out for before your nonprofit signs one of these restrictive agreements. Guest Speaker: Dan Hart, Partner at Seyfarth Shaw.

Are We Ready for the Cybersecurity Wars? Paul Ferrillo, partner at Seyfarth Shaw and author of two books on cybersecurity, speaks with Richard Levick and Ian Lipner of LEVICK about lessons from past cyber incidents including Solar Winds, best practices, making recommendations for companies and wonders aloud if most publicly traded companies are ready when they get hacked.

Bob Chaput, Founder and Executive Chairman, Clearwater, speaks to Leon Rodriguez, Partner, Seyfarth Shaw, about the C-Suite and Board-led transformation that is required to manage cybersecurity risks in health care. They talk about how the digitization of health care has driven a greater number of and different types of cyber attacks across the health care ecosystem. They also discuss increased personal liability for health care directors and officers, as well as best Board and C-Suite practices to mitigate that liability. Sponsored by Clearwater. 

To assist employers with one of the unanticipated challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Seyfarth Shaw published a remote worker relocation checklist, identifying potential risks raised by remote workers relocating with or without notice. In this podcast, Associate Brian Wadsworth further examines the issues that employers should be cognizant of and suggests potential steps to that employers should take to avoid risk. The episode also offers insight into potential scenarios employers may face as they continue to work around the challenges presented by their remote workforces.

Lexicon Brand Manager Lauren Hoffmann and Chief Information Officer Brad Paubel host The LeX Factor Briefs, A Lawfully Good Podcast. Lauren and Brad discuss the recent cyberattacks at Seyfarth Shaw, highlighted in a recent article on Law.com and breaks down how cyber attacks like this... The post Falling Victim to a Cyber Attack – The LeXFactor Briefs appeared first on Lexicon.

Kathryn Rubino speaks with Kori Carew, Seyfarth Shaw's chief inclusion and diversity officer and leader of The Belonging Project initiative. They talk about why the middle of a pandemic is the right time for Biglaw to double down on diversity. Episode Resources https://www.seyfarth.com/the-belonging-project.html   kcarew@seyfarth.com  https://www.seyfarth.com/about-us/firm-leadership.html   Episode Highlights What's the project all about - 1:00 Offering webinars - 2:39 A coaching culture and program - 3:59 The pandemic and the program - 7:23 People impacted by COVID_19 - 8:13 The legal field in 2008 - 9:04 A mental health issue with the pandemic - 10:29 This is the time for diversity inclusion - 14:34 Marking sure people are okay - 15:02 Impact how people feel at the end of this pandemic - 21:30 Uncertainty and the pandemic - 22:36 Serving the legal community - 24:56 The goal of the project - 25:13   Subscribe, Share and Review To get the next episode subscribe with your favorite podcast player. Subscribe with Apple Podcasts Follow on Spotify Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

TechGC WebsiteChris Sands TwitterTechGC LinkedInTechGC Twitter ABOUT THE GUESTGeorgia Quinn is an American entrepreneur and lawyer. She is the general counsel of CoinList a platform that provides services to top token developers including compliant offering, distribution, and liquidity services.  She is also the co-founder of iDisclose, a legal technology company focused on the disclosure and legal document needs of small business and startup entrepreneurs. Ms. Quinn began her practice in capital markets at Weil, Gotshal and Manges and later moved to Seyfarth Shaw before founding iDisclose. Ms. Quinn received a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from New York University. ABOUT THE HOSTChris Sands leads content and communications for TechGC.  Prior to joining TechGC in 2018, Chris was an executive legal and compliance recruiter in Silicon Valley, specializing in high-growth FinTech firms.  Chris runs the Jobs by TechGC newsletter and job board which connects legal professionals with today's top startups and venture funds.  He also spends around half the year working and living in various parts of the world.

On this podcast, Seyfarth Shaw partner Gerald Maatman discusses the record rate for employment law class actions in 2019 with XpertHR Legal Editor David Weisenfeld, a trend employers cannot afford to ignore. Maatman authored the firm's 16th Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report, which pointed to "seismic shifts" in the employment law class action landscape.

The Supreme Court has ruled that companies may force their employees to arbitrate their workplace disputes individually, rather than as part of a class action. It's a ruling that could affect an estimated 25 million employment contracts and has a host of other implications. This podcast examines the closely watched case of Epic Systems vs. Lewis and what it means for employers with Seyfarth Shaw employment attorney Gerald Maatman, who chairs the firm's class action defense group.

In this episode, I am excited to have Alexis Robertson on to talk about the balance of self-care: remaining dutiful to responsibilities without martyring yourself for your work. Alexis is a lawyer turned Diversity and Inclusion professional. She attended the University of Michigan law school and practiced for 7 ½ years at Kirkland & Ellis and Seyfarth Shaw, before leaving practice to become a legal recruiter and subsequently a Diversity and Inclusion professional at Baker & McKenzie. Outside of work, if Alexis isn't listening to a podcast or wrangling her two sons, she can probably be found at her local pilates studio.   Topics Covered How big firm lawyers are like pro-athletes and as such, we have to focus on our personal health to perform at our peak. The benefits of receiving formal instruction in meditation (versus self-guided), and the importance of finding a way to meditate that is right for you. The role of meditation/self-care when you have children, and how it helps with combating the knee-jerk reactive mind in stressful situations. Why meditation/mindset is just as important as physical fitness and nutrition.     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 Free Webinar Learn to relax the mind, worry less, and decrease stress. https://jeenacho.com/podcastwebinar/ 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/ 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. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you next week.

Andrew J. Sherman, Entrepreneur, Author of 26 books, and Corporate Attorney at Seyfarth Shaw, joins us to discuss how the trilogy of innovation, governance and engagement will impact the future of the U.S. workforce. 

I recently sat down with Laura Maechtlen on The Resilient Lawyer podcast to chat about her career at Seyfarth Shaw, her work with the LGBT community, and what a more diverse and inclusive workplace truly looks like. Laura is the co-chair of the firm's Diversity and Inclusion initiatives and Vice Chair of the firm's Labor and Employment Department. She leads a number of boards and bar organizations that aim to promote diversity in the legal profession. Connect with Laura on Twitter: https://twitter.com/maechtlen Upcoming events: May 18, 2016: Work Your Resiliency Muscle! Ten Tips to Becoming More Resilient, Free Webinar. Register here.  June 1, 2016: The Anxious Lawyer book event at Fastcase. Please join my co-author, Karen Gifford and me for a book event from 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM. Register here. Jeena is also planning a book tour. If you'd like for her to visit your city, please drop her an email: smile@theanxiouslawyer.com Questions? Comments? Email Jeena! questions@resilientlawyer.com or leave a voicemail at (336) 543-2101. You can also connect with Jeena on Twitter: @Jeena_Cho For more information, visit: theanxiouslawyer.com Music Credit: freemusicarchive.org and www.bensound.com/

Nearly 10 years ago, Seyfarth Shaw blazed a trail as the first major law firm to apply Six Sigma and Lean process improvement methodologies to better serve the needs of their clients. Starting with process improvements in law firm operations, Six Sigma and Lean thinking have become pervasive throughout the culture of Seyfarth and changed the way Seyfarth's legal teams deliver services to clients. Seyfarth used these process improvement methods to drive value for their clients through more efficient delivery of legal services, better quality of services, lower cost and greater budget predictability. Spurred by overwhelming demand from their clients, Seyfarth is again breaking new ground with the formation of SeyfarthLean Consulting, a dedicated team of 30 technologists, legal project managers, data analytics specialists and process improvement professionals who work with clients and law firm partners to improve the delivery of legal services. James Kittle spoke with SeyfarthLean Consulting directors Kim Craig and Andrew Baker to learn more about their efforts. (Read the article in the Summer 2015 Peer to Peer)

Jeff Cunningham / Seyfarth Shaw Mr. Cunningham, a partner in the Atlanta office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP and member of Seyfarth's Mergers & Acquisitions and Tax practice groups, serves as outside general counsel to many growing mid-sized businesses, and concentrates his practice in mergers and acquisitions, commercial transactions, and general corporate matters. He counsels clients--from entrepreneurs and […] The post Jeff Cunningham of Seyfarth Shaw and Dr. Robert Willis of Foxcode, Inc. appeared first on Business RadioX ®.