Law Firm Wellness
Happy People Equate to Successful, Effective Lawyers
As experienced lawyers ourselves, we are fully attuned to the unique challenges of practicing law and the fallout of unmitigated burnout on our professional productivity and personal happiness. We offer a number of wellness-based programs developed specifically for the law firm setting, including customized Well-Being Retreats, Trauma-Informed Law Practice Training, and Continuing Legal Education courses.
Lawyer Well-Being Retreats
Wellness Strategies for the Modern Law Firm
Point-of-Contact:
Cynthia Sharp, Esq.
(609) 923-1017
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical need to prioritize employee health as an essential element of law firms’ standard business practice. Overall, prioritizing well-being initiatives is key for maintaining high performance, retention, and recruitment. Our mindfulness-based Attorney Well-Being Retreat is designed to help lawyers achieve peak performance by focusing on four central aspects of our overall wellness:
• Mental Health;
• Physical Health;
• Healthy Communication; and
• Professional Health.
Our Retreat programming combines lecture, short written exercises, small and large group discussion, and interactive mindfulness training. Ultimately, Retreat participants will gain the following tools:
• Holistic Health Assessment;
• Individualized Mini Well-Being Plan;
• Mindfulness Meditation Techniques; and
• Complimentary 1-Hour Virtual Follow-up Meeting.
The Business Case for Attorney Well-Being
Healthy, Happy People Equate to Successful, Effective Lawyers
Point-of-Contact:
Cynthia Sharp, Esq.
(609) 923-1017
The COVID-19 pandemic worsened already epidemic levels of mental health concerns and substance use among attorneys. From a successful leadership perspective, investing in well-being programming should be a fundamental part of law firms’ standard business practices. Indeed, prioritizing lawyer wellness can directly benefit (1) recruitment, (2) retention, and (3) work performance.
Promoting Employee Wellness is Good for Business
Overall, investment in employee well-being leads to significant financial gain. Studies show that prioritizing employee wellness programming benefits the firm’s bottom line in two major ways—(1) reduction in costs and (2) generating more profits.
Further, because well-being has recently emerged as a leading employment consideration, actively prioritizing employee wellness will be key to attract and retain top legal talent now and in the future.
Recruitment
In our Post-COVID world, work-life balance has emerged as the top consideration to attract, and ultimately retain, younger legal talent:
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Among summer associates, work-life balance was cited as the top factor when considering an employment offer from a law firm
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Practicing Millennial and Gen Z attorneys prioritize work-life balance more than salary when choosing employment
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Almost 1/3 of Millennial associates (ages 25-40) want to leave their firm after 3-5 years as opposed to staying to make partner
Retention
Especially as a record number of Americans quit their jobs during the “Great Resignation,” bolstering employee retention is a paramount business consideration:
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Presently, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 5 attorneys under 40 are considering leaving the profession entirely;
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It’s estimated that replacing a junior attorney costs 1.5–2x more than the attorney salary; and
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From 2012-2018, associate attorney attrition averaged 18% and more than half of these departures were considered “unwanted” by firm leadership.
Performance
Actively prioritizing our overall health and well-being is crucial to safeguard our ability to effectively practice law. Indeed, unaddressed mental health concerns can wreak havoc on lawyer performance and productivity.
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Since the pandemic, lawyer mental health has further declined with approximately half of practicing attorneys reporting depression and anxiety;
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Female lawyers are experiencing meaningfully worse mental health concerns than men; and
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Those with untreated mental health concerns take twice as many sick days and have 4x more unproductive time at work, averaging 5 days a month of lost productivity.
IN THE NEWS
ABA GPSolo eReport
Attorneys Becky Howlett and Cynthia Sharp's monthly column in the American Bar Association's GPSolo eReport focuses on all aspects of attorney wellness and the real-life challenges of practicing law, including substance use, mental health, civility, and implicit bias.
We believe that generating open and honest conversations, including sharing our own personal struggles with mental health and addiction, will encourage others to seek needed help, as well as promote cultural change within our profession.
Getting Serious About Attorney Burnout
We are committed to tackling head-on the pervasive, yet often normalized toxic trends in the legal profession, including epidemic levels of substance use and mental health concerns. We believe that by generating open and honest conversations, including sharing our own personal struggles, we will encourage others to seek needed help, as well as promote cultural change within our profession.
How to Make Time for Yourself
When we talk with attorneys about self-care, the constant refrain we hear is, “I just don’t have time.” But this isn’t “just the way it is”—we have a decision to make. By actively reframing our mindset about what we choose to spend our time on, we can realize significant positive benefits for our legal practice and overall well-being.
Answering Legal Presents: A Guide To Lawyer Wellness
The Legal Burnout Solution brand is meant to represent the eternal flame or divine spark within each of us. The flame on our logo speaks to the journey of extinguishing burnout by neutralizing emotional reactivity and actively cultivating our ability to live mindfully.
Strategies to Prevent Burnout and Prioritize Your Well-Being
Many attorneys develop a bad habit of putting everyone else's needs before our own, which puts us at risk of burnout, as well as mental and physical illness. Protect yourself from lawyer burnout today. Learn simple tips to restore and preserve your well-being in your law practice and in life.