Modeled on the Mindful Business Charter (which has been adopted by a broad base of large law firms and banks as reflected here), US Bank and seven roundtable law firms collaborated to create the outside counsel engagement guidelines. Both the charter and the guidelines are intended to help clients and their outside counsel interact with well-being in mind, and cover topics such as out of office time, emergencies, communication habits and preferences, and other topics. The Mindful Business Charter and guidelines are the topic of this discussion, and are a way to drive small but meaningful change in people’s daily lives – which have significant effects on their day-to-day well-being. We will talk about the Gallup (and other) data showing the impact of direct supervisors (for partners, that’s clients!!) on well-being and how the charter and guidelines create space for conversations around out of office time, reasonable deadlines, true emergency issues, and connection between professionals. If we can start the conversation around these changes, we begin to change culture – the interstitial way that we interact together – within the larger legal industry. These small moments create meaningful and impactful change in our lawyers’ daily lives. The audience will have the opportunity to answer polls and other interactive media and ask questions of the panelists, who have adopted the guidelines or the charter as part of the way they work.
Learning Objectives:
- Introduce a proven, effective way to implement small changes that can drive culture change
- Teach practical ways that small interstitial moments can drive meaningful changes in well-being and create better relationships between outside and in house counsel
- Model and discuss ways to ease communication burdens for underrepresented or marginalized groups