Resources
Find even more resources to bolster well-being in the legal profession during Well-Being Week in Law and year-round.
Building Workplace Well-Being
Workplace Well-Being Handbook For Law Firms 2021
Anne Brafford’s new Workplace Well-Being Handbook provides practical guidance for legal employers about launching and developing effective well-being initiatives. The Appendix includes a planning worksheet, workplace practices review checklist, recommended readings and resources, and more. Review the Table of Contents to see all the helpful information that’s included.
All proceeds from the Handbook will be donated to IWIL for supporting Well-Being Week in Law.
Law Firm Well-Being Program Benchmarking Report 2021
(Excerpt from the Workplace Well-Being Handbook)
In this Report, Anne Brafford has collected information about current trends in law firm well-being programs including, for example, committee structure, programming trends, behavioral health services, and examples of events and offerings. The Report can help firms compare their own programs and get innovative ideas.
Alcohol Use Policy Template for Legal Employers
(Excerpt from the Workplace Well-Being Handbook)
Workplace culture strongly influences drinking patterns. Get started shaping responsible drinking norms by tailoring the free Alcohol Use Policy Template to your organization.
Workplace Well-Being Infographic
Download the infographic of key psychosocial workplace factors, which are elements within legal employers’ influence that can powerfully impact employees’ well-being and optimal functioning.
Well-Being Toolkit For Lawyers and Legal Employers
Anne Brafford created this freely-available Toolkit as part of an ABA initiative in 2018. It provides guidance to legal employers on establishing and developing well-being programs and includes a series of well-being-boosting worksheets for individual lawyers.
ABA Employee Impairment Policy Template
This template created by an ABA working group suggests guidelines to legal employers for responding to employees who are experiencing an impairment due to a substance use or mental health disorder or cognitive impairment.
Tristan Jepson Healthy Workplace Guidelines for the Legal Profession
An Australian non-profit proposed Guidelines to assist legal employers to foster psychological health in the workplace by focusing on 13 science-based psychosocial workplace factors.
What’s Working Well in Law Firm Well-Being Programs?
Download this collection of 7 brief profiles of law firms recognized for progress on their well-being programs asked to identify factors supporting their success.
Lawyer Well-Being YouTube Channel
Check out the Lawyer Well-Being YouTube Channel where we’ll be posting more great videos like this one:
Stay Strong
PHYSICAL WELL-BEING
Striving for regular activity, good diet and nutrition, enough sleep and recovery. Limit addictive substances and seek help for physical health when needed.
4-7-8 Breathing Exercise Activity Guide
The way you breathe (yep, breathe!) may be making you anxious. Learn stress-calming techniques in the 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise Activity Guide.
Desk Yoga Activity Guide
The exercises in this activity will enable physical and psychological recharging and can easily fit into your daily routine.
Self-Care Plan Worksheet
Align
SPIRITUAL WELL-BEING
Fostering a sense of meaningfulness and purpose in work and life, and aligning your work and life with your values, goals, and interests.
Take an Awe Walk
Boost the meaningfulness of your everyday stroll by following the instructions in the Awe Walk Activity Guide.
Aligning With Your Values
Spiritual Well-Being involves cultivating a sense of meaning and purpose in work and life and aligning our work and lives with our values, goals, and interests. Chronic misalignment between our values and behaviors can contribute to disengagement, burnout, anxiety, and depression. Use this Activity Guide individually or in teams to identify your core values and ways to align those values with your work and personal life.
Use Your Strengths For Growth Worksheet
Engage & Grow
CAREER & INTELLECTUAL WELL-BEING
Seeking personal satisfaction, continuous learning and growth in our professional and personal lives, and financial stability. Engaging in creative or intellectually challenging activities that foster ongoing development and monitoring cognitive wellness.
Job Crafting Activity Guide
Job crafting is a continual activity in which we seek to create a better fit between our strengths, values, and preferences and our work. To try it out, follow the instructions in the Job Crafting Activity Guide.
Get Into Flow With Creativity Activity Guide
Left-brained-logic-loving lawyers and other legal professionals may overlook the rejuvenating force of creativity. Much research shows that everyday creativity can boost health and happiness. The Activity Guide recommends choosing creative activities that align with who you are, are absorbing and challenging, and enables you to disconnect from stressful thoughts.
Use Your Strengths For Growth Worksheet
Connect
SOCIAL WELL-BEING
Building connection, belonging, and a reliable support network. Contributing to our groups and communities.
Loving-Kindness Meditation Activity Guide
Loving-kindness meditation is a practice in which we mentally send goodwill, kindness, and warmth towards others, which builds a foundation for pro-social behaviors. It is also linked to many psychological benefits, including greater positive emotions and reduced depression, anxiety, stress, and loneliness.
Connecting Over Things In Common Activity Guide
We often share more in common with others than what meets the eye. Getting beyond the surface attributes and gaining a better understanding of the experiences, identities, and other aspects of our lives that we share with our colleagues can help us bridge differences and work together more effectively. Try it out by doing the exercise in this Activity Guide.
Meaningful Connections Through Movies Activity Guide
Movies have many layers that shape people’s experience in ways that can influence well-being—including fostering social connection. This Activity Guide provides ideas for creating a Movie Club that facilitates meaningful connections.
Grow Your Gratitude Activity Guide
Gratitude is defined as a sense of thankfulness and joy in response to receiving a gift. Multiple studies have found the positive power of gratitude for fostering social connection, pro-social behaviors, and mental well-being. Try out different ways of practicing gratitude to bolster social connection and well-being.
Lessen Loneliness Activity Guide
Inside and outside the legal profession, loneliness is a growing threat to mental health. Many science-backed, practical strategies may prevent and alleviate symptoms of loneliness, and, in this Activity Guide, we offer a few for you to try.
Feel Well
EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING
Valuing emotions, developing an ability to identify and manage emotions for health, to achieve goals, and to inform decisions. Seeking help for mental health when needed.
Retraining Unhelpful Thoughts Activity Guide
Learning to push back on automatic unhelpful thoughts that often flood our minds will help us feel better, enable us to intentionally choose that align with our goals and values, and protect our mental health. Try out two activities to help curb the negative effects of unhelpful thoughts in the Retraining Unhelpful Thoughts Activity Guide.
Savoring Positive Experiences Activity Guide
Intentionally engaging in thoughts and behaviors that heighten our good feelings about positive events is strongly related to mental health. It includes anything that generates, intensifies, or prolongs our enjoyment. This Activity Guide will help you assess your own savoring habits and make a plan for more savoring.
Managing Mental Health in the Workplace: Conversation Guide
Open communication about mental health can reduce stigma, break down barriers, and build trust—which, in
turn, promotes long-term, positive behavioral change. The Conversation Guide provides basic tips to give supervisors and colleagues confidence to initiate such conversations.
Resilient Thinking I: 6 Steps to Tame Negative Emotions (Worksheet)
Resilient Thinking II: Activities to Boost Positive Emotions (Worksheet)
Recognition & Rewards
Perceived efforts/contributions are fairly balanced with perceived rewards provided by the employer (e.g., compensation, esteem and social rewards, job security, career opportunities).
Strengths-Based Feedback Activity Guide
Strengths-Based Feedback Activity Guide: Provides practical guidance for supervisors on delivering strengths-based feedback.
Balance
Our culture supports members ability to maintain good health and functioning while feeling fully engaged in and satisfied with their contributions to their work and families and themselves without perceiving too much conflict among those roles.
Aligning With Your Values Activity Guide
Aligning With Your Values Activity Guide explains individual and team activities to identify one’s core values and ways to align those values with one’s work and personal life.
Getting Serious About Balance & Self-Care For Solo Lawyers: Perspectives and Strategies From Professional Women of Color
Professional coach Pamela DeNeuve interviews Melanie Fenwick Thompson and Phillis Williams about strategies for creating balance and valuing self-care as solo practitioners and unique challenges for people of color.
Effective Leadership
Our leaders positively impact organizational members’ well-being through their leadership style, creation of a psychologically healthy work culture, management of mental health matters in the workplace, and support for workplace well-being programs.
Positive Leadership Development Activity Guide
Positive Leadership Development Activity Guide: Effective leadership is a key contributor to workplace well-being. This Guide provides multiple activities for starting down the path of leader development.
Inclusion
Our organizational members feel supported and valued for their unique, individual traits and talents; feel a sense of belonging; and have access to and feel fairly treated by the organization’s structures and processes.
Enabling Lawyer Well-Being Through Diversity & Inclusion
The legal profession has placed a high priority on both DEI and workplace well-being–which are highly-interrelated. Whether work cultures support diverse legal professionals’ well-being and ability to be their best will significantly influence whether they stay, advance, and achieve their potential. This article by Anne Brafford (2020) discusses strategies that serve both goals.
Things In Common Activity Guide
Connecting Over Things In Common Activity Guide. We often share more in common with others than what meets the eye. Getting beyond the surface attributes and gaining a better understanding of the experiences, identities, and other aspects of our lives that we share with our colleagues can help us bridge differences and work together more effectively.
The Cost of Assimilation in the Legal Profession
The Cost of Assimilation in the Legal Profession: Voices Of Our Diverse Colleagues (2021). Well-Being Week Team, 28:28 mins.
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome As a Black Woman In Law
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome As a Black Woman In Law (2021). Well-Being Week Team, 17:04 mins.
Culture of Trust,
Fairness & Transparency
Our work environment is characterized by the shared values of trust, honesty, transparency, and fairness.
Positive Leadership Panel Activity Guide
Positive Leadership Panel Activity Guide: Guidance for organizing a panel of top leaders addressing issues related to trust, fairness, and transparency.