Mindful Lawyer Series

As law firms, lawyers and their families continue to adapt to new ways of working, new routines, and ever-changing expectations, it is common for new stresses and anxieties to arise. As many of us are beginning to return to the office, some may be excited about the prospect, while others may find the idea of yet another change to their lifestyles to be anxiety-inducing. We may wonder whether we are re-adjusting to the new routine well and how we can best manage our anxiety and stress.

Register for Managing Anxiety when returing to an In-Person World

Have you ever experienced days at work when it just feels like your brain isn’t at peak performance? You stare blankly at the computer screen, your eyes glaze over, and no matter what you do, you can’t quite pull your head out of the fog? Coping with brain fog, especially while at work, can be frustrating. Dr. Erin Valente, Naturopathic Doctor discusses how everyday toxins impact our health and can lead to a decrease in our performance. She talks through what to implement into your daily routine for a safe and effective detox and provides hacks to limit toxin exposure and encourage detoxification. You will leave this talk with complimentary access to Dr. Erin Valente’s 3-Day Detox guide so you can get started right away!

Register for 3 Simple and Natural Ways to Detox

In our current world, many of us are facing increased demands at school and at home.  These increased demands combined with our inability to connect socially or to just “get away from it all”, is, in many cases, leading to stress and anxiety levels that are at an all time high.  As the association that prioritizes lawyers’ wellness, the OBA is helping you build your resiliency toolbox to cope with these challenging times.

Register for Stocking Your Resilience Toolbox

In this engaging workshop, Catie Fenn, lawyer and wellness coach, will guide attendees through practical tools and strategies to find a greater sense of calm and focus that can be used to help limit stress and more easily navigate the challenges of law school and the profession.  Attendees will learn how to create a daily routine that sets them up to thrive, and will learn how to meditate, how to manage time, and how to combat stress when they are experiencing it.

Register for Thrive Under Stress

Burnout was a concern in the legal profession long before the emergence of COVID-19, but the pandemic has exacerbated this problem for lawyers and increased awareness of the importance of self-care and healthy work environments.  What was thought to be a brief, 2-week pause in 2020 has stretched into 2 years of stress and uncertainty for many, with accompanying work-related changes, hassles, and crises.  In addition, while most people are eager to return to in-person activities, many lawyers also report the transition away from remote work and social distancing has been stressful.

Dr. Cipriano will address burnout, stress, and uncertainty, how they impact your health and well-being, and what you can do to manage each so you can remain healthy, focused, and productive. 

View Managing Stress

Have you ever felt like you just don’t really belong in your work environment? Do you doubt your skills, talents, or accomplishments as a lawyer on a regular basis? Imposter syndrome is a common phenomenon among many professions. In this follow-up to our 2020 session - Not Quite Right: Imposter Syndrome In Young Lawyers, you will gain key strategies to help you manage on-going feelings of self-doubt and stress as a young lawyer. Learn best practices for overcoming some aspects of imposter syndrome and techniques to incorporate into your everyday routine.

Our expert panel will impart important strategies to help you develop resilience and improve your wellness.

View Imposter Syndrome

In our very first Mindful Lawyer CPD Series, Professor Larry Krieger shared his research and insights into what makes lawyers happy.  Traditional markers of success do not lead to true happiness, while specific personal factors do.  Now, Professor Krieger will share new insights from modern science that expand this foundation and provide a major boost to our mental health and wellness journey.  

View Five Critical Steps to Success and Happiness in Law

Join Dr. Perpetua Neo, a psychologist and leadership coach, for an interactive session to help you chart out your wellness resource map for 2021 and beyond

View Strengthen Your Mental Fitness

Join us for an engaging session with Rob as shares his personal journey and relays the physical and mental tools that have helped him – and that can help you – be proactive and develop resilience skills to support your success.

View Stocking Your Resilience Toolbox launch

As law firms, lawyers and their families continue to adapt to new ways of working, new routines, and ever-changing expectations, it is common for new stresses and anxieties to arise. Apprehensions about office set-ups, school openings, safety protocols, etc. are all very real concerns and are factors that contribute to feelings of worry and discomfort. 

View Adjusting to a New Normal

Constant exposure to our current unpredictable climate may subconsciously stir up primal threats and fears. This sense of instability may have adverse psycho-biological effects such as PTSD on personal health, safety, well-being, and professional decision-making.

View Strategies for Managing Your Wellness

Feeling overwhelmed?  Finding it hard to leave work “at work” when your physical space is not changing and each day bleeds seamlessly into the next?

View Part II: Mental Health Professional Panel

Feeling overwhelmed?  Finding it hard to leave work “at work” when your physical space is not changing and each day bleeds seamlessly into the next?

View Part I: Peer Support Panel

Watch our expert panel provide exclusive insight on how to elevate and maintain morale in remote work environments and flex your resilience muscles by fostering communication and collaboration to engage and better support your team.

View Elevating Morale and Fostering Resilience

MINDmgt will introduce meditation and mindful awareness as tools to manage stress, and improve corporate and personal performance. From clarifying common misconceptions about meditation to exploring the many benefits - including increased productivity, reduced anxiety and improved sleep - this presentation is designed to introduce meditation and mindful awareness in a simple straightforward manner.

View Mindful Awareness

Are you sleep deprived? Whether it’s a big file at work, personal matters or burning the midnight oil, sleep deprivation affects your psychological state and mental health.

View Sleep Better, Live Better, Work Better

Protecting your mental health and the mental health of your colleagues, friends and family is important for every lawyer. 

Recognizing and Recovery

You will be introduced to psychophysiological self-regulation, management of stress, anxiety, insomnia, pain, uncomfortable emotional states, ways to reduce cravings, depression and anxiety, and the “Top Ten” natural ways to lower everyday stress and prevent “burnout”.

Make a great day every day with amazing and original brain-based strategies you can use immediately. Boost achievement with exceptional, powerful tools.

View Resiliency & Self-Care

This session will help you refocus on your personal development and growth in your legal career. Discover strategies that will enhance your performance in the office and in your personal life. Our expert speaker will guide you through proven techniques that will help you increase efficiencies and lead you to peak performance. Also, we will explore how to build a high performing culture in your firm or organization. Join us!

Enhance Your Performance

Lawyers are under significant amounts of stress. How can you best navigate your way through challenging obstacles and hurdles in your professional life?

In stressful situations, individuals often respond automatically with a conservative approach by using a solution that has worked in the past. That is often not constructive these days.

View Stress Management

Most of us work very hard to excel in our professional and personal lives, leaving our individual wellness at the bottom of our checklist. We are flooded with messages about what we need to do in order to live a longer, happier, healthier life. How can you filter though this noise to make sense of the right approach for you? When we are at our most optimal health and well-being, we can better service our clients and be at the top of our professional game.

View Wake Up Call

Our lives are increasingly busy and it often seems like we don’t have enough time in our day. Explore how you can change your relationship with time. Arrive at a place where you are in control of your time, rather than being a slave to your to-do list.

View Making the Most of Your Valuable Time

Explore how your own cognitive biases form your perceptions, and at times, create illogical shortcuts and errors. Discover proven conflict resolution techniques which can help you minimize friction before it turns into a disagreement, as well as, various resolution styles to approach different conflict situations. Identify your individual communication style and access relevant resources to help manage your reaction to criticism.

View Dealing with Difficult Personalities

In this interactive training program, you will experience easily implemented mindfulness skills which allow you to step out of the stress cycle and to use your energy to be more productive, more adaptable and more of who you are. Learn what resilient lawyers do differently and leave equipped with practical strategies to thrive in your personal and professional life.

View Thriving in a Competitive Work Environment

Email, phone, and social media notifications compete for our attention throughout the day. How can you manage these distractions and minimize the impact of anxiety and stress caused by the use of distracting technology? Understand the effects of multitasking on stress and hear advice on how to improve your concentration and be present and hear about the research that neuroscience has given us on the benefits of mindfulness.

View Technology and Its Distractions

Most lawyers have experienced burnout at some point in their career.  Learn how to identify the signs early on, develop an organized and proactive approach to managing your professional life and start to train for resilience in every aspect of your life. 

View Avoid Burnout: Train for Resilience

Tackle counterproductive emotions and gain best practices on how to manage stress.  Identify triggers, cultivate awareness and form effective coping strategies for yourself and your challenging clients and colleagues. 

Response Under Pressure

Remember to make time to care for your most important asset - YOU!  Gain time management strategies, identify and implement important sleep care habits and obtain insight into essential simple self care regimens.  Reacquaint yourself with the importance of gratitude and mindfulness habits.  Plus, brush up on personal fitness goals, the convenience and health benefits of the "eat clean" principles, discover lifestyle changes that raise your energy, vitality and help redefine you.  Join us for this fun and interactive session!

Implement a Restorative Action Plan

Most lawyers encounter stress as part of their daily routine but you don’t have to let it impact your health or your work performance. Don’t let too much work and poor eating habits overwhelm your physical health. Hear from a leading nutritionist to gain strategies to help your body cope with your daily stresses. Find out how the right diet can help boost your immune system, increase your energy and reduce your stress level.

View Improving Your Performance

Increasingly lawyers are “going solo” whether in private practice, as corporate counsel or in other alternative positions. There are great rewards in doing so – you get to be your own boss, take control of your daily schedule and reap the profits as well. But going solo also presents specific challenges, can be isolating, lonely and can take a toll on your mental health. In this session, you will gain strategies for building a support network and creating meaningful connections to help you be a happier solo practitioner.

View

Have you recently taken a leave from work for mental illness? Gain the coping strategies you need to re-integrate into the workforce, protect your reputation and work-life balance once you return to work. You will also get a greater understanding of how to deal with stigma, your colleagues and your own internal prejudices about the illness and what you should ask for in terms of re-entry support.

View Returning to Work after a Mental Health Leave

Let’s face it - the life of a lawyer is often stressful. Stress can actually help us meet the sudden demands that we face as busy lawyers. However, too much stress can take its toll on our physical, mental and emotional well-being. Chronic stress can affect our personal lives and our ability to serve our clients. Find out techniques to help you manage your time, create work life balance and reduce and deal with stress to enhance your performance in the practice of law.

View Managing Stress

Recent studies have shown that lawyers are about four times more likely to suffer from mental illness than the general population. After law school, a significant proportion of law students have been found to suffer from depression. What should law schools, legal associations, law firms and the legal profession in general be doing to eliminate stigma and support those who are suffering? How can you recognize the signs of mental illness in your colleagues, or in yourself? What can or should you do to help? How does mental illness impact co-workers and loved ones? Join us for this important discussion to find out more and to be part of the solution.

View Mental illness and the Legal Profession

• Interactive exercise: Evaluating your primary motivations, values and goals
• Scientific research on lawyers and law students vs. the general population
• Modern research on psychological needs and happiness
• Strategies for achieving personal satisfaction in your work
• What does integrity have to do with your physical and psychological heath

View Re-setting Your Priorities