Well-Being & Resilience

Mental health and wellness is the foundation to both sound decision-making and healthy relationships. So it is no surprise that many of our programs focus to some extent on stress management and wellness principles. Most of our programs have been designed to satisfy the mental health and substance abuse continuing legal education requirements that more and more jurisdictions are promoting or even making mandatory for lawyers. We started off by emphasizing the important connection between mental heath and ethical decision-making, but have expanded our offerings over the years to provide programs on wellness as more state bars have embraced the need for and potential positive impact of training lawyers to be more resilient. 

But many of our programs are of similar utility for non-lawyers as well. (In fact, we were almost denied CLE credit for one of our programs in one state because the state bar regulator reviewing our materials thought the program would be beneficial for all kinds of people, and therefore she thought it must not have been all that special for lawyers, oddly enough.) Self-aware, connected, emotionally intelligent workers tend to be more productive, get along better, and behave more ethically.  And there is a growing body of research showing how wellness practices such as mindfulness and meditation can help workers identify and interrupt their own implicit biases, as well.

We therefore believe that to be most effective, compliance programming should include some significant effort to equip workers to know when they are working under inordinately high levels of stress or fatigue, understand the significant risks of continuing to do so over prolonged periods of time, and provide simple, memorable interventions that can be applied or exercised right in the middle of the workday, when most needed. We are so grateful for the opportunities we have had to present for non-lawyers in a variety of contexts, towards the goal of helping them function more effectively, ethically, and with greater civility and self-awareness.

Most importantly we have a 10 year track record of addressing mental health awareness and substance abuse prevention in a way that makes the learning process fun and enjoyable for all involved. Our movie clips depict ordinary people in tricky but highly relatable--not to mention very stressful- situations. And we work hard to make them genuinely funny, without devolving into mere whimsy. Being able to laugh (or gasp) at the poor guy (or lady) onscreen who is having a trainwreck of a day helps prompt honest conversation, and leaves lasting impressions with the viewer. We are often, in fact, more encouraged to hear about the conversations that tend to happen among participants (or even between participants and their spouses, significant others, or other loved ones) after the program has finished; indeed, that may be where some of the greatest progress is made.

In a nutshell, we aim for nothing less than equipping participants with practical tools to improve their lives, both at work and home.  And we won't ever use anything less than the most effective and engaging methods we know to make sure that any insights gained or lessons learned take root, and get a chance to flourish.