Annual Conference Report- A Discussion on Wellbeing- Litigation Committee newsletter article, April 2020
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Global women litigator breakfast
Lucinda Orr
Enyo Law, London
24 September 2019
Now in its third year, the Global women litigator breakfast, was held at 0800 on Tuesday 24 September 2019, in the COEX conference centre. On this occasion, the topic for discussion was Wellbeing.
The event was kicked-off by a short presentation from Sam Hosseini, a Partner at Stikeman Elliott, Toronto and myself. I set the scene by exploring definitions of wellbeing and discussing so-called ‘drivers’ to wellbeing. The five drivers focused on were:
- staying connected;
- being active;
- taking notice;
- constant learning; and
- giving.
On the first point, I discussed that research has shown that being lonely can be physically harmful to health, as it carries with it everything from stress and troubled sleep, to cardiovascular and immune problems. Oxytocin, the hormone responsible for affiliation protects us from cardiac ill-health and is released when we are in the presence of people we care about. Interestingly, studies have shown that it needs to be physical presence, so catching up with family and loved ones via social media and emails sadly does not assist.
As for the second point, physical activity can be marvellous because not only does it have physical health benefits, but it also mental health benefits. It increases the production of endorphins (those ‘feel good hormones’) and causes a reduction in cortisol (‘the stress hormone’). Memory and mood are boosted by getting sweaty, as is productivity back at your desk. However, there was also a cautionary note – tempting as it may be to treat physical activity in the same way as we treat our busy lives and work out very intensely – on a stressed body and mind this can actually have a negative impact. If you are experiencing symptoms of extreme fatigue, a hard bout of physical activity will put the body under too much strain. At such times, the advice is to choose gentle stretching or walking instead and respect the repair and recovery that your body requires.
The third driver explored was on taking notice. The evidence proves that our lives are indeed more full and the demands greater on us than ever before; but similarly, research has been gathering pace that unequivocally demonstrates the value in becoming more aware, moment-by-moment. Tuning into and appreciating bird song for example while we are walking to court. When we are able to live more in the present, we start to train our brains to reduce rumination and worrying about future states. This leads to increased positive mental states, self-regulated behaviour and boosts self-knowledge and awareness.
Being curious and continually learning throughout life has also been shown to drive personal wellbeing, and was the fourth driver discussed. Learning has many benefits including raising self-esteem, confidence and building a sense of purpose. Professor Paul Dolan, a behavioural scientist at the London School of Economics has found that happiness is driven by having a sense of meaning or purpose in our lives, balanced with enjoyment of one off, hedonistic pursuits. Curiosity is a phenomenon that we see in children but outside our job roles, we may find that as adults our lives have become more one dimensional. Positive psychology (the scientific study of what makes us flourish and thrive) demonstrates that being curious broadens our minds to more possibility in life. This has a direct correlation on our ability to cultivate more positive emotion.
Lastly, I discussed the instinctiveness goodness of giving to others. Professor Sonia Lyubomirsky of the University of California, demonstrated that carrying out one simple act of kindness per week over a six-week period increased wellbeing in participants when compared to a group that committed no acts of kindness. Giving can take many forms: it may be a formal volunteering exercise or perhaps a pro bono case or it could be subtler that this. Interestingly, small actions can have just as deep an impact on wellbeing as the more obvious ones. It can even be as simple as sharing a smile with a stranger on your commute to work.
Sam then explored the differences between ‘pressure’ and ‘stress’ and the effects on the human body. Those gathered were shown a TED talk clip from Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University, on how to reevaluate stress in our lives and how thinking that stress is bad can adversely affect peoples’ health and even life expectancy. McGonigal now advocates choosing to view our stress response as helpful and what actually makes us human.
Very kindly, Erin Valentine of Chaffetz Lindsey in New York; Lydia Danon of Cooke, Young & Keidan in London; Ursula Ben-Hammou of Rodrigo, Elias & Medrano in Santiago; Annalisa Reale of Chiomenti in Milan; and Sara Chisholm-Batten from Michelmores in Exeter, had all agreed to be moderators for the Breakfast. Following the presentation, discussions were then thrown open to each of the tables, with a template set of questions provided to the moderators to give the discussions some structure.
Those present at the Breakfast shared their experiences of how to spot stress in themselves and others and also how they had built in mechanisms for reducing it. Examples ranged from box set binge watching, to kick boxing, or knitting. There was then a question of what, if anything, their law firms or organisations were doing for wellbeing, with fruit baskets, flexible working, and yoga sessions all given as examples. Finally there was a discussion on what more organisations can do?
The table discussions were lively but inevitably each took their own tangent. It was fascinating to swap ideas on how to get the best out of junior lawyers, for example, and how best to cater for the different generational working needs.
One Partner from Buenos Aires explained that the junior lawyers in their firm had been getting to work at 10am or later, and then staying late into the evenings. It turned out that was because the associates could not predict what time they would be able to leave in the evening, and so they had been doing their personal life administration prior to coming to work. A radical decision was therefore taken by the firm’s partnership, that all lawyers had to be in the office by 9am, but also that they must leave by 6pm. Apparently this move actually worked exceptionally well, as the associates were now more focused in office hours and free in their evenings to enjoy themselves –and billable hours and productivity actually went up!
Different ideas discussed were the benefits of flexible working and whether allowing lawyers or support staff to work from home also helped wellbeing. Some felt litigation in particular does not lend itself well to remote working and the importance of bouncing ideas of colleagues could not be underestimated. As ever, it was fascinating to hear how different countries and cultures were dealing with a topic that seems to be growing in global prominence.
The Global women litigator breakfast is not just for women – or even just for litigators! And is fast becoming a highlight of the IBA Annual Conference. So, if you find yourself in Miami in November, do come along to this year’s Breakfast to meet and share ideas with your peers. As the first driver above states, staying connected is good for your health too, although you may then have to engage with the second driver and partake in some physical activity afterwards so that you can work off all those lovely breakfast pastries!
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