In 2021 and again in 2022, I blogged about Well-Being Week in Law. The first week in May bears this title, offering a chance for all of us to focus on how to best ensure that those involved in legal service work can flourish in our work and in the rest of our lives. As the website notes:
When our professional and organizational cultures support our well-being, we are better able to make good choices that allow us to thrive and be our best for our clients, colleagues, organizations, families, and communities. It is up to all of us to cultivate new professional norms and cultures that enable and encourage well-being.
I agree with all of that. And as an instructor and researcher and public servant who dedicates significant time to lawyer leadership, I focus a lot of attention on the legal profession and developing the whole lawyer. So, count me in as a fan.
But this year, I did not post on Well-Being Week in Law, which was last week. I carry a small amount of guilt for that (and for not getting this post up yesterday, too, when I had originally planned to publish it), since I did want to post last week to promote the mission. But this week is just as good!
The Well-Being Week in Law initiative focuses us on five components of our well-being over five days. They are: staying strong, aligning, engaging and growing, connecting, and feeling well. As you may recognize, these five components line up with physical, spiritual, occupational and intellectual, social, and emotional well-being. Of course, while one can highlight each in a specific weekday, we should ideally practice all five on all days! But we all know how that goes . . . . The important thing is the repetition of the themes and the sharing of practices and guidance on how to keep these realms of wellness in a positive range as we move forward in our professional and personal lives. I hope that all of us can focus efforts on teaching and researching and serving with all five areas of well-being in mind all 52 weeks in the year.
Having said that, in reflection on my own circumstances, it does not seem very healthy to schedule the annual focus week on well-being in law during law school exams. That is where most of us and our students are during the first week in May. Although the well-being in law world should not revolve around law schools, they are the places in which the future of the profession is developed. It sends a funky message, in my view, to ask students (and professors) to focus on holistic well-being at a time when we all understand that is not possible.
Still, in addressing the concerns of appropriately needy students last week as they prepared to take my exam in Securities Regulation–a task that we all know both offers us a window on student well-being and impacts law professor well-being–I tried to mindfully focus attention on what I could control about the process of competitive assessment that law school entails. I advised my students to exercise, eat, hydrate, and try to get some real sleep. We talked about the purpose of the course (and their other academic work) in their career plans. We engaged in ongoing, progressive teaching and learning–processing and synthesizing. We talked about summer plans (including bar preparation, for some) and getting together for coffee or lunch or the like after exams conclude. I encouraged them to engage in the personal practices that contribute to their mental health. In other words, we worked through it together, and in the process, we naturally emphasized target areas of our well-being.
Law schools are where we build thriving lawyers. If, as instructors in that setting, we do not start the process where we are, it is much harder for lawyers to develop the practices they will need to be productive and healthy professionals over the long haul. Well-being is not a froofy add-on to the law curriculum. Rather, it is an essential component to professionally responsible legal education and the practice of law.