Kutak Rock has joined an international community of businesses and legal organizations dedicated to building healthier, more productive workplaces via the Mindful Business Charter (MBC). Begun in 2017 in London to address the causes of widespread mental distress among lawyers and legal professionals, the MBC is a framework consisting of four pillars: 

• Openness and respect among colleagues (and also between clients and service providers)
• Smart meetings and communication using specific best practices
• Respecting rest periods and time off and establishing a protocol
• Mindful delegation that considers both the person requesting the work and the receiver

Although many corporate environments can induce high stress, the specific nature of legal work has manifested a recent mental illness and well-being crisis, as first reported in 2016. Since then, legal organizations around the world have joined forces to help address alarming statistics of lawyer burnout, depression, substance misuse, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and mental illness ranging from anxiety to major depressive disorder, among other symptoms and diagnoses. The 2020 pandemic exacerbated these issues. 

Proactive approach. Kutak Rock took a proactive approach, using language from the firm’s founding charter as inspiration: “The firm commits itself to allow and encourage each individual within it to be a full person.” Kutak Rock has demonstrated its long-term commitment through actions including steering clear of set billable hour requirements to early hiring of women attorneys and provision of benefits for caregivers, to including well-being in the firm’s strategic plan and partnership meetings long before well-being became a focal point for the industry. 

In 2019, an informal mindfulness group was formed, and by mid-2020 it had officially launched—a fortuitous development in light of the March 2020 lockdowns. The Well-Being Initiative soon followed, including (among other actions): 

• Education for the firm about how to monitor for work addiction and self-harm, and how to encourage self-care, facilitate, destigmatize, and encourage help-seeking behaviors;
• Specific steps to combat social isolation and encourage interconnectivity while continuing to build a collegial and respectful environment;
• Wide availability of and publication of well-being resources including a catalogue of career support resources available to firm members and weekly well-being emails that focus on specific monthly topics; 
• The creation of a staff professional development committee (to complement attorney professional development);
• Professional development training tailored to the unique needs of different groups within the firm: specific practice/working groups, lateral and associate attorneys, partners, etc.;
• Firmwide support and encouragement at every level of leadership for opportunities to engage firm members in service (including, for example, community service, affinity group participation, and committee participation and leadership).

“Joining the Mindful Business Charter was a natural next step in our evolving efforts to not just acknowledge and treat the symptoms of the well-being challenges that are endemic to our profession—which are well-documented—but to help prevent them from happening in the first place,” said Firm Chair John Petr.

“The MBC is fully in line with Kutak Rock’s Well-Being Initiative and strategic plan,” said Stuart Hindmarsh, co-chair of the firm’s Well-Being Initiative group. “We’re excited to join the international community in promoting healthier, more sustainable workplaces.” 

About the MBC. The Mindful Business Charter is a practical framework that encourages businesses and law firms to be more thoughtful about the impact they have on each other. It allows members to talk openly and honestly with others, by providing a common language built on four pillars: openness and respect; smart meetings and communications; respecting rest periods; and mindful delegation. MBC is a charity, a community of employer organizations formed by leading law firms and banks, to reduce unnecessary stress in the workplace. MBC seeks to create healthier, more productive workplaces and has produced a framework of guidelines to do this. Over 130 organizations have already joined.