Deborah Festa, partner with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, discusses the qualities that contribute to a great culture at a firm, including the crucial role of leadership. Also: Advice on what women can do to excel in traditionally male-dominated fields such as finance law.
Continue Reading Exceptional Firm Culture Starts at the Top
You’ve heard of the Summer of Love. Well, this year it’s the Summer of Lucre. Law firms, awash in deal work, are showering cash and benefits on associates, who suddenly can write their own tickets. This recently prompted a recruiter, Princeton Legal Search Group, to ask an obvious question: What impact is the war for talent having on in-house recruiting?
Continue Reading The Summer of Lucre
“We all know about, and many of us have experienced, burnout,” begins a piece on Above the Law by Jill Switzer, a lawyer and longtime bar member in California. “It’s on the rise this year, and not unexpectedly, due to what’s happened over the past 16 months.”
Continue Reading Burned or Bored Out? A Distinction with a Difference
According to a report from TheCorporateCounsel.net, the careers of many directors may leave them with a problematic skills gap in light of the surge in momentum for ESG.
Continue Reading Boards May Have ESG Skills Gap
Yesim Richardson, president of Cornerstone Research, and Lisa Claussen-Adams, the firm’s senior talent advisor, explore the ins and outs of mentorship and break down the concept itself into four separate behaviors that allow for effective mentoring.
Continue Reading Toward a More Expansive View of Mentoring
Colin McCarthy, founder of Legal Operators, talks about recent developments in the world of legal operations, how to think big to solve current legal ops problems, and what to expect in the future of this exciting field.
Ensuring the well-being of your team in a high-level, holistic manner.
CCBJ: Tell us about your role as Director of Health and Well-Being at Akin Gump.
Kimm Merkel: At Akin Gump, we believe that benefits play an integral part in a person’s ability to manage work and life outside the office. We have a team mantra that says it’s important to meet people where they are. Individual needs differ so greatly, so it can be a challenge, but it does guide us in our programming, as well as how I approach my responsibilities. We focus on providing high-quality, competitive programs that arm each individual with resources so that they can make informed decisions.
That covers traditional benefits, like medical, dental and vision, but over the last number of years, it’s also been coupled with a strong focus on well-being, which at Akin Gump is defined as one’s physical, mental, financial and social/community health. We must be balanced in each of these respects, or we could potentially suffer in all of them. For example, if we are struggling with our finances, stressing and worrying about money, that can take a mental or physical toll on a person, and it could
Continue Reading Meeting People Where They Are: A Healthy Firm Is a Successful Firm
The value of networking and the positive impact building relationships can have on your career – both today and in the future.
Continue Reading Always Be Networking: Five Tips for Staying Connected
The message in the opening remarks was clear: Despite recent leadership changes – not to mention a certain amount of backstage drama – the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium is more committed than ever to their movement and taking it further faster.
Continue Reading AROUND THE CLOC: Highlights from the 2019 Vegas Institute
MOSAIC founders Claire Debney and Emma Sharpe, and ACC’s associate vice president for leadership development Tori Payne discuss the importance of mentorship for in-house counsel, and how the MOSAIC program is making it easier than ever to find a mentor – or become one.
Continue Reading Making In-House Mentorship More Accessible