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

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 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