Practical and Intentional Strategies: Managing Unreasonable Expectations to Improve Your Wellness and Increase Your Competency

via Zoom

1Professionalism CLE Credit

Speaker Sheila M. Wilkinson, LMSW, Esq. will guide Louisiana Attorneys through an inquisitive and interactive primer on lawyer well-being based on the foundations of professional competency as outlined in Rule XXX, 3(c) CLE Requirement (Rules of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, Part H. Rules for Continuing Legal Education), and in Rule 1.1, Competence (Louisiana Rules of Professional Conduct), and more particularly, Rule 1.1(a).

Participants will actively engage through a number of mechanisms by:

Completing an initial activity to stabilize their nervous systems through breathwork and the setting of a common intention, which will help (re)focus their attention and to shift from work-mode to explore-mode; repeating revised versions of that activity at appropriate intervals to allow participants the opportunity to integrate and incorporate what they’ve learned about themselves and professionalism/competency expectations

Learning from the Speaker’s personal and professional journey, as well as the ebbs and flows of health and wellness throughout 20+ years in the legal industry

Exploring the foundations for the unique requirements of professional competency that lie outside of legal knowledge and skill - particularly, “thoroughness and preparation” - with an eye towards understanding the underlying needs of emotional health and wellness as an integral form of competence, and creating a nexus between improving emotional health and wellness as a form of competence, safeguarding attorneys against malpractice on the basis of health, including but not limited to:

the major facets of health, with actionable items to improve their quality of life
the most basic requirements for health that attorneys most often shun (most often embodied in the based tier of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs)
the role expectations play in day-to-day decisions and how to manage them
differentiating between boundaries, prioritization, procrastination, and delay, and how to distinguish each in their practical application and maintain competency and professionalism expectations as an attorney

Exploring the symptoms of unreasonable expectations (e.g. unmet billables, overachieving on billables, unreasonable response times, inability to shut off and/or unplug, neverending to do lists, overwhelm, burnout, extreme stress (as distinguished from burnout), addiction - alcohol, drugs, and gambling, and the most severe: suicide

Completing multiple, mindfulness reflection exercises that call for participants’ brutal honesty about why they chose the legal profession, who they help, who they serve, and to explore where they can start to improve their levels of competency through small, strategic shifts in their mindset about what it means to be an attorney. Activities are built to encourage attorneys to explore their current physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, and overall health, and what they want that health to look like in the future as it relates to their ability to practice with competence. Where appropriate, the exercises may be modified as appropriate for accessibility and mobility limitations.

Ending the CLE with a simple yet effective intention-setting activity, allowing them the space and agency to decide how they plan to support their professional competency going forward.

SHEILA M. WILKINSON combines her love for the law, social work, and education to help lawyers transform pain, frustration, and unreasonable expectations at work into happiness, success, and healthy boundaries, so that they can achieve their personal and professional goals. She is a Louisiana Licensed Attorney, Louisiana Licensed Master Social Worker, an Educator, and Empowerment Coach. Sheila earned her Bachelor’s in Sociology from the University of New Orleans (with a minor in Women’s Studies, focusing on surveys and systems), her Master’s in Social Work from Tulane University (focusing on community health and development), her Juris Doctorate from Loyola University (focusing on Civil Law, International Law, and the interplay of international systems on the development of society), and her Advanced LL.M. in International and European Business Law from the Institute of European Studies in Brussels, Belgium. Since 2007, Sheila has lived between Europe and the United States, and she was a Belgian Resident from 2013 to 2016. Currently splitting her time between New Orleans and Brussels, Sheila teaches Creative Entrepreneurship at Loyola University New Orleans and in the BBA and MBA Programmes at United Business Institutes – Brussels. Sheila is heavily involved in community development, and provides continuing education opportunities to lawyers and social workers, serves on several nonprofit boards, and provides legal, consulting, and coaching services across the globe.

Practical and Intentional Strategies: Managing Unreasonable Expectations ..