In-house counsel understand how to adapt, survive and even thrive in an ever-changing world of regulations, technology and cultural influences. Organizations hire legal teams in large part to ensure compliance around many competing internal and external rules and priorities. Keeping on top of it all can be invigorating or debilitating—or both.
Inevitably, lawyers can find themselves in ambiguous moral situations or tugged between doing what’s right for the organization and what’s right from their own perspective. Such experiences can be described as “stress of conscience” (stress related to troubled conscience), providing fertile ground for flourishing or floundering.
Mindfulness practices help us build awareness of how our inner world works and how it communicates to us through our thoughts, emotions and behaviours when we are aligned with our values—and when we are not. If you are feeling more stressed or less happy at work, taking stock of your values can be a mindful strategy to bringing awareness to what is important to you now.
Remember that values can and do change over time. What was important to us when we were 19 is often different than when we are 39 or 59. Reviewing our professional and personal values regularly is critical to helping us assess whether we are living in alignment with them. Bringing a mindful awareness (or a kind curiosity) about where we’re at can be an important step in assuring or redirecting ourselves when it comes to living and working in a way that honours our values and beliefs.
If you discover you are not living in alignment when you take your values inventory, you’ll know the area of your world that needs attention. For example, if you value family and relationships but your workplace has consumed 60 hours of your week for months on end, you may be struggling to find joy because of those long hours and missed family functions. Now aware of the values conflict, you may feel more discomfort—ignorance is bliss, as they say—but you have created space for change.
Providing a Moral Compass
A compass doesn’t tell you where you’re going, but rather, which direction you are traveling in. Our values work in a similar fashion: they guide our actions toward meeting our goals. As in-house counsel, a number of the values you operate by today likely came from or were reinforced in law school. They are meant to guide your behaviour in the right direction, like a compass.
If you haven’t heard of Vincent Foster, or even if you have, his words are an important reminder of how we pass along such professional values.
Vincent Foster was the Deputy White House Counsel during the first year of the Clinton administration. He died at the age of 48 in July 1993. Only months before his passing, he gave a commencement address to his alma mater, the University of Arkansas Law School. In the speech, entitled “Roads We Should Travel,” he shares the following:
Practice law with excellence, with pride in your product. Treat every pleading, every brief, every contract, every letter, every daily task as if your career will be judged on it.
Powerful? Yes. Inspirational? You bet. Problematic? Possibly.
The values he is sharing here, in themselves, are not problematic. However, if we are going to help shape the professional values of novice lawyers to guide their ethical behaviour, we ought to be extra sure we teach them how to cultivate and operationalize this value when it’s not easy to do. We have to acknowledge that there is a natural gap between theory and practice, and education should include shortening that gap.
This high professional expectation can predispose one to perfectionistic ways of thinking and behaviour that increase the risk for mental un-wellness. I do not mean you should not work towards a standard of excellence; it’s just that we need to help lawyers navigate how to live realistically in light of this standard. The reality is we don’t live perfect lives, neither personally nor professionally. We will never be fully compliant in everything we say or do as a lawyer.
As his speech unfolds, so too does the softening of what else is important as he balances out this high standard with what else he’s learned along the way as a lawyer. It’s really the blueprint for flourishing in this profession because he is quick to herald the importance of compassion, relationships and family. Foster continues with statements such as:
Practice law with a heart. The clients you represent will remember you long after you have forgotten their names.
Practice law with consideration and courtesy. No matter how righteous the cause or clear your victory, assure your adversary with his or her client leaves with dignity.
Balance wisely your professional life and your family life.
There is no victory, no advantage, no fee, no favor which is worth even a blemish on your reputation for intellect and integrity.
Lighting the Way
Our values can help us flourish in challenging situations because we can find meaning and purpose in those moments. They help guide and support us when the answers don’t come easily or acting with integrity is hard. While they won’t provide the answers or the correct path, bringing mindful awareness to your values in any activity reminds you who you are and what’s important to you. It lights the path you are walking on—even if only one step at a time.
When you go on a road trip at night, you don’t need the entire road lit up in front of you. You just need the next few hundred feet. Over time, you’ll cross many miles to your destination this way.
You can find many free values assessments online with a quick Google search. If you’d like the one we use in our proactive certificate program, Reach for Resiliency (R4R), email me at wendy@wellthmanagement.ca.
Wendy Lund is CEO/Founder of Wellth Management (wellthmanagement.ca), a firm that works collaboratively with organizations to help redefine wealth and foster psychological safety and wellbeing in the workplace. With more than three decades of experience as a Health Studies Professor, Wendy understands the biology of stress and resiliency. Her vision is to help others redefine wealth in their workplace and lives, which she shares as a speaker through workshops and in print.