3 Ways Firms Stifle Engagement and Stoke Burnout (and What You Can Do About It)

Presented by PDC Trusted Advisor, Anne Brafford

Thursday, May 30th, 2019 • 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. ET

Organizations with highly engaged people benefit not only from higher productivity, but also well-being, client satisfaction, profitability, and retention. Engagement largely is driven by everyday bits of experience that tell us whether we’re valued; that our work matters; and that we are learning, progressing, and contributing. But under the crush of demanding schedules, busy lawyers and other professionals can revert to autopilot and overlook these essential elements—and accidentally stifle engagement of everyone they encounter. In this program, Anne Brafford, former Big Law partner and author of Positive Professionals: Creating High-Performing, Profitable Firms Through the Science of Engagement, will discuss common engagement-killing behaviors in law firms and how to fix them.

About Anne Brafford:

Anne Brafford. After practicing law for 18 years, Anne left her job as an equity partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP to study with world-class experts in individual and workplace thriving. Her aim is to help the legal profession build engaging workplaces where people and businesses can grow and succeed together. She is the founder of Aspire, an educational and consulting firm for the legal profession (www.aspire.legal) and author of a new ABA-published book called Positive Professionals: Creating High-Performing, Profitable Firms Through the Science of Engagement.Anne also is the Chairperson of the ABA Law Practice Division’s Attorney Well-Being Committee and is a member of multiple other national and local-level attorney well-being initiatives. She served as the Editor-in-Chief and co-author of the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being’s 2017 Report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practice Recommendations for Positive Change. Anne has earned a Master’s degree in Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) from the University of Pennsylvania and now is in her fourth year as a PhD student in Positive Organizational Psychology at Claremont Graduate University (CGU) in Southern California. She researches topics related to lawyer thriving, including topics like positive leadership, resilience, work engagement, meaningful work, motivation, and retention of women lawyers. Anne is a Teaching Assistant in the MAPP program for Dr. Martin Seligman and, for two years, served in that same role at CGU for Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi—the co-founders of Positive Psychology.