"The Well-Being Committee believes healthy and positive lifestyles are vital to the practice of law. This committee supports and inspires a culture shift by advocating for the importance of physical and mental well-being, personal growth, career satisfaction, and community involvement."

Thus reads the new mission statement of the renamed Well-Being Committee, approved by the ISBA Board of Governors in April 2022. And though it may seem like a simple switch – “wellness” to “well-being,” a couple of sentences rewritten – the change is rooted in research, reflection, and a desire to better address the ongoing culture shift and mental health crisis among the legal profession.

Previously, the committee focused mostly on physical health. Their original mission statement read that the committee will “promote health and personal well-being among judges, lawyers, their staffs and law students by encouraging positive lifestyle changes through increased physical activity, stress reduction, healthier eating, tobacco cessation and the like, and to support them as advocates to make their communities healthier places to live and work.” They offered mini marathon trainings, put together a “Maintain No Gain” program, and provided other resources and events that promoted physical wellness.

“At the time,” Loretta Oleksy, current chair of the Well-Being Committee, said, “even the idea of lawyers tending to their physical wellness was on the cutting edge, and very few people were focusing on non-physical aspects of well-being. Over the past several years, though, new research on law student, lawyer, and judicial officer well-being has highlighted the suffering in the legal profession and the need to support overall well-being of our members.”

Much of that research came from The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change – a report written in 2017 by the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being. “The 2017 report was a wake-up call for a lot of people,” Loretta said. “As a profession, we had to reckon with the data showing rates of mental health and addiction issues far higher than the general population, and we had to acknowledge that even those who weren’t living with a mental health diagnosis or an addiction weren’t necessarily thriving. Most of all, the report showed those of us who were suffering in silence that we weren’t alone, and it sparked discussions that have begun to challenge the stigma surrounding asking for help and talking about well-being.”

Those discussions have continued growing and evolving, triggering a culture shift in the profession. More and more often, legal professionals were considering their overall well-being – their levels of stress and addiction, their overall career satisfaction, ways they could change how lawyers are regulated to instill greater well-being. And the Well-Being Committee wanted to reflect that culture shift, too.

So, they switched “wellness’ to “well-being” to broaden the support they could provide. “Wellness” typically describes physical health, while “well-being” provides a more encompassing definition. “The 2017 report defined well-being as ‘a continual process of seeking to thrive in each dimension of one’s life: Emotional, Occupational, Intellectual, Spiritual, Physical, and Social,’” Loretta explained. “We wanted to reflect both our ongoing commitment to physical health, as well as a broader commitment to all of the above aspects of well-being.” They then updated their mission statement to include these aspects as well, focusing on ways they could best support ISBA members and push the culture shift forward.

“We hope that this shift will continue until eventually well-being is steeped in every aspect of our profession, starting in law school and continuing throughout our careers,” Loretta said.

And it’s the committee’s goal to play a large role in that pursuit. The change in their name and mission is only a part of the journey. The committee is also planning new projects and events to help make their mission a reality among Indiana’s legal profession. Just this May they promoted the second annual Well-Being Week in Law – a national celebration focusing on each of the different dimensions of well-being. And there’s more to come. “We’ll be meeting later this month to start planning projects for the second half of the year, so stay tuned. We are always open to ideas and feedback, so anyone who is interested in supporting well-being is invited to reach out to me or to our committee liaison, Rebecca Smith.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the Well-Being Committee or getting involved, you can contact Loretta Oleksy at loretta@thought-kitchen.com or Rebecca Smith at rsmith@inbar.org.