ALA member Krista Hart discusses how and why she established a wellness program for staff and attorneys at her firm, Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel. She also talks about how the program has had to adapt to the new normal of a remote workforce with many additional COVID-19-inflicted challenges.

Look for Krista's "Tough Topics" column in the September 2020 issue of Legal Management. In the meantime, check out these existing ALA resources:

• Wellness Strategies During the Pandemic with Lance Breger (podcast)

• Wellness resources and  roundtables featuring fellow legal management professionals (COVID-19 resource page)

Speaker Bio

Krista Hart is a Firm Administrator who is dedicated to assisting the Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel attorneys and staff with all their workplace needs. Motivated by the belief that employees are the No. 1 asset of a firm, Hart sees her role as crucial to maintaining Panitch Schwarze’s workplace culture. She currently serves as President-Elect of Association of Legal Administrators’ Philadelphia Chapter.

ALA member John Jakovenko, CLM, SPHR, MBA, chats about the importance of continuing education in the professional development of staff in a law firm or legal department. After all, the lawyers do CLE, don't they?

Jakovenko is the instructor for ALA's HR-themed web-based courses, which delve deep over six weeks into the knowledge needed for success as a legal management professional. You can register now for HR2: Performance Management and Compensation.

Speaker Bio

John Jakovenko, CLM, SPHR, MBA, is the Firm Administrator at Sparks Law, LLC, in Alpharetta, Georgia. His career spans two decades and includes leadership roles in human resource departments in law firms in Los Angeles and Atlanta. He is also an adjunct professor at Kennesaw State University, teaching courses on human resources.

GrowthPlay Consultant Brianna Leung returns to the podcast to discuss her recent Legal Management cover feature about change, which turned out to be a prescient topic as the COVID-19 pandemic alters our professional and personal lives.

Read the article, "Leading Through Change," and take a short exam if you'd like to earn a continuing education credit. You can hear Leung's last appearance on the podcast here.

Speaker Bio

Brianna Leung is a Principal Consultant with GrowthPlay, where she leverages talent analytics to help legal professionals drive innovation and change within their organizations.

Ross Fishman, JD, expands on his recent Legal Management column about avoiding slashing all marketing costs due to the COVID-19-related business downturn ("The Top 5 Budget Items Law Firms Will Try to Slash in Response to COVID-19"). Instead, he advocates for hustling for new business, emphasizing busy practice areas and focusing your spend where it counts in order to stay competitive.

Fishman's newest books can be found on Amazon: The Ultimate Law Firm Associate's Working-From-Home Marketing Checklist and The Ultimate Law Firm Partner’s Working-From-Home Marketing Checklist.

Easter egg: See if you can count how many times the host's dog insists her squeaky toy is more important than this interview. Working from home!

Speaker Bio

Ross Fishman, JD, specializes in branding, websites and marketing training for law firms. A former litigator, marketing director and marketing partner, he has helped hundreds of firms dominate their markets. Fishman was the first inductee into the Legal Marketing Association’s “Hall of Fame.” He’s written seven marketing books, which are available on Amazon.

Lance Breger joins us to talk about how to handle team-building, negative emotions and wellness as we deal with remote work and major stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Visit ALA's Coronavirus Response webpage for more resources.

Speaker Bio

Lance Breger is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Infinity Wellness Partners, where he helped create a WorkLIFE Wellness Program and Executive Coaching Program. His company partners with forward-thinking executives, organizations and industries around the world to spread holistic health throughout the corporate landscape to make wellness a priority in the workplace every day.

Rob Mattern discusses information governance, outsourcing and back-office efficiency as they relate to his latest educational offerings for the ALA audience.

Learn more from Rob through an upcoming webinar, The Getting to Zero Strategy, and his column in the March issue of Legal Management, "The Efficiency of the Attorney Experience in Your Firm’s Back Office."

Speaker Bio

Rob Mattern, MBA, is President and Founder of Mattern, LLC. Mattern has been widely published, including recently in the The Wall Street Journal, Law Technology News and Legal Management magazine. He is an editorial board member of Law Journal Newsletters’ Accounting Financial Planning for Law Firms.