Akin Gump Commemorates Mental Health Awareness Month with Well-Being Resources

(Washington) – As part of its observance of Mental Health Awareness Month in May, Akin Gump is pleased to spotlight a number of resources it offers to support the firm’s lawyers and staff in addressing issues of mental and emotional well-being. These resources build on the firm’s holistic well-being efforts and its commitment to confronting and addressing the issues of mental and emotional health in the legal profession.

Among the initiatives, the firm will be commemorating Well-Being Week in Law May 2 – 6 by sharing daily communications throughout the firm, each highlighting a particular aspect of wellness: physical, spiritual, occupational and intellectual, social, emotional. The firm will also be promoting important existing resources geared towards mental and emotional health, including:

Fitness Benefits: Earlier this year, Akin Gump significantly enhanced and expanded its fitness and well-being benefits programs for its U.S. personnel including broadening eligible expenses for reimbursement beyond fitness to include mental/emotional, financial and social well-being. Further, the firm partnered with Peloton Corporate Wellness, offering U.S. lawyers and staff subsidized access to Peloton App and All-Access Memberships, as well as preferred pricing on Peloton connected fitness products. Read more here.

Mental Health Advisor Program and 24/7 Support Lines: Understanding that everyone’s journey to emotional well-being is unique, the firm offers free access to personalized resources such as onsite and virtual mental health advisors, the Guide program (U.S.) and WPO (international).

Be Well: The firm’s online well-being program rewards employees for engaging in a variety of actions to support their mental well-being. For Mental Health Awareness Month, specifically, the platform highlights a variety of actions employees can take to increase their knowledge about ways to promote mental health and prioritize their minds.

Mental Health Awareness Training: For select lawyers and business services staff leaders, this training equips and empowers participants to identify, understand and respond to colleagues and others who may be experiencing a mental health challenge, substance abuse issue or other crisis, with the goal of helping them access appropriate resources. The primary goals of this training are to raise awareness, reduce stigma, reinforce “It’s ok to not be ok” understanding, and provide practical tools and resources to individuals to support their co-workers. This program will continue to roll out across the firm.

Regarding these initiatives, Akin Gump chief human resources officer Meg Meserole said, “Mental health awareness is a foundational topic for our Be Well initiative, particularly given the stresses that the legal industry as a whole has experienced over the last two years. We are proud signatories to the ABA’s Pledge Campaign and, in order to both raise awareness and foster healthy mental and emotional well-being in the workplace, have built out our counselor and well-being resources and offered training that prepares our lawyers and staff to reach out should they see a colleague in potential distress. We look forward to using this month to raise consciousness at the firm regarding this issue and all the mental health resources available to our lawyers and staff.”

Akin Gump is an inaugural and annual signatory to the American Bar Association’s “The Pledge Campaign,” which focuses on raising awareness, facilitating a reduction in the incidence of problematic substance use and mental health distress, and improving lawyer well-being through the use of an employer pledge. (Learn more here.)

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP is a leading international law firm with more than 900 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

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