Strong firm management is the best lawyer wellness program

Taking a walk isn’t going to fix your firm. But that’s one piece of advice you’ll probably get during Well-Being Week in Law. At Raise the Bar, we’re skipping the usual tips about sleep and exercise to focus on the research about what managers can do to improve their team’s work-life. We’ve also got a tip for using AI to keep up with client correspondence, and some advice about why you might want to hold off on a logo refresh. 

Coming soon, a Q&A that takes a deeper look at what’s trending in IP law.

But first, we’re counting the days until August 28, when “Coyote vs. ACME” hits theaters.

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A murder suspect asked ChatGPT several suspicious questions. 
Now, the Attorney General of Florida is considering “whether OpenAI bears criminal responsibility for ChatGPT’s actions.” 

Are we retiring in Minnesota?
The Land of 10,000 Lakes is legalizing liquor in nursing homes and outlawing “nudification” apps. 

Is the market tight? Or are you just not paying enough?
There are a couple of spicy threads over on Reddit about hiring associates. One asks where to find associates. The other rants about firms that claim they can’t find associates. 

Our tax dollars at work. 
The DOJ has 86ed a quarter of its lawyers. Which might explain why its brief in the ballroom case looks like it was pulled from Truth Social, and a brief with a “DRAFT” watermark was filed in another case.

Who said the RPCs aren’t sexy?
If you have thoughts about whether New Jersey lawyers should be allowed to sleep with their clients, the state court is accepting comments on a proposed ban. New Jersey is one of 10 states whose rules are silent on this topic. 

Staying in touch with your clients has never been more important for law firms in 2026. Zoom provides users with a highly functional and intuitive communication platform that can integrate with your existing workflows. Helpful features include:

Stop living in the past and upgrade your phone system with Zoom Phone.

It's Well-Being Week in Law, which means your firm or the state bar might be chiding you for poor sleep habits or suggesting you learn to meditate. But the founder of this annual event, Anne Brafford, says well-being is a structural problem, not a personal one.

In this short white paper (eight pages), Brafford says bad firm leadership isn't just unpleasant, it's linked to depression, burnout and elevated risk of heart disease and death. She then outlines eight strategies firm leaders can use to develop their team’s competence, autonomy and sense of belonging. 

Why this Matters: The latest Harris Poll found six in 10 employees have a toxic boss, which means law isn’t the only profession with a workplace well-being problem. If we want things to get better, the place to start is not a mindfulness exercise. (Effective Leaders: The Lynchpins of Workplace Well-Being)

Many malpractice lawsuits and disciplinary actions are tied to poor client communication. Attorney and tech strategist Nicole Black suggests one way to get better at keeping clients in the loop is to outsource some outreach to AI. 

She’s created a custom writing prompt to help the AI tools she relies on to draft routine correspondence sound more like her and less like a machine. This article has that script and some tips for how to customize and use it.

Why this Matters: AI can help you stay on top of client correspondence. If you don’t want to sound like a robot, take Black’s prompt and update it with your own banned-word list. (The Daily Record)

If well-being is something you want to work on more than once a year, “The Path to Well-Being in Law podcast” will give you a solid foundation. However, it wrapped up production in 2023. 

The best podcast on this topic that is still in production is Toward Well-Being. Produced by the D.C. Bar Lawyer Assistance Program, it covers well-being with a nod toward current events and hot topics. The Grace Period from Emily Logan Stedman is also a solid choice if you want a little ethics information and insight into surviving BigLaw life thrown in.

Why this Matters: The ABA’s groundbreaking report on lawyer well-being was published nearly a decade ago. Efforts to embrace and implement its findings have slowed, but there is still a steady push toward improvement. 

Deciding whether to update your firm’s logo or keep it as is should be a part of your overall marketing strategy. But if you decide to make a change, attorney Elizabeth Russell urges you to consider the legal implications. In this blog post, she warns that updating a logo can mean losing your trademark. She then goes on to explain how to ensure your trademark is protected, and throws in some helpful information about securing copyright protection as well. 

Why this Matters: Don’t expect your marketing team to flag this sort of legal issue for you. They think user interface, you think USPTO. (Russell Law)

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Raise the Bar is written and curated by Emily Kelchen edited by Bianca Prieto.