Ivan Fong, senior vice president of legal affairs and general counsel at 3M Co./courtesy photo

The corporate legal department at 3M Co. has become the first in-house team to sign onto the American Bar Association's initiative aimed at combating substance abuse and other mental health problems in the profession.

“Corporate counsel are no different from outside lawyers in dealing with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse,” the company's senior vice president for legal affairs and general counsel Ivan Fong said in an interview with Corporate Counsel. “We continue to face workplace stress and the pressure to do more with less. This is the way the world is changing and adapting, and we want to be proactive in responding to the increased pressure that we are all facing.”

In September, the ABA unveiled the seven-point framework that it hopes all legal employers will embrace by the start of 2019. As of this afternoon, in addition to 3M, more than three dozen law firms of all sizes had signed on.

Many of the commitments contained in the pledge, Fong said, include efforts that have been underway in the legal department at 3M for some time. For example, the pledge starts with the expectation that employers provide enhanced and robust education to attorneys and staff on topics related to well-being, mental health and substance use disorders.

With its focus on resilience and well-being in mind, 3M's legal department recently completed an energy survey that assessed individual and organizational physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy, Fong said. The results were then reviewed during an educational session with an employee assistance program professional, and tips for reducing stress and enhancing well-being were published, he added.

In addition, employers that adopt the ABA framework will also regularly support programs to improve physical, mental and emotional well-being, in order to demonstrate the significance of self-care and help-seeking. To that end Fong said his department has incorporated mindfulness training and well-being practices into its operations, from the inclusion of posters in many meeting rooms with “Mindful Meetings” reminders and tips to a mindfulness employee group led by a member of the legal department.

“That spirit helps us do better work and in a way that is productive and respectful and that brings us all together to create the best work product,” said Maureen Harms, associate GC and managing counsel at 3M who is working closely with Fong to head up the department's efforts.

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Fong added of those efforts: “We have had a history of ensuring that our legal department is as high-performing and effective and efficient as we can be,” Fong said. “We have long focused on mental health and raising awareness so that we can reduce the stigma of people wanting to seek help. That is the mechanism by which we can have the greatest impact.”

While 3M may be the first in-house legal department to formally adopt the ABA initiative, other corporate legal bosses have expressed interest in the issue of lawyer well-being generally and the ABA's efforts specifically, Fong said.

Jim Chosy, GC at U.S. Bank, said in an email that his department is preparing to launch an internal law division “center” for lawyer well-being. It would sponsor internal education on relevant topics, likely include presentations from educational groups, promote internal and external resources on well-being and develop a mindfulness program, he added.

Joan Bibelhausen, executive director of the St. Paul, Minnesota-based Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, a nonprofit group dedicated to helping members of the Minnesota legal profession  address behavioral health concerns, said she is very excited to see a corporate law department adopt the ABA initiative because it was the corporate clients who ultimately moved the ball on diversity and inclusion issues within the profession. (The 3M legal department has partnered with Bibelhausen's group over the years to periodically review the services it offers with the in-house lawyers.)

“We have a similar opportunity here today, and I think it's just as critical an issue,” she said. “Companies want to hire law firms that are able to do their best work.”

Terry Harrell, chair of the ABA's Working Group to Advance Well-Being in the Legal Profession, the group behind the pledge, said its intent is for all legal employers, whether private, government, in-house, educational or otherwise, to adopt the initiative.

“It's so important that 3M has signed because now we can demonstrate that we mean this to be a broadly applicable pledge that is not limited just to firms,” Harrell said.