THE YEAR IN WELLNESS

As with many new projects, the Wellness Committee set its goals high for 2022, its inaugural year, and we learned much along the way. The Wellness Committee, ver. 2.0 for 2023 is a leaner version of last year. We discovered that the interests of the Knoxville Bar fell into three areas, rather than the half dozen that the committee initially identified. Those three areas are the Wellness Conference, Practicing Wellness, and Financial Wellness. Those three subcommittees have something for each one of us.

The Wellness Conference is set this year on September 15 with a health fair and an outstanding program which focuses on change. Financial Wellness has recognized that financial wellness changes as we go through the various stages of practice. Practicing Wellness has added a challenge for all of those competitive lawyers out there. Read on for details.

Joy Radice

Director of Clinical Programs

Associate Professor

The 2023 KBA Wellness Conference –Making Mental Health and Wellness Matter

– on September 15th offers lawyers a full day of resources including a morning health fair, a lunchtime walk with Jack Neely, and a wellness CLE program packed with information and tools to help us prioritize our well-being.

The morning KBA Health Fair – from 9 a.m. to noon – will bring together more than a dozen community resources addressing physical, emotional, and financial wellness. The onsite vendors will offer information about yoga, physical exercise, massage therapy, mental health treatment, cancer support groups, childcare resources, and financial wellbeing. The fair will also include a flu shot clinic with Mac’s Pharmacy and health screenings.

At 11:30 a.m., Jack Neely, author, historian, and founding director of the Knoxville History Project, will highlight local legal history as he leads a leisurely one-mile walk before the afternoon CLE sessions.

The three-hour dual credit CLE program beginning at 12:15 p.m. focuses on the theme “Change is All Around Us.” A change in perspective, mindset, habits, or a total change in life course can be a catalyst for improving lawyer wellbeing. Yet, each wellbeing journey is individualized and requires work to spark truly transformative change. This CLE program presents sessions focused on the expertise of professionals outside the law and the experiences of lawyers and judges to ignite that spark. The first session is a conversation with two psychologists, Professors Debora Baldwin and Andria Yates, who will explain how positive psychology can teach us how to live happier lives using psychological resources, like optimism. In the second session, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Suzanne H. Bauknight will interview her mentor Steve Anderson who will talk about his radical decision to retire with his wife and sail the Mediterranean Sea. In the fourth session, Knox

County Criminal Court Judges Hector Sanchez and Steven Sword will discuss the book Getting Things Done by David Allen, which explains how creating a system to get things accomplished can relieve stress and increase productivity. The final session, moderated by psychologist and burnout and high-performance coach Emily Heird, brings together four lawyers from different practice areas who decided to make real changes in their personal and professional lives that led to increased wellness. The lawyers – Darrius Dixon, Lewis Thomason, P.C.; Tracy Edmundson, Egerton, McAfee, Armistead & Davis, P.C.; Luke Ihnen, Federal Defender Services; and Eboni James, Lyft Inc. ¬– will conclude the day with practical suggestions for overcoming obstacles and embracing change.

Because there is no one-size-fits-all approach to wellness, this conference offers a full day of resources and options for taking ownership over your wellness as you learn about the science of happiness, discover tools to slow down and reset, and consider how to navigate work and life in healthier ways. Don’t miss this opportunity on September 15th to think about what changes you can make to lead a happier, healthier life!

Friday Morning with Hannah & Joan

Joan: Hannah, I am so glad to be part of the Knoxville Bar Association Wellness Committee’s Practicing Wellness Subcommittee. The focus on finding and making time for wellness activities is so welcome! Identifying the right activities and scheduling them is a challenge.

Hannah: I agree! I like to take group HIIT classes at Orange Theory in Bearden and yoga classes at local studios. I am more likely to go if I schedule it in advance. When I get busy with work and life, taking time for wellness is often the first thing to slide down the priority list. I enjoy our weekly Friday morning walks at Lakeshore Park. They get me out of bed and outside before I get behind my desk.

I really want to incorporate regular meditation into my schedule. Do you have a regular meditation practice? How do you incorporate meditation into your day?

Joan: Calendaring wellness (a possible oxymoron) is key. I also have enjoyed the Friday morning Lakeshore walks sponsored by our Practicing Wellness subcommittee! I have valued the renewed and evolved relationship I have been able to develop with you—from instructorstudent to bar colleague—which has increased my mental and emotional wellness while also launching my day with solid physical activity. Pure joy!

I calendar my meditation. I participate in online meditation groups hosted by the Mindfulness and Health Institute1 and the Mindfulness in Law Society,2 having discovered online mindfulness activities during the pandemic. They have helped me to develop more regular and satisfying practices.

Overall, the Practicing Wellness subcommittee has given me hope that each of us can influence the wellness of others in many ways. I am proud of what we have accomplished. I hope you are, too.

Hannah: Yes, I am thrilled about everything we have done in the first two years of the committee. Our Tennis and Pickleball Tournament is a popular event, open to beginners and more experienced players. I have not played pickleball and am very rusty at tennis! How about you?

The Wellness Conference has become a staple KBA event to broaden the conversation on prioritizing wellbeing. I hope folks will plan to attend on September 15, 2023.

I also have valued our renewed relationship and sharing stories during our Friday walks. And I have enjoyed meeting new folks and spending time outside on the Tuesday evening walks at Lakeshore and Saturday hikes exploring local trails.

I am excited about the Wellness Committee’s “Healthy Bar Challenge” planned for October, in which members will track their physical activities like walking and yoga, mental activities like meditation, and financial wellness activities like creating a budget or making an estate plan. I will use the challenge to incorporate meditation into my schedule and focus on financial planning. Do you plan to participate in the challenge?

Joan: My shoulder injuries took me away from tennis, and pickleball would be new to me (but I look forward to trying it). I will happily--and with competitive spirit! —participate in the Healthy Bar Challenge. I am easily motivated by games, data, and competition!

I appreciate the conversation, Hannah, and your leadership of the Wellness Committee. We are making strides in many directions. I am excited to see where all this goes next.

Money on My Mind

Brittany Dykes, Nestor Law, PLLC

If someone ever tells you that they have never worried about money, they are either blessed to live a life most would dream of, or they are lying. I think if most of us were honest with ourselves, we probably don’t think about money enough, at least not in all the right ways. As an attorney who is considered a millennial, I grew up and watched the adults around me lose their homes in the crash of 2008. I exited law school in a job market that we were told would be tough, and they weren’t kidding. I graduated with over $250,000 worth of student loan debt, that in 10+ years has ballooned with interest to well over $300,000. This brought myself and those around me right into the COVID-19 pandemic. Just a few years after I had braved the decision to open my own firm, the world shut down. Financial wellness has always been on my mind. Without hesitation, I joined the Financial Wellness Committee to own my mistakes, my experience, and hopefully share my story to help others.

Despite having experienced so many various financial crises and barriers, I still have frequently seen the ongoing struggles and mistakes around me of those older and younger than me. I have watched senior attorneys close their doors to take government jobs because they never bothered to start a retirement account. I watch young attorneys struggle with low wages and try to find their footing to start their own gigs, amid record-breaking housing costs and inflation. The thought of saving money for most can be a dream.

The Financial Wellness Committee wants to help all attorneys, in any stage of their career, to seek out and find balance in financial wellness, develop a plan, and have the knowledge to do so without abandoning all logic. Not everyone can join the “FIRE Movement” and some of us may be running out of time. By gathering a committee of those who have all experienced very different financial paths and are in different places within their careers, the committee has been able to identify the different stages and struggles of financial wellness that we have all seen as attorneys and just as people. We each desire to share and focus on those personal experiences and knowledge that we have gained to help allow conversations about money and financial wellness to be had. For some generations, discussing money in public has been seen as taboo, but if we want to come together as a collective and help one another, these honest conversations must be had.

Join us at our Financial Wellness Programs:

The New Lawyer Stage: “A Different Perspective on Building Wealth: Do It Yourself”: October 11 at 5:30 pm at The Firefly, the outdoor patio at the Knoxville Hilton (following the Barristers monthly meeting). Alicia Teubert, attorney with Anderson Busby PLLC and chair of the KBA’s Financial Wellness Subcommittee, will discuss how to build wealth on your own. Her discussion will include some of the basic steps to wealth building, some key principles to investing, and some of the factors that can impact your success.

Mid-Career Stage: September 20 at 12 noon on Zoom – KBA members Mario Azevedo, Caitlin Elledge, Cheryl Rice and Vanessa Samano will join Rusty Harmon of SmartBank to discuss the financial elements of owning and operating a small and/or solo practice, planning for retirement, and budgeting and cash flow. The program is sponsored by SmartBank.

Pre-Retirement/Retirement Stage – October 18 at 12 noon on Zoom. No matter how close or how far you are from retirement, you can take steps to better enjoy retirement in the future. Participate in a discussion on tips to develop a plan to make preparing for retirement more manageable. The program is sponsored by TCV Trust & Wealth Management and will be presented by KBA Member John Billings. During each of these programs, we share mistakes, tips, and advice about how to think about money and your own financial wellness, so you keep money on your mind.

1 https://mindfulnessandhealthinstitute.org/courses/community-mindfulnesssessions/

2 https://www.mindfulnessinlawsociety.org/virtual-sits

By: Melissa B. Carrasco Egerton, McAfee, Armistead & Davis, P.C.