Inspired by the late Martin Luther King, Jr, whose life we remembered last month, 50 years after he was assassinated, I have been
thinking deeply about Relational Practices and how Dr. King’s message and life was a model of being relational. Dr. King stirred us with his words, “Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities, which have surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way. This does
Read More
If at first you don’t succeed… That’s right, “…try, try again.” Remember your grandmother’s old adage? And it’s so true for being relational. Especially for lawyers. So often the knee jerk response to other’s conflict is to shake our heads, join, or, at the request of a potential client, file a lawsuit, or, perhaps to write a letter on behalf of the client to the person whom they feel has aggrieved them. That letter often carries with it the thin
Read More
Have you seen the ABA’s recent report from the Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being (LWB)? Sobering. The Report says we have a lot of unhappy lawyers in our profession. It also reports that lawyer unhappiness is resulting in staggering rates of depression, alcoholism, suicide and other mental and emotional ailments. Serious stuff.
I recall testifying in our Maryland state legislature back in the late 1980’s on the issue of child support collection, making a case for why recalcitrant and delinquent payors,
Read More
Tina Turner belted out in her 1984 lyric, What’s love got to do with it? You remember, right? The sizzly song about the crazy confusing experience of strong emotional and physical desires butting up against the rational protect yourself mental act. We can bet that when our Relational Mindset is in alignment with our behavior and actions that we too will experience that crazy push-pull. Well, maybe not quite as steamy as Tina Turner but definitely real, with our active
Read More 
Employees expect to work in an environment free of discrimination, and employers need to be prepared to mediate any workplace disputes with confidence and ease. In the United States in 2016, there was a total of 91,503 workplace discrimination charges. To effectively handle discrimination disputes, employers need to give each situation the attention it deserves by taking certain steps.
Determine the type of investigation neededEach workplace conflict is unique and should be treated as such. Employers first need to decide if
Read More