Kendra Brodin ’03 understands the value of well-being in the legal profession. She is the founder of EsquireWell, a leading lawyer well-being and performance consulting firm that provides training, strategic guidance, coaching, and online learning tools to help lawyers and legal professionals be happier, healthier, and more successful. She sees the impact a legal work environment has on everything from attorney retention to mental health to productivity. 

“Well-being in a law firm can be a challenge when you are paid based on billable hours,” Brodin says. “The more you work, the more you’re paid. But firms are taking a closer look at lawyer retention, performance, and well-being, approaching the topic like a marathon instead of a sprint. Burning people out fast doesn’t work. It just creates a negative cycle for the firm and the profession. Well-being, peak performance, leadership, and the business bottom line are all closely related.” 

Brodin helps firms envision what a healthy work culture looks like where both the individual team members and the organization thrive. She then works alongside them to create programs and opportunities to make that environment a reality. When thinking about the work she does with the legal profession, Brodin often references the Desmond Tutu quote: “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” 

Erin McClernon, attorney development manager for Ogletree Deakins, says Brodin’s passion and insight were a key to the success of creating a program for her firm. “We collaborated closely with Kendra to build a ground-breaking employee engagement and well-being program that is designed for every single member of our firm,” McClernon says. “We worked with Kendra to make sure that the work environment helps people operate optimally at any given time. We also now have a strategy for when someone is struggling, or as Kendra puts it, ‘pulling people out of the river.’” 

Prior to attending law school, Brodin earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania. Before forming EsquireWell, Brodin gained deep insight into the legal profession by working in a variety of legal settings and roles, including private practice, law schools, recruiting firms, and, ultimately, as chief attorney development officer at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, where she was responsible for firmwide attorney learning. 

James Keshavarz, chief wellness officer of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, hired Brodin to provide training for his legal team and the firm’s clients. “Her presentation style helped lawyers understand how values and empathetic communication skills can build belonging,” he says. “We learned that we could bring people together and do things better.” 

Brodin also contributes to the health of the industry by serving on the American Bar Association’s Well-Being Pledge Committee, which has a multi-part plan that addresses topics such as drinking-based events, access to addiction and mental health experts, and demonstration that help-seeking is a core cultural value. Keshavarz, also a member of the committee, notes, “Kendra’s presence helps give a strong sense of how changes can be implemented.” 

Brodin is extremely active in promoting well-being in the legal profession in several other ways. Among other things, Brodin serves as a board member of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers where she chairs the Education & Outreach Committee. She also teaches an upper-level course at the University of St. Thomas School of Law called “Well-Being and Professional Formation” and serves on the board of the University of Minnesota Law School’s Alumnae Network. 

Brodin is planning many exciting things for EsquireWell, including online, on-demand well-being and professional development learning resources that provide CLE credits and ongoing access to benefits such as live desk yoga, meditation, and “office hours” where participants can drop in to ask Kendra their questions directly. 

Brodin believes that most people go to law school to make a difference in some way. “This is the way that I have found to make a positive impact,” Brodin says. “I built EsquireWell to give me a way to use my unique background, experiences, and abilities to serve other lawyers, their organizations, and the legal profession. I’m optimistic that when we all do our part, we can build a profession where we not only help our colleagues who have ‘fallen into the river,’ but we prevent them from falling into the river in the first place.”