Path to Well-Being in Law - Episode 28: Tara Antonipilla Path to Well-Being in Law

We are on the cusp of one of IWIL's most notable programming events of the year, Well-Being Week in Law, and we have a very special guest with us today to talk about one of IWIL's highest priorities. That's Tara Antonipillai, who is serving this year as our Chair of Well-Being Week in Law.
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Transcript:
Chris Newbold: 
Hello and welcome to this special edition of the Path to Well-Being in Law podcast. My name is Chris Newbold and I'm here with my co-host Bree Buchanan. Bree, how's it going? 
Bree Buchanan: 
Great, Chris. How are you? 
Chris Newbold: 
Good. I'm actually pretty excited actually because we are on the cusp of one of IWIL's most notable programming events of the year, Well-Being Week in Law, and we have a very special guest with us today to talk about one of IWIL's highest priorities. That's Tara Antonipillai, who is serving this year as our Chair of Well-Being Week in Law. Tara, how's it going? 
Tara Antonipillai: 
I'm great. Thanks for having me, Chris and Bree. It's nice to be here. 
Chris Newbold: 
Yeah. So let's first of all get right to the dates. Tara, when are we queued up to go on Well-Being Week in Law for 2023? 
Tara Antonipillai: 
Well, Well-Being Week in Law is exactly two weeks away. So it's May 1st through the 5th, 2023, Monday through Friday. 
Bree Buchanan: 
And what amazes me is that this is our fourth annual, boy as time go by. So tell us, Tara, is how this week is structured, how is it set up? 
Tara Antonipillai: 
Sure. So just a little bit of background. Well-Being Week in Law occurs the first week of May to launch Mental Health Awareness Month. So it is meant to focus on folks in the legal profession who may be struggling with mental health and alcohol use disorders, but also on those that while not dealing with a diagnosable illness, may not be fully thriving in their work in their life. So the aim of this is really to raise awareness about mental health and encourage action and innovation across our profession. So the week is structured in themes. So each day has a theme and as you look through it, you can see Monday is physical wellbeing, Tuesday is spiritual wellbeing, Wednesday is career or work wellbeing. Thursday is social wellbeing and Friday is emotional wellbeing. 
Bree Buchanan: 
Wonderful. 
Chris Newbold: 
I was going to say, one of the things that I think is really awesome about this particular week, and I want to give a lot of credit to the founder of this particular week, and that was Anne Bradford back several years ago. She said, "Listen, if we can get a date on the calendar in which we can shine the light on wellbeing as an issue, we can organize around that. We can talk about issues, we can set out the welcome mat, so to speak, to organizations, law firms and individuals to advance the dialogue." And it certainly feels, Tara, like that concept has really worked and worked well. And we continue to see growth in this opportunity. 
Tara Antonipillai: 
That is definitely true. I mean, we owe a huge debt to Ann for both the idea and also for the structure and many, many of the resources that serve as the foundation for Well-Being Week in Law. She put a tremendous amount of her intellectual capabilities and her really just her hard work into this and so to build it into what it is today. And I think we should be thankful to her and I think she's very happy to see what Well-Being Week in Law has become. 
Bree Buchanan: 
And Tara, one of the things that is so amazing about this... Well, two things. It's free for everybody, but also the amount of resources that are available on our website, lawyerwellbeing.net. Can you talk a little bit about what some of those resources are and how people can have their own Well-Being Week in Law? 
Tara Antonipillai: 
Yeah, for sure. So the way that we have set up the website is so that really it's a hub for folks to plan their own Well-Being Week in Law if you happen to be inside an organization or if you are an indivi