[Music] the problem in this regard is that I see a lot of I get a lot of challenges when it comes to my name is Ahmed Elnaggar and this is Monday Legal my guest for today is Aline Von Duering the president of the skill board at AIA welcome and thank you very much for joining us thank you thank you very much Ahmed glad to be here I'm very happy that actually I found someone who is doing something instead of talking about it and you are talking uh to me a few times ago about the mental health and the effects of it but then when you told me that you're actually doing something there is a project happening I was very interested and I would like that you tell us more about it well with pleasure thank you it was actually exactly the same thought that I had um you know I was realizing that so many people are talking about the situation of mental health within the legal industry and you know we're hearing that we're by far the unhappiest industry and burnout rates and all the law firms are complaining about not finding young people anywhere that want to come and work for them because of that situation being so bad and within my work for AA and the skill board where working with a lot of coaches and we're trying to support the people and we just realized well yes it's not enough it needs it we need a global effort everybody needs to be part of this and start actually doing something about it because it's not something that can happen forget about having a work life balance and meditating breath work sleep more we know all that but that's not going to help that's not going to change you know what it needs to be it we we need to look at it from the inside and um because we believe it the change has to happen we have to be part of the change right it's not something you can impose on anyone people that are in it need to be the drivers and who better to do it than Asia members you know these are young lawyers these will be the leaders of the industry tomorrow absolutely and uh I I I very much like that you involv professionals into bringing it not just the people who read about it and passionate about the topic so you brought in someone who's an expert yes we introduced Agata Petco to AIA a while ago she has been coaching us uh or our members at our Flagship events and together with her we have designed an 18month program which will guide our the participants which we call agents of change through a journey of first analyzing the problems then education what are possible um solutions that could happen but also understanding the intricacies of it and then designing their own tools which they try and test and share with other members of uh of this initiative so that there is also collective learning and by the end we hope to have you know guidelines with the best tools the ones that worked best so we hope um that we can really help other law firms with guidelines where we have filtered the best tools which they can then try and test themselves and at the same time we want the Agents of change to actually be able to empower other individuals in their organizations to go through the same process of helping their colleagues to Define what is the problem what is not working and how can I change that what is the tool the process that works for people to um do something differently than it was done before are you going to be selecting these agents of change or anybody can apply to become one obviously everybody can apply as long as you're an AA member that's the only requirement that we have okay and then we will be picking because we cannot we would love to but we cannot do more than 20 in order for it to be effective um and so we will in at least in the first goal we plan hopefully to do this more often but in the first uh round we will select 20 people we think it's important to select a global so it should be diverse and really Global the the people should not be um only from Europe so we want a really good mix uh of participants that that uh will be agents of the first agents of change well I'm very excited to know how this will develop I'm very excited as well to help and assist as much as you need tell me what how can we help you how can we enable this program to succeed well first of all thank you very much as the F our very first champion of Agents of change in supporting us and making this more known and spread the word we will certainly need sponsors because with sponsorship we will or with more sponsorship we will be able to invite more um Specialists to talk about certain topics in master classes we certainly also want to look at um you know what kind of tools as in technical tools are out there uh that we can help and bring in so um it will be be nice if we have sponsors that are also bringing those tools to the broader legal industry and obviously we need law firms that support the individuals to be participants of this initiative here you go this is something that is very important that is affecting the productivity of the law firms the productivity and the performance of every um General councel and every company this is something that is real this is something that is happening today and we have an initiative that is actually doing something about it rather than just making a conversation or making a seminar or an event where people can just talk and then do nothing about it this is an actionable project that enables 20 people to do learn more and to be a agents who can help and promote the mental health among our industry I would like everybody who is watching this video to support AIA and support agents of change and thank you very much for doing something about it and hope it helps everybody thank you thank you very much for your supported much appreciated