ACTUALIZE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE FOR ATTORNEYS – REFLECTIVE LISTENING

Research shows that successful professional performance is more dependent on emotional intelligence than skill level or educational background. This skill is essential for Leaders of law firms, Managers of teams, or any Attorney who wants to get more clients and maintain valuable, long term relationships. Learn how to assess EQ in yourself and others, how to increase your emotional intelligence, and how to incorporate it into your lead conversion and client fulfillment systems to create a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Emotional intelligence (EI or EQ) is the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions effectively in oneself and others to navigate social complexities, reduce stress, and achieve goals. It comprises four core skills—self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, which can be learned and improved over time to enhance personal and professional success. 

This course is designed to improve your wellness and competence as an attorney in the area of Emotional Intelligence. In this 1-hour program, Actualis will introduce you to the work of Daniel Goleman, help you assess your own EQ, and show you experiential exercises designed to improve your 4 Core Skills.

Emotional Intelligence skills transform painful challenges that keep you stuck in unhealthy patterns that negatively affect your performance. This transformation will allow you to move forward towards achieving your professional goals as an attorney. In addition, you will be making a positive impact in your community, and the lives of the clients you serve.

Research shows that EQ is not fixed and can be developed. Techniques include practicing mindfulness, developing empathy, enhancing self-awareness through feedback, and learning to pause before reacting to emotional triggers. 

Unlike other professions, attorneys have critical ethical duties and burdensome competency requirements that demand high levels of personal performance, year in and year out. Failure to properly perform any of these broad mandates can lead to complaints, public reprimands, suspension and debarment. To thrive in this environment, you must master the fundamentals of Leadership, Management, Finances, Physical Health and Mental Health.

High EQ is linked to strong leadership, teamwork, and decision-making capabilities. It helps manage stress and anxiety by regulating emotional responses. It improves communication and fosters deeper connections with others. Attorneys’ mandatory duties are some of the most demanding of any profession, and include:

1. Competence (Model Rules 1.1)
   1. A lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client.
   1. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.
2. Diligence (Model Rules 1.3)
   1. A lawyer shall act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client.
3. Communication (Model Rules 1.4)
   1. A lawyer shall obtain informed consent
   1. A lawyer shall keep client reasonably informed.
   1. A lawyer shall comply with reasonable requests for information.
4. Conflict of Interest (Model Rules 1.7)
   1. Representation must not be limited by a personal interest of the attorney
5. Safekeeping Property (Model Rules 1.15)
   1. Duty of trustee for client monies
6. Declining or Terminating Representation (Model Rules 1.16)
   1. When a lawyer’s health (mental or physical) interferes with their ability to practice effectively, they have an ethical duty to step down.
7. Expediting Litigation (Model Rules 3.2)
   1. A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to expedite litigation
      consistent with the interests of the client
8. Misconduct (Model Rules 8.4)
   1. Lawyers cannot Commit a criminal act that reflects adversely on the honesty,
      trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer. This includes DUI and Illegal drug use or possession

Your challenge is to stay in the flow of excellence every day. It is obvious that most attorneys cannot meet these challenges. When compared to the general population, attorneys suffer from twice as many incidents of substance use disorders and mental health issues. Furthermore, increasing numbers of attorneys are being disciplined, sued and incarcerated for wrongdoing in their roles as lawyers.

All attorneys start out wanting to be successful. However, each attorney is unique. For this reason, to have a long and truly successful career in the law, you have to first understand yourself and your emotional impact on others. You carry both valuable skills and lifelong challenges to manage. Without this critical data, you cannot master the fundamentals areas that are mandatory to become a truly healthy, wealthy and wise attorney.

All attorneys have blind spots, so it is normal to feel frustrated and struggle in mastering these fundamental areas of your legal career. It is painful, humiliating and inevitable to make mistakes as a lawyer, so using tools that improve your leadership, communication and decision making gives you a big competitive advantage.

Do you struggle to maintain financial, mental and physical health? Are you avoiding doing the work to become a good leader and manager in your firm? The legal world is full of burned-out attorneys who are afraid to change negative behaviors because they don’t want to risk worsening their bad situation. Law School and CLE programs won’t teach you about emotional intelligence and leave it to you to figure out why are performing poorly, and fail to improve year after year.

Research in the areas of neuroscience, psychology, organizational development and economics prove that engaging with these EQ concepts and practices necessarily create powerful results for you. Actualizing wellness starts with understanding your true nature, which is quick and easy thanks to EQ assessments. Your next step is to simply identify your current needs and goals. Then you identify patterns of your thoughts, feelings and actions arising from your EQ that keep you from achieving your goals. Next, you can focus your valuable time and attention to mastering new patterns of engagement in the fundamentals areas that incorporate the right set of strategies and tactics that will work for your personality. The last step is to assess the risk of making the change, and making a realistic, informed decision to transform your life using the proposed strategy. We call this the LAICE method.

After your training, schedule your 15-minute Discovery Session with me to clarify your goals, identify your challenges in achieving your goals, and brainstorm strategies to overcome your challenges.

REQUIRED PRE-WORK (15 minutes)

Take the free Emotional Intelligence test

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/tests/personality/emotional-intelligence-test

We require you to take a DISC personality style assessment before this training. You can take a basic free test DISC assessment at 123 Test https://www.123test.com/disc-personality-test/ BUT we recommend you purchase the WILEY DISC ASSESSMENT on this website.

We require you take the free  Positive Intelligence Saboteur Assessment https://positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/

Assessment https://positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/

RECOMMENED READING (Audiobooks are available on Spotify):

15. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

16. Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine

SCHEDULE:

TIME	SUBJECT	PARTICIPANT TASKS
0:00 – 5:00	Overview of Program Outline –	Slides
3:00 – 10:00	Introduction and personal story of how I was emotionally unintelligent as an Attorney	Slides
10:00 – 15:00	Model Rules – Your Wellness, Your Competency and Your Ethics	DOC 1: Model Rules ASSESSMENT QUIZ #1:  Determine your area of focus
15:00 – 35:00	The use of EQ, DISC personality style assessment and Positive Intelligence to Actualize your Attorney Wellness	Slides ASSESSMENT QUIZ #2: EQ Test DOC 2: Sample free DISC assessment results – 123 Test DOC 3: Sample paid DISC assessment results – Wiley DOC 4: Free Saboteur assessment – Positive Intelligence
35:00 – 55:00	4 Core Skills	Slides DOC 5: 4 Core Skills
55:00 – 60:00	Change Management, Accountability and Support	Slides
60:00 – 65:00	CONCLUSION	ASSESSMENT QUIZ #3 PROGRAM FEEDBACK DELIVERY OF CERTIFICATE

ABOUT ACTUALIS ATTORNEY WELLNESS AND MARK C. DALY:

Even before becoming an attorney in 1999, I learned how to develop my personal and professional skills by attending workshops, educating myself, getting peer support, and hiring professional coaches and therapists. I learned how to bring out the best in myself, my companies and the teams I supervised in my legal career. Over the past 20 years I have become a certified professional coach and a certified Shadow Work ® coach and facilitator. I am a Registered Non-Licensed Therapist in the State of Colorado with strict duties of confidentiality, which is very necessary when working with attorneys! I have taken courses in Voice Dialogue, Gottman Marriage Counseling and Emotionally Focused Therapy. I have used these skills to coach executives, managing and associate attorneys, as well as support staff, to become more satisfied and successful practicing law. Since 2004 I have been a registered CLE provider. I have coached and mentored dozens of attorneys in law office start up, practice management, and immigration law fundamentals.

I have been an immigration attorney for 26 years. In the beginning, I struggled financially, emotionally, physically and spiritually. I have been married, divorced, and finally remarried in 2010. As a single dad dealing with a traumatic divorce, I know what it is like to mismanage a law office, break rules of competence and act unethically. Through it all, I have managed to learn from my mistakes and gain mastery in the 5 fundamental areas of attorney wellness – Leadership, Management, Finances, Mental Health and Physical Health. I twice started, built up, managed, and sold successful law practices in Nashville and Denver, and now I am financially free. I maintain excellent and loving relationships with my wife and grown children, and I have a great relationship with my extended family and even my ex-wife! In 2025, my wife and I went on a one-year sabbatical around the world to learn, grow, relax and enjoy life. I gained a better understanding of myself and decided to become an inactive attorney and launch Actualis Attorney Wellness. My primary aim is to help attorneys feel good, enjoy life, and do the right thing.