At Sheppard Mullin, employee benefits include help with tasks like finding care for aging parents
DeAnna Ouderkirk, chief administrative officer at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, has been fielding family emergencies with out-of-town relatives over the past few years.
When her sister was hospitalized two years ago in Browns Summit, North Carolina, Ouderkirk, who lives in another state, struggled to help. But she wasn’t familiar with the area and didn’t know how to find and vet nursing care for her sister or a home for her sister’s dog.
“It was an emotionally tough time, and we were scrambling,” says Ouderkirk, adding that her sister passed away. “I am very, very busy in my job and trying to balance everything. It was overwhelming.”
It’s a common theme—law firm staff and attorneys juggling caregiving responsibilities in their personal lives with their careers. But Sheppard Mullin says it has found a way to help. Since January 2024, the firm has offered Homethrive, a service providing concierge-like assistance for caregivers, as one of its benefits.
The service provides a 24/7 digital platform and licensed clinical social workers to help coordinate care issues as they come up, from researching and presenting home health care options for an employee’s aging parent to helping an employee advocate for an individualized education plan for a neurodiverse child.
Ouderkirk has used the service several times. Less than a year ago, her mother-in-law had a stroke. Ouderkirk set up a Homethrive account for the situation and was able to share it with other relatives. They had the first conversation with the social worker assigned to them while in the visiting room at the hospital. The social worker researched and vetted nursing care options and meal delivery services—and eventually, hospice care—for Ouderkirk’s mother-in-law.
DeAnna Ouderkirk is the chief administrative officer at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton. (Photo by Doug Peck)
“It was so nice to realize that I had this resource,” she says.
Blair Whitman, vice president of client success at Homethrive, says the company operates nationwide and is expanding into Canada. According to her, they serve over 30,000 law firm employees and work with other firms besides Sheppard Mullin.
Homethrive’s focus is on helping caregivers who are often “toggling between guiding their parents and raising children,” Whitman says.
The business employs more than 100 social workers and other staff; all work remotely. Besides helping law firm employees find specific services, the social workers are trained to look at each situation “holistically,” often guiding individuals into caregiving support groups or helping them gain a better understanding of their loved ones’ illnesses and specific needs.
Law firms benefit from the service because their employees are better able to focus during work hours when a service they trust handles the research and legwork needed to navigate complex caregiving, Whitman says.
Law firms are increasingly finding ways to encourage the emotional wellness of their employees, says Katy Goshtasbi, the CEO of Puris Consulting. She says her company supports law firm leaders with leadership coaching and training, marketing, and employee well-being and productivity.
Providing a service to ease the burden of caregiving is not only humane, but also pragmatic, she adds.
“There’s only so much we can focus on, and it is important to help employees manage their responsibilities and stress,” says Goshtasbi, chair of the ABA Law Practice Division’s Attorney Well-Being Committee.
‘Eliminates the guesswork’
Thomas Adrian, senior director of human resources for Sheppard Mullin, says he started on a quest to help the “sandwich generation” after helping find resources for a partner who lived on the West Coast but was scrambling to care for a parent who lived on the East Coast.
“I thought, ‘There has to be some kind of solution the firm could offer to give people resources,’” he says.
Adrian searched for different benefits to help caregivers and found that Homethrive’s approach was unique and the right fit for Sheppard Mullin’s 2,100-plus employees throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Employees don’t pay for the service, and Sheppard Mullin would not discuss what it pays to offer it. Firm employees have used the service at least 240 times in the past year and a half, and the feedback has been positive, he says.
Andrius Kontrimas is a partner in the Houston office of Sheppard Mullin. He relied on Homethrive when he was looking for ways to assist his elderly parents in Southern California by researching care facilities, home health care options and transportation services.
“Lawyers have busy schedules, and when you are dealing with family, none of us are trained to know what the opportunities are or who the providers are,” he says. Homethrive “eliminates all the guesswork.”
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