059: whole being is well being | Eric Schoonveld
In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Eric Schoonveld, Partner and Co-Founder of The Peak Law Group and a nearly two-decade friend and client, for a conversation about what it actually costs to treat culture as a real priority instead of a talking point.
"If we say culture is important, everybody says culture's important. But if we're gonna mean it, we have to do something about it."
Eric has spent 35 years defending hospitals, physicians, and healthcare systems in catastrophic injury cases across more than a dozen states, but this conversation centers on something he started thinking about back in 2007 and 2008, long before wellbeing became a standard line in law firm CLE credits: what happens to a team, and to the person leading it, when profit stops being the only thing that counts.
Eric's central reframe is a hard one for high performers to sit with: when someone on your team is underperforming, that's the leader's responsibility to solve, not a character flaw to manage around. He traces that belief through a StrengthsFinder exercise from his first firm, a near-fatal bicycle accident that ended in a Life Flight and a goodbye message to his family, and a hallway exchange with a partner he brushed past on his way to something more urgent, weeks before she passed away. What he has built at The Peak Law Group since is less about wellness perks and more about what he calls whole being: showing up for people's real lives, unconditionally, whether or not they're billing hours that week.
Key Highlights
Why Eric considers an underperforming team member his own responsibility as a leader to solve, not their character flaw to fix.
The near-fatal bicycle accident, and the Life Flight goodbye message, that reordered what "more" meant to him.
The hallway "how are you, fine" exchange with a partner, weeks before she passed away, that still stays with him.
How The Peak Law Group's founding partners agreed that when a decision has a clear culture-supporting answer, that's the one they take, no debate, including which health plan to offer when a young associate's wife needed a heart transplant.
About Our Guest
Eric Schoonveld is a Partner and Co-Founder of The Peak Law Group, a litigation defense firm built around the belief that culture, not billable hours, is the real engine of a law firm. He earned his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law in 1991 and spent decades defending hospitals, physicians, and healthcare systems in catastrophic injury and medical malpractice cases, work that has taken him to trials in more than a dozen states. Eric established his medical malpractice defense practice early in his career before co-founding The Peak Law Group, which now has offices across Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Denver, Florida, and California. He is a longtime advocate for workplace wellbeing and culture-first leadership, a perspective shaped as much by decades in courtrooms as by his life outside them: he's an endurance cyclist, skier, and Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, married to Shawna for 30 years, and father to two kids he describes as super adventurous.
Connect with Eric Schoonveld
Eric Schoonveld on LinkedIn
Learn more at The Peak Law Group
Resources
Read Jen Marr's Showing Up: A Comprehensive Guide to Comfort & Connection
Read Jen Marr's Lifting Up: The Transformative Power of Supportive Leadership
About the HX Collective
The HX Collective explores the human experience through three lenses: work, relationships, and self, through raw, authentic conversations rooted in human-centered design. Each episode offers gripping stories, thought-provoking discussion, and concrete tools that help you rethink your relationship with distress and strengthen your whole human experience.
