New ASPIRE Index Redefines Legal Well-being

The BASIL Research Initiative has announced the launch of the ASPIRE Index™, a first-of-its-kind brain and mind science-based assessment tool designed to measure and enhance professional performance and well-being within the legal sector.

The ASPIRE Index™ serves three interconnected purposes: (i) as a landmark global research initiative advancing understanding of what enables legal industry professionals to thrive, (ii) as an enterprise-level diagnostic platform for firms, and (iii) as a personal development tool for individuals.

Legal industry professionals operate in complex, high-pressure environments where small behavioural shifts can have a disproportionate impact on performance, resilience, and career satisfaction. The ASPIRE Index™ helps individuals, teams and firms to understand these levers, providing both individual insight and an aggregated, data-driven picture of the relationship between performance and well-being in law. The outcomes include targeted strategies and actions for improving performance and well-being.

ASPIRE™ assesses five scientifically validated factors that influence performance and well-being:

• (A)utonomy and Intrinsic Drive: enhances self-motivation and ownership.
• Pro(S)ocial Orientation: builds trust, collaboration, and team performance.
• (P)urpose and Values Alignment: strengthens motivation through meaning and alignment.
• (I)nteroceptive Awareness and Self-Regulation: supports emotional regulation and stress resilience.
• (R)esilience and Long-Term (E)ngagement: encourages recovery from setbacks and sustained engagement.

For individuals, the ASPIRE Index™ offers personalised feedback and practical, science-based suggestions to improve performance, well-being, and resilience. For firms, enterprise-level reporting provides aggregated data to highlight organisational trends and benchmark results across teams, practice areas, or offices. Customised reporting provides leaders with actionable insights to inform policy and with practical behaviour-change plans that improve culture and strategic decision-making.

“The pressures facing legal professionals are substantial, but the evidence is clear: even small, intentional changes in behaviour can have an outsized impact on both individual and team outcomes,” said Mark Dean, Co-Founder of the BASIL Research Initiative. “The ASPIRE Index™ allows professionals in the legal industry to reflect on their working habits, identify areas for growth, and make informed, evidence-based adjustments that enhance both well-being and performance.”

"What makes The ASPIRE Index™ distinctive is its grounding in rigorous neuroscience and behavioural research, combined with a genuine understanding of the realities of legal practice. We're not imposing generic well-being frameworks – we're measuring the specific factors that the evidence shows predict both performance and sustainability. That specificity matters enormously for creating interventions that actually work."  Jessica Pryce-Jones, BASIL Advisory Board Member and Author of Intuition at Work: Using Your Gut Feelings to Get Ahead, Founder of the iOpener Institute for People and Performance.

Beyond its practical applications, the ASPIRE Index™ is an ongoing, dynamic, global research programme, and the first of its kind to map, at scale, the behavioural foundations of productivity and well-being in the legal profession. By integrating individual insights with aggregated data, the ASPIRE Index™ aims to advance understanding of what enables legal professionals to thrive, and how brain and mind science can help create a healthier, high-performing future for the business and practice of law.

The ASPIRE Index™ is now open for participation. Legal professionals worldwide are invited to take part, gain insights into their own performance and well-being, and contribute to this pioneering research. 

Who is BASIL?

The BASIL (Behavioural Analytics & Science in Law) Research Initiative, launched in July 2025, provides research-driven guidance to the legal sector. By combining behavioural science, practical experience, and data-driven insights, the organisation supports legal professionals and firms in making informed, evidence-based decisions that enhance performance, engagement, well-being and long-term sustainability. 

BASIL Research Initiative was co-founded by Mark Dean, Sinéad Burke, and Justin North, each bringing decades of expertise in legal consultancy, behavioural research, and leadership strategy.

The ASPIRE Index™ is central to BASIL's work as a global hub for behavioural science for the legal sector.  It provides the data infrastructure for understanding how both psychological and neurological factors affect legal professionals’ performance, well-being, and career sustainability.