Colorado Bar Association President's Message to Members
| Publication year | 1995 |
| Pages | 2309 |
1995, October, Pg. 2309. Colorado Bar Association President's Message to Members
Is law practice getting you down? Working harder for less money? Do your adversaries seem to include your clients, office colleagues, judges and loved ones? Have your ideals been shunted aside amidst the hurly-burly of making a living and avoiding malpractice claims? I have a modest suggestion. Take a sabbatical! Not just for a week or two, but for three months or more. You can't do it? Think again. I did it last year, and so can you.
Why do it? The benefits of a sabbatical cannot be overemphasized. Getting away from it all is therapeutic. People get stale and cynical doing the same thing repetitively year after year. The creative spark is diminished without a change of perspective. Aside from mental and emotional relief, a long-term escape from practice pressures may well be just what the doctor ordered, literally. Changing the scenery can get you out of a rut that can kill you via heart disease or by your own self-destructive tendencies caused by stress or burnout.
The Colorado Bar Association HELP Program assists numerous Colorado lawyers who are depressed, suicidal, ulcerprone or addicted to drugs or alcohol. They are overwhelmed by the demands placed on lawyers today. Unfortunately, their numbers are growing. Even if you are only modestly frazzled, an extra-long time off can clear your head, freshen your perspective and reorder your priorities. It will make you a better lawyer in the long run.
What will you do while on sabbatical? We should all have such problems. You can travel, teach, study, write, exercise, garden, spend time with family and friends (when they are not working) or just "veg" out. Last summer, I took a three-month sabbatical and did a little of each (although I wrote only a few letters and postcards and gardened as little as possible when I was in town). You can be creative in pursuing an interest you have long neglected or need more time for improvement.
Train for a 10K race, take your kids up a fourteener (or three or four), design and build an addition to your home, master the...
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