My path to law. Fighting for Human Rights in Georgia

• Author: Anna Arganashvili
• Pages: 14-15

Inter Alia | ON WELL-BEING

taught mindfulness at summer associ-

ates’ training and rm retreats. These

stand-alone workshops are a won-

derful way to introduce the concept

of mindfulness and review its many

benets. They won’t, however, lead to

gaining the benets without regular

practice. There are many programs out

there useful to building an individual

practice, including apps such as Calm,

Headspace and Insight Timer.

When implementing a long-term

mindfulness program at a law rm,

it is important to get buy-in from the

managing partners. Offering education

around the science of mindfulness and

reviewing its many benets can help

with that. Often, a managing partner

may have experienced the powerful

benets of mindfulness practice in his

or her own life. I’ll often hear from

lawyers who decided to try meditation

after going through some crisis such as

a heart attack, divorce, losing a major

case, depression and so on. I started

practicing mindfulness after a long

struggle with social anxiety. It’s a tool

lawyers can use to better understand

their emotional landscape and change

their reactions to whatever is happening

in their lives.

“The leaders of our SeyfarthLife

Steering Committee all practice mind-

fulness and have seen the practical

and benecial impact in their lives and

work,” says Kori Carew, chief inclusion

& diversity ofcer at Seyfarth Shaw

in Chicago.

Eric Garner, managing partner at

Best Best & Krieger in Los Angeles,

founded the mindfulness program at his

law rm.

“We don’t offer mindfulness as a

‘perk’ but as an important part of stress

reduction, staying responsive rather

than reactive, and being the best we can

at our jobs,” explains Dia Draper, the

rm’s director of attorney development

and recruiting. “Because it started at

the top and our stakeholders under-

stand its value, mindfulness is a part of

our culture.”

Once there’s buy-in from the lead-

ership, the next step is to gure out

the structure of the program. Best Best

& Krieger offers half-day trainings on

what mindfulness is and how to prac-

tice it; a series of lunch-and-learns on

topics that interweave mindfulness, neu-

roscience and psychology; a quarterly

book club; emailed tips and reminders;

and weekly guided meditations.

Beyond the personal benets,

mindfulness programs are long-term

investments by law rms in their staff

and culture. It’s an acknowledgment

that lawyers and staff perform difcult

work, and it’s a concrete way rms can

support the people delivering high-

stakes results for clients. It’s a win for

the rm, the lawyers and the clients

looking for optimal performance. n

Jeena Cho consults with law rms on

stress management and mindfulness.

She co-wrote The Anxious Lawyer and

practices bankruptcy law with the JC

Law Group in San Francisco.

MY PATH TO LAW

Fighting

for Human

Rights

in Georgia

BY ANNA ARGANASHVILI

#MyPathtoLaw is a guest column that

celebrates the diversity of the legal

profession through attorneys’ rst-per-

son stories detailing their unique and

inspiring trajectories.

I

clearly remember one of my rst

meetings with a victim of do-

mestic violence that took place

shortly after I was appointed as

the rst head of the Gender Equality

Department at the Public Defender’s

Ofce in the Republic of Georgia in

2009. The country had adopted a law

against domestic violence three years

earlier, but women still found it hard

to speak up. We were sitting in a small

dark room, face-to-face, tense and in

silence. At a certain moment, I realized

that if I maintained my social image of

a strong, educated, privileged woman,

it would keep our worlds apart. This

woman would never feel safe enough

to share her traumatic experience with

me. She would never seek help from

someone who appeared stronger and

thus unequal to her. But was I really

stronger? Or did my strength come

from hiding my own wounds and

struggles with gender inequality behind

a mask? I instantly decided to share my

vulnerabilities rst and then my person-

al experience with sexual harassment

and gender discrimination—the reason I

chose to pursue my legal career.

At the age of 31, with two children

and a full-time job, I left my psychol-

ogy and occupational therapy prac-

tices behind to go to law school. The

reason for my decision after 10 years

of hard work and sacrice was that I

felt worthless and powerless. I felt I had

failed to reach my childhood dreams.

I felt stuck by the limits imposed by

others—specically, that women in their

30s with children and obligations inside

the home should not aim high.

Few people believed it was a reason-

able decision, and even fewer supported

it, but I persisted. During the entrance

exams, I was asked to leave the room

because everybody thought I was a

parent, but I refused to leave. After six

years, I graduated with an LLB and a

master’s in law. I continued to work full

time, got my law license and started to

represent people discriminated against

on the grounds of sex, age, disability,

gender identity and sexual orientation.

My colleagues from the nongovernmen-

tal organization Partnership for Human

Rights and I regularly visited psychiat-

ric hospitals and institutions for people

with disabilities, and fought against the

ABA JOURNAL | APRIL–MAY 2020

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