On well-being. Balancing Your Body Budget

• Author: Jeena Cho
• Pages: 13-14

I could look forward to much of the

year. It was a saving grace.

What was your involvement in

Black Lives Matter D.C. v. Trump,

and were you able to work on

any other memorable cases last

year?

So many! For the Black Lives Mat-

ter case, a team at my  rm wrote an

amicus on behalf of civil rights leaders

to show that the BLM movement was a

continuation of a very long movement

toward racial equality and social justice.

We wrote down the experiences and

perspectives of veterans of the ’60s and

’70s-era civil rights movement. I spoke

to Martin Luther King III , among other

leaders, and it was fascinating hear-

ing his stories and experiences. It was

humbling to be a part of something like

that. At the beginning of the pandemic,

we were involved in litigation over the

spring primary in Wisconsin. We ob-

tained a court order allowing approxi-

mately 58,000 new voter registrations

to go through and 80,000 absentee bal-

lots to actually count. That was huge,

and it was a crazy pace because it kind

of came out of the blue, and we did it

in less than three weeks. It went all the

way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and

we even got one of those infamous dis-

sents from the late [Justice Ruth Bader

Ginsburg]. It was her last dissent in a

voting rights case. It was a great team

and a great case to work on.

How did that timing of the

Wisconsin case relate to your

Jeopardy! appearances?

It was during my hiatus from Jeopardy!

I came back from LA on March 12, and

I got involved in this case on March 17.

It was pretty much like going from one

 re into a very different kind of  re.

How did you get interested in

voting rights in the f‌i rst place?

Were your parents lawyers or

involved in politics?

They weren’t lawyers, but they were

politically minded. I’ve been interested

in politics since I was a kid—I did can-

vassing, voter registration, volunteering

and knocking on doors, and they were

always supportive. I’m from Florida,

and I remember the 2000 elections very

clearly—not the legal day-to-day, but

I remember there were issues about

votes not being counted, and it didn’t

seem fair. I had always been interested

in ensuring anyone who wanted to vote

and could vote had as easy access to

voting as possible, and that in uenced

my studies in college and law school. It

seems like a different era, but not long

ago protecting voting rights was actual-

ly a bipartisan issue. The Voting Rights

Act’s reauthorization passed the U.S.

Senate in 2006 on a vote of 98-0. Un-

fortunately, attempts to restrict the right

to vote feature across a lot of American

history, and it really accelerated after

2008 . Really, all of my adult life, the

right to vote has been under attack.

Are you hopeful that under

President Joe Biden’s

administration, things might

improve?

I’ll say that it’s wonderful to have a

Congress that’s passing and deliver-

ing HR1 and the renewal of the John

Lewis Voting Rights Act and to have

a president in the White House who

just signed an executive order to make

voting easier. It’s just refreshing to

have public of cials who speak out in

favor of easy and accessible voting. The

shift in tone at the top from unbound-

ed conspiracy theories to President

Biden’s recent executive order, it’s just

night and day.

Can you share any details about

what you are working on right

now?

Right now, we are monitoring different

proposals across almost every state that

will restrict the right to vote in one way,

shape or form. We’re just gearing up for

the next round. We just  led a lawsuit

in Georgia , for example, which recently

passed a law restricting voting rights.

It even goes so far as to ban folks from

handing out food and drinks to voters

waiting in line at polling locations .

That’s the thing about this practice

area—the  ght is never  nished. Q

ON WELL-BEING

Balancing

Your Body

Budget

Depleting reserves

can lead to burnout

BY JEENA CHO

How am I

supposed

to  nd

time for

self-care when I’m

working 14-hour days

and haven’t had a day

off in months?”

I often encounter

questions like this when I teach mind-

fulness workshops at law  rms. Billing

time in six-minute increments naturally

creates a dynamic where lawyers may

feel as though they must work around

the clock. Further complicating the

issue is the fact that each billable hour

is generally treated the same, without

weighing the value or the quality of the

time. When I’m working on a bank-

ruptcy matter, an hour spent reviewing

a deposition transcript is billed at the

same rate as when I come up with a

novel way of potentially discharging a

six- gure tax debt.

Compounding the problem is what

I’ll call practicing “martyrdom law.”

It’s the idea or belief that you must

sacri ce yourself and your well-being

for the good of your clients or your law

practice. Lawyers sometimes confuse

being a “good” lawyer with a lawyer

who dedicates all waking moments to

law practice. There also seems to be the

expectation that law practice shouldn’t

be pleasurable, ful lling or enjoyable.

If you are happy at your job, you must

not be practicing law correctly.

To be clear, I am not devaluing hard

work or saying law practice should be

easy. What I am saying is that law prac-

ABA JOURNAL | JUNE–JULY 2021

13

Inter Alia | ON WELL-BEING

Photo courtesy of JC Law Group

ABAJ J E-J Y rA PM