One Lawyer's Take on Lawyer Wellness

• Author: Steve Shewmaker
• Pages: 14-15

14 FAMILY ADVOCATE www.shopaba.org

My rst legal mentor, Cathy, would tell her

clients, “I don’t do emails, so call me

instead.” is was Cathy’s disclaimer that

made it all right to have 3,000 emails in her

inbox that went barely read. But that was

20 years ago, and the world has changed so much. Even

before the country embraced videoconferencing as an

adequate substitute for in-person hearings as an answer to the

COVID-19 pandemic, the courts routinely used email as a

scheduling and notice forum.

When I was a new attorney, Cathy and many other

colleagues advised me of the importance of lawyer wellness.

It seemed their advice began and ended with only two

maxims: First, take vacations often, and second, re horrible

clients. Over the years, I have embraced both but I consider

lawyer wellness a much more profound matter. I nd that

true wellness requires much more than ring an unreason-

able client and hopping a ight to Tahiti. In fact, some of my

observations may seem counterintuitve to many attorneys,

and some may even strongly disagree. What I provide here is

not aspirational. I actually follow it every day.

Information Overload

Sting got it right when he sang, “Too much information

running through my brain, Too much information driving

me insane.” ese days, no single factor threatens attorney

wellness more than information overload. As I said, email has

now become the de facto communication medium. Add to

that, today we all have smartphones in our hands, linking us

to our email accounts. And we take them with us everywhere

we go. Judges, opposing counsel, our associates, and our

clients frequently start conversations with, “Have you seen

the email I just sent you?” You must not let information

overwhelm you. When it does, it creates anxiety and a sense

of hopelessness. It also causes you to miss the important

things—the deadlines, the really urgent client messages, and

important inquiries from judges. To avoid information

overload, I recommend three things.

First, get rid of multiple email accounts. ey are

distracting and inecient. I used to have a law rm email

account, another one for personal email, another for online

purchases, and yet another issued to me by the U.S. Army

when I was in the reserves. Multiple accounts were supposed

to streamline my life. Instead, I was always checking them to

make sure I was not missing something important. I had

multiple passwords, and I found myself transferring things

back and forth between my own accounts. Now, I operate

with a single email account.

Second, do not let your emails get out of control! Again,

you cannot see with any clarity when you have 2,000 emails in

your inbox. On a good day, I strive for less than ten in my

inbox when I go home for the evening. To achieve this requires

One Lawyer’s Take on

Lawyer Wellness

BY STEVE SHEWMAKER

Published in Family Advocate, Volume 43, Number 3, Winter 2021. © 2021 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof

may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.