The Care and Feeding of Lawyers: Advice for Self-care

• Citation: Vol. 29 No. 1
• Publication year: 2023
• Author: Martin Pritkin
• topic: Business of Law,Labor Law,Health Law

THE CARE AND FEEDING OF LAWYERS: ADVICE FOR SELF-CARE

Martin Pritkin^*

A woman walks a tightrope over a pool of boiling lava. A man finds himself inside a small chamber whose walls slowly close in on him. Vicious dogs chase someone on a treadmill, edging closer with each step.

These are not bad dreams or scenes from action movies. They are descriptions of lawyers expressing the stress they feel doing their jobs.

Many lawyers are extraordinarily stressed out. Granted, there is competition in every industry. But few people outside of the legal profession (besides professional athletes) have to face an opponent whose explicit aim is to undermine them. Add to that the pressure to get results for clients and the deadlines imposed by courts; it is small wonder that so many lawyers report feeling burnt out.

Indeed, the stress begins in law school and never really lets up. Law students spend long hours studying difficult material for three or four years. Then they immediately face pressure to pass the bar exam and get a job or build a practice.

As the dean of a non-traditional law school whose average student matriculates at age 43, I have seen firsthand students who spend 40 to 50 hours per week on work or family care responsibilities in addition to their 25 to 35 hours of studying.

I have also felt the stress myself. I worked at a large litigation firm for years before joining academia. Even then, I continued to engage in litigation consulting part-time. While I don't purport to have entirely overcome stress in law practice, I can offer the following insights based on my own experience, that of my colleagues and students, and the advice of experts.

I. RECOGNIZE THAT YOU NEED SELF-CARE

I used to think of myself as a superhuman machine that could withstand workloads that mere mortals could not. I believed that self-care was for other people, not me. Indeed, I viewed the term "self-care" with disdain, an excuse invented by navel-gazing softies who couldn't hack it in the real world. Sound like anyone you know?

It took me longer than some, but I finally hit my wall about a year ago. When I did, I realized that self-care applied to me as much as anyone else, and that I needed to figure out how to incorporate it into my life.

The legal profession tends to attract high-strung, type A personalities—or accentuates those traits in people not naturally inclined to act that way. But as they say in addiction counseling, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem. Recognize that if you keep burning the candle at both ends, you will eventually reach the end of your rope. No one, no matter how bright or how hardworking, is immune. Better to start incorporating self-care into your life before you reach a crisis point.

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II. THE VALUE OF SELF-CARE IN PROMOTING EFFICIENCY

The cruel irony is that many lawyers don't do things for their mental well-being because they don't think they can afford the time. But the busier and more stressed out you are, the more you need sleep, exercise, and relaxation. (As the Zen proverb goes: "Meditate for an hour a day if you have time, two hours if you don't.")

While it sounds counterintuitive, you will ultimately be more productive if you take time to be unproductive. Have you ever sat at your desk for an hour re-reading the same appellate opinion three times because you can barely keep your eyes open or concentrate? You may have been "working" that whole hour, but you would have been better off napping or taking a walk for half that time.

This isn't just folk wisdom. Neurophysiological research bears it out.

A. STRESS

Stress changes the brain dramatically. Two neighboring structures in the brain are the amygdala, which regulates emotions, and the hippocampus, which is involved in memory formation. Stress stimulates the amygdala to produce cortisol, a key "fight-or-flight" hormone. This hormone...