Well-being Through the Stages of Law Practice: a First Year in Review

• Citation: Vol. 29 No. 4 Pg. 0050
• Publication year: 2024
• Pages: 0050

Well-Being Through the Stages of Law Practice: A First Year in Review Vol. 29 No. 4 Pg. 50 Georgia Bar Journal February 2024

GBJ | Attorney Wellness

An interview with Susana Gude-Rodriguez gives insight into the first-year attorneys' wellness outlook.

BY MEGAN MURREN RITTLE

At the end of February, a group of hopeful Georgia lawyers will sit for the bar exam. Statistically speaking, the majority of those test-takers will have graduated from law school within the past year and, if admitted, will be new to the practice of law. As anyone who is already a member of the Bar knows all too well, the months leading up to taking the bar exam can be the most stressful of any time in a lawyer's life—that is, until reality sets in and the true practice of law begins.

In keeping with the series of wellness through the stages of practice, I caught up with Susana Gude-Rodriguez who was admitted to the Bar in October 2022, and just finished her first year of practicing law. Gude-Rodriguez graduated from Emory University School of Law in May 2022. After being admitted to the Bar, she began practicing at Smith, Welch, Webb &White, LLC, a midsized firm based out of McDonough, Georgia. In her first year, Gude-Rodriguez tried a case in front of a jury for the first time; represented parents and guardians in juvenile court dependency proceedings; represented institutional clients in various administrative matters; attended endless Zoom meetings; and, learned a whole lot along the way. With a new class of lawyers having just joined our ranks in November, and with those sitting for the February bar exam hoping to join us this spring, I asked Gude-Rodriguez to give us some insight into the first-year attorneys' wellness outlook.

What were your expectations for the practice of law coming out of school? Specifically, what did you think life would look like? Did you have a plan to ensure your mental/ physical/emotional well-being?

I expect my expectations for the practice of law coming out of school were very similar to other bright-eyed, eager law students: that I would be performing life-changing work daily, advocating zealously for clients and spending many hours pontificating legal theories (much like they teach in law school). I was grounded enough to know that life would oftentimes be shrouded with long work hours, but I also thought that the time for a personal life and self-care would naturally fall into my day. I didn't think very much about my well-being, especially because law school itself had been so challenging. I thought, nothing could be worse than this. So, I looked onward at my future life as an attorney with ambition and excitement, thinking that the lack of homework and exams would make for a significantly more relaxed experience. Looking back, I understand how naive I was, but I can't fault myself entirely; after all, being a student was all that I knew— of course I would think there is nothing worse than homework.

An important but admittedly unique caveat is that I went to law school during the COVID-19 pandemic, starting in fall of 2019 and graduating in spring of 2022. As a result, only one semester of my law school education was fully inperson; the rest were either fully remote or partially so. There was an existential dread that fell on law students during that time: questions of what am I doing this for? and will I (or my loved ones) live...