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S3E17: Lessons for Happy Lawyers, with Nora Riva Bergman & Chelsy Castro
12 Plays2 years ago
Nora Riva Bergman and Chelsy Castro, authors of the book 50 Lessons for Happy Lawyers, join Co-Dean Kim Mutcherson for a frank discussion about mental health and wellness in the legal profession.
You can purchase the book (releasing on May 26, 2022) here.
The Power of Attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers the prestige and reputation of a large, nationally known university combined with a personal, small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.rutgers.edu.
Series Producer & Editor: Nate Nakao
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/rutgerslaw/messageRecommended
Transcript
Introduction to Lawyer Well-being Discussion
00:00:04
Speaker
My name is Kim Mutcherson. I am the co-dean of Rutgers Law School on the Camden campus, and this is the power of attorney. So lots of times when you turn into this podcast, you are talking to folks who are alums of the law school, or you're hearing from folks who are alums of the law school.
00:00:22
Speaker
But sometimes we get the opportunity to go outside of our Rutgers Law family, and today is such a day. So I'm very excited to have on board to speak with us today, Nora Riva Bergman and Chelsea Castro, who are going to be talking to us about their new book about lawyer well-being. And we'll get into some of the details of that in the very near future. But first of all, I want to thank you both, Nora and Chelsea, for joining us today. Thanks for having us. Thank you.
00:00:50
Speaker
Absolutely. It's a pleasure.
Nora's Journey: From Music to Law
00:00:53
Speaker
So I'm going to dive in the same way that we do with every single podcast, which is to ask you for your origin stories. We sort of think about all the different things that you could have chosen to do with your life. You chose law. And I always wonder what drew people to this profession. So can we start with you, Nora? What's your origin story?
00:01:15
Speaker
Yes, I thank you. Thanks, Kim. Oh, boy. I took a rather circuitous path to the law. So folks that are thinking about law school and listening to this may or may not take inspiration from it. But prior to going to college, I was actually a musician. I played music, sang, wrote songs. And I did that for almost 10 years after high school. Then I decided to go to college.
00:01:41
Speaker
No idea that I was going to end up in law school, by the way. It's not something that I had aspired to as a younger person or had no lawyers in my family. But when I was in college, I was a journalism major. And the last semester of my bachelor's degree, I took a course in First Amendment law. And it was taught by one of the editors of the St. Petersburg Times here in Tampa Bay, Florida, where I live.
00:02:11
Speaker
It was, I was so fascinated by that class that I thought maybe I should go to law school. You know, why did I go? I like first amendment law. So why don't I just go to law school? Um, and so I was already living here in Tampa, had a home. I didn't have any desire to travel to leave here to
Transition to Legal Coaching and Well-being
00:02:30
Speaker
go to school. Uh, so I applied to the one law school that is in my geographic area, Stetson university college of law, which is in Belkport, Florida.
00:02:39
Speaker
And I thought, you know, if I'm accepted, then it's meant to be. And if I'm not, it's not. And I will continue with journalism or do something else with my life. And lo and behold, I was indeed accepted. And I pretty much hated every moment of my first six weeks of law school. Thought about dropping out almost every day. But said to myself, okay, just get through this day. We can drop out tomorrow.
00:03:04
Speaker
Well, that never happened. I ended up staying and got a law review and enjoyed my time there. Uh, became a practicing attorney and practicing in the area of employment, uh, law discrimination. And after, I don't know, five or six or seven years of doing that, I realized that I did not, while I enjoyed the practice area, it was fascinating. I did not enjoy the battle of litigation every single day. So I decided to make some changes in my life.
00:03:31
Speaker
and look for other ways that I could stay connected to the practice in law but not actively practice. And that led me to becoming certified as a mediator and an arbitrator, teaching alternative dispute resolution at my alma mater, Stetson College of Law, and also the University of South Florida. And then I went from that to becoming the executive director of a bar association. And I moved from that, I was recruited by a coaching company called Atticus, and I've been affiliated with Atticus since 2006.
00:04:00
Speaker
And so since 2006, I have coached lawyers in law firms and worked with bar associations and legal aid organizations around the country. And that's kind of brought me to where I am today. So the one thing that I guess I would say that is the continuous strain or thread that flows through all of this is that I really enjoy doing work to help other people and now primarily other lawyers. You know, starting when I was an executive director,
00:04:29
Speaker
being able to develop programs that could help other lawyers. And moving from that into my work for the last 16 years, which has been solely focused on helping other lawyers be happier and healthier. You know, while that isn't technically what I coach them on, pushing on things like client development, time management, and all of those things, those go directly to, you know, how happy and well lawyers generally feel.
00:04:58
Speaker
So that's what brought me here today. And this book that we're talking about today, Kim, is the third book in the 50 Lessons for Lawyers series of books. And it's the one that I'm really the most excited about because it will bring to really everybody. It's written for lawyers, but the information in it is relevant to everybody, whether you're a lawyer, whether you're an aspiring lawyer, or whether you're just a regular person who has nothing to do really with the practice of
Chelsea's Path: Immigrant Influences and Legal Education
00:05:28
Speaker
law.
00:05:28
Speaker
because what we share are strategies that apply to us as human beings. And so that's kind of my story. Great. Well, thank you for that. There are a lot of little pieces in there that I would love to sort of poke at a little bit more. But let's jump in first and let Chelsea give us her origin story. And one of the things that I'll point out for folks is that Chelsea has a whole bunch of letters after her name.
00:05:56
Speaker
in addition to the JD. So I'm really interested in hearing your paths, Chelsea. So what's your origin story?
00:06:05
Speaker
Oh, boy. Like Nora, I did not grow up having any lawyers or judges or anybody who had gone to law school in my family or in my social circle. I am the child of Cuban immigrants. First language is Spanish, grew up in South Florida. And so what I've since learned is a very common child of immigrants experience.
00:06:28
Speaker
I grew up with a very, very intense high achiever mindset. And of course, like any parents, my parents wanted the best for their kids. And they worked very, very hard to establish themselves here in this country and wanted their own children to have very established, respectable, practical careers, which is very logical and understanding. So I was always a very hard worker, excelled.
00:06:54
Speaker
and was interested in economics and international relations, probably due to the international nature of my own family history. And started college not really knowing what I was going to do, just knowing those two things. My parents, as I said just a moment ago, wanted to have a situation where their children could feel secure. And so I was strongly encouraged to go to law school.
00:07:21
Speaker
After a typical high achiever style doing a triple major at the University of Miami in economics, international relations, and Spanish literature, combining that with my own upbringing, the immigrant mentality and all, the natural next step seemed like law school.
00:07:40
Speaker
So I went to a law school that could offer me the opportunity to both do the Juris Doctor and a Masters in International Politics and Development. And that's what I did at American University Washington College of Law. And man, I wish I had known, granted it was a different time technologically as well,
00:07:59
Speaker
But I wish I had known some lawyers and I had known some law students or at least had an opportunity to read about the law school or the lawyer experience before I had gone to law school because I really had no context for it other than what I saw in movies and TV and what was assumed about a legal practice and especially international law.
Rethinking Career Goals in Law
00:08:21
Speaker
And well, the three years of law school went well, although certainly not my favorite. I don't think it's most people's favorites, but it certainly taught me a lot about myself and the different paths that I had available before me.
00:08:37
Speaker
I happened to graduate law school during the Great Recession in 2008, and so I really had to learn how to hustle. I worked as a consultant, I worked as a lawyer, obviously, did a lot of volunteer work, and in the end found myself being able to combine the economics, the international development and politics, and the law degree
00:09:01
Speaker
in the field of foreign corrupt practices. So I worked primarily as a lawyer in FCPA, which is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. So it's primarily in support of litigation. And what we're primarily doing as lawyers in that field is either preparing for litigation in defense of, let's say, organizations such as the SEC, because the FCPA, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, is established to require
00:09:31
Speaker
U.S.-based companies to abide by U.S. laws even when they are doing business abroad. But as you can imagine, business abroad is done differently. There are different standards abroad than there are in the United States. And so a lot of companies can get kind of stuck in that, in that cultural divide in how to do business according to our laws while functioning
00:09:54
Speaker
in the culture of other communities. So that's where I was brought in to do all sorts of legal translations and discovery research and internal investigations. And at the 30,000 foot level, it was pretty cool stuff.
00:10:10
Speaker
But in the nitty gritty of every day, I got to a point where I couldn't see myself doing this for decades upon decades. I had some pretty cool experiences. I worked in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a while. I got to travel for work. It was great, but I couldn't see it being great for another 50 years.
00:10:32
Speaker
And I started noticing things in myself, things in my colleagues, in the profession in general that just didn't give me much hope for it being getting better. And I finally came to a point where I was like, you know, I don't feel ready to not be a lawyer, but something needs to change. I worked as a
00:10:50
Speaker
an adjunct professor on top of being a lawyer for a while. I did more volunteer work and nothing was really right. And eventually I realized, you know what, I don't want to just totally dissociate myself from the legal profession, but I like it more when I'm kind of in service of it rather than working in it. And that's not to disparage the legal profession at all. There are plenty of lawyers and judges out there who love their profession for whom being a lawyer is a right fit.
00:11:16
Speaker
It just wasn't for me long-term. So that's how I ended up here in Chicago. I went to the University of Chicago to get my clinical degree and then started working at the Lawyers Assistance Program here where I eventually became a director. And the rest is history. It's been a wonderful switch for me. It was the right switch for me. It's certainly a long journey to get here. I established my private practice and consulting group
00:11:41
Speaker
a few years back, and I look back at my own journey, the not knowing what I wanted to do, the being encouraged to go to law school, all the
00:11:52
Speaker
Pivots and turns in law school and graduating during the recession. And perhaps this is just being an optimist or trying to be an optimist. I found a way for it all to fit. And I'm still part of the legal profession, but I found my niche within it. And yeah, I am still a licensed attorney in Michigan and in the District of Columbia. And so for now, I work with attorneys by helping them
00:12:17
Speaker
find healthier, happier ways to function in the legal profession, to thrive in the legal profession, to be a person working as a lawyer rather than just a lawyer so they can enjoy their life again a bit.
Challenges for First-generation Law Students
00:12:32
Speaker
Got it. I love that. So I want to go back before we go forward. And the reason why I want to go back is that both of you talked about being first gen lawyers.
00:12:44
Speaker
and first gen in law school. And we educate a lot of first gen students at Rutgers Law. And that transition to law school can, let's say, be jarring sometimes for students who come in who don't have any lawyers in their family, even for folks who have lawyers in their family. It can be a really jarring transition. So I'd love to talk a little bit about your experiences in law school, because I think sometimes those early experiences in law school
00:13:14
Speaker
are sort of a prelude to the experience that folks are gonna have in practice. So Nora, let's go back to you. So you said that first six weeks of law school that you basically thought about dropping out just about every day. Why? Well, what was going on that made that transition so rocky? Well, a couple of things were going on. When I came to law school, I came out of,
00:13:43
Speaker
Chelsea used the phrase high achiever, kind of a high achiever background. Throughout my prior college years, I was a summa cum laude, 4.0 GPA. You know, everything came, not to sound, I don't know what this sounds like, but it came relatively easy. I mean, I worked hard and yet I did really well. And I got into law school and the way law school operated
00:14:10
Speaker
several decades ago and I think probably still to some degree is that idea of, you know, tearing you down and building you back up, you know, helping you or forcing you to begin to think like a lawyer. And at the same time, creating a sense of really when you think like a lawyer, you're constantly looking for problems, you're constantly spotting issues. It can instill a very negative mindset in you, okay, which I didn't really enjoy.
00:14:38
Speaker
There were a couple of professors at Stetson at the time who were known for just berating students. You know, I had more than one student in my contracts class, you know, just dissolving into tears on a regular basis because the professor was just, no matter what you said, of course, he'd been teaching out of the same casebook for 30 plus years, so he could argue anything. It wouldn't matter what you said. He could argue the other side of it.
00:15:07
Speaker
So I just I guess as I look back Kim, this is a great question because It did reflect some of what the law firm culture was Then I feel that as you said the law school can kind of be like a precursor To what you were going to experience when you come out of law school And I think to some degree you really kind of hit that right that nail on the head. I have stayed connected to
00:15:36
Speaker
Stetson over the years, and I've spoken and engaged with other law schools around the country over the years, and things have really changed, in my opinion, since then. I don't know how much that change has filtered up from law school into the actual practice of law. I think it depends upon the type of practice that you're in and the type of law firm that you work for, but I
00:16:04
Speaker
I can sense a change is trying to take hold, let me put it that way. And I think that that change in how lawyers practice how they live their lives is going to come up from the grassroots, if you will.
Mental Health Support Systems in the Legal Field
00:16:22
Speaker
Chelsea and I have talked about the fact that the systemic change within the culture of law is going to come from both the bottom up and the top down.
00:16:35
Speaker
And the book is written to address what individuals can do to be happier, to be more resilient, to have a greater sense of wellness and wellbeing. And that's why I said in my intro that these lessons are relevant not only to lawyers, but really to anyone because we share research and neuroscience and scientific-backed strategies that apply not just to lawyers,
00:17:05
Speaker
but to anyone to help them be healthier and happier. And the last thing I would say, if someone was listening to this and is considering whether or not they want to go to law school, if you make that choice, then day one, even if you don't go to law school, start now thinking about your own health and wellbeing and what you can do every day to take care of yourself and to be happier.
00:17:32
Speaker
You know, when I first titled this book, 50 Lessons for Happy Lawyers, you know, one of the questions that I got was, wait, that's kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? Happy lawyers? No, it doesn't need to be. Let me just put it that way. It does not need to be. And hopefully, the lessons that we share in this book can help to change that culture a little bit. Excellent. Thank you. Chelsea, I want to jump over to you. One of the things that you talked about in your origin story was your work with the Lawyers Assistance Program.
00:18:01
Speaker
And, you know, lawyers assistance programs exist, I'm guessing in all 50 states, but I could actually be far too generous in thinking that. Although certainly we have one here in New Jersey. Can you talk a little bit about, actually, let me, I'm gonna ask you two questions. So one is, you know, there's this sort of, you know, notorious discussion about how unhappy lawyers are,
Understanding Lawyer Mental Health Issues
00:18:26
Speaker
right? Really high rates of alcoholism and substance use disorder.
00:18:32
Speaker
you know, dissatisfaction with their jobs. And so, you know, this question of, and Nora was sort of raising this as well, you know, what is going on in our profession that people are so unhappy or some subset of people are really unhappy? And then second, what is it that lawyers assistance programs do for folks in the profession?
00:18:59
Speaker
Well, I'll start with the easier one, the lawyers' assistance programs. And I believe it is almost every state in the union, if not 48 or 49, that do have lawyers' assistance programs in one way, shape, or another. Sometimes they go by slightly different names, but they're essentially still nonprofits, usually connected to the Bar Association through funding in some way, that provide support services for lawyers in need throughout their
00:19:26
Speaker
Specific states for the most part their services can vary a little bit here and there but essentially they provide confidential way to seek out support with you are concerned about
00:19:41
Speaker
Your mental health, your family's mental health, your ability to continue working because you don't know how to manage resources. Let's say if you have had some sort of health concern come up for yourself.
00:19:57
Speaker
Beyond those more specific services, we do oftentimes, depending on the office, provide short-term counseling. Sometimes you gotta talk to someone else who knows what it's like to walk the walk to really clarify things up for yourself. A lot of lawyers' assistance programs throughout the country also offer confidential support groups.
00:20:16
Speaker
One of the most important things about the lawyers assistance programs throughout the country is that they are free they provide free services so there's no financial barrier and they guarantee confidentiality so as I'm sure you know, it's really tough to Not have concerns about what people will think what the profession will think of you as a lawyer and that's got goes for a variety of different aspects about our life as lawyers, but also just the
00:20:46
Speaker
the nature of the law itself. We were skeptical, we're concerned, and granted the stigma around mental health and well-being in the legal profession. So oftentimes, and study after study keeps finding that lawyers can recognize that they're struggling, but they statistically still don't reach out for help very much. And lawyers' assistance programs make it easier to reach out. I remember in my time,
00:21:15
Speaker
I not only worked with lawyers and judges, but a great number of law students as well. It is also available to law students. And I'd say that a lawyer's assistance program involved, their involvement in law schools is actually quite important because as Nora noted, the habits that we establish early on in our academic careers and our professional careers are the ones that are going to become our defaults.
00:21:43
Speaker
And if we start out law school or college education or our first few years out in the working world with pretty unhealthy habits, and I'm not even talking about unhealthy food or allowed exercising. I'm talking about your relationship with your work. It's going to make it much tougher to to enjoy that work and to feel well and like you're thriving. So the lawyers assistance programs involvement in law schools is really important in that way. With regards to your first question,
00:22:10
Speaker
Hmm. So the answer is complicated. I could go on and on about this. I'll try to keep it brief. So, you know, I often talk about how lawyers are a vulnerable population. And that's not a word a lot of lawyers like to associate with and law students either. We are the helpers.
00:22:30
Speaker
We are one of the many different types of helpers in society, but we're definitely helpers, whether we're helping children or families or corporations, we are the problem solvers. So we don't really think of ourselves as vulnerable. And a lot of the lawyers I've worked with over the years will even venture to say that, well, you know, you have to be the opposite of vulnerable because any vulnerability is going to suggest that you can do your job well, which we know is not true, but that's the impression in the legal culture.
00:22:57
Speaker
So we are, but we have to admit that there is a vulnerability here and it's threefold. One, there are just life factors in general, then there's organizational factors, and then there are individual factors. And to just kind of put it in a nutshell, the life factors are the fact that, well, you know what, you might be a lawyer, you might be a law student,
00:23:18
Speaker
But you don't stop being human just because of that. And a lot of times we end up functioning in law school or we end up functioning in the legal profession as if being a lawyer, being a law student is it. And there is no room for all of the things that life will throw at us no matter what we're doing in our professions.
00:23:39
Speaker
the concerns with friends and family, the health issues, the financial issues, it all still happens no matter where you are in your career as a lawyer or what year of law school you're in. And we have to accept that no matter how important law school or our jobs may be, we are still full people. So we're not just lawyers or law students, we are people who will happen to be in law school. We are people who work as lawyers. There's a distinction there and it's an important one when it comes to our mindsets.
00:24:08
Speaker
in the second category of organizational factors. Well, you know, we all know lawyers are notorious for the very heavy working hours. We also, frankly, tend to be, well, perfectionists. And in a lot of my trainings, I'll ask people, you know, who here is perfect? And I get a chuckle from the audience because we all know that's a silly question for me to ask. It's illogical.
00:24:33
Speaker
But there's a chuckle because it's also real. Emotionally, we expect ourselves to be perfect. And that doesn't start when you pass the bar or when you enter law school. There's a long history for most of us in that. But it is reinforced in our legal careers. And plenty of lawyers I've worked with over the years have argued, well, you know what? But my perfectionism is why I'm successful. And I will say yes, but.
00:25:01
Speaker
up until what point? There's a threshold when it comes to perfectionism like there is in many other things in life where the perfectionism is helpful to you to a certain degree and then it starts being harmful. And we need to have an awareness that we as lawyers
00:25:17
Speaker
are encouraged to be perfectionists by our profession. It doesn't mean it's necessary, but it's kind of a default cultural expectation, or at least it is for the individual perceiving the culture oftentimes. And we should question it. That's all. We should just question it. Because the expectation of perfectionism of oneself
00:25:37
Speaker
significantly increases the likelihood of anxiety, depression, burnout, substance abuse. All those issues we've seen in the statistics and the studies come out over the past few years about lawyers is strongly connected to how we view ourselves and the expectations that the legal profession has on us. Excellent. So I want to dive into that more because I do really think that
00:25:59
Speaker
You know, I often talk about law schools as being conservative institutions. And I don't mean that politically. I mean that they are places that are or can be very, very slow to change. And I think the same of our profession in general. And so I think one of the things that we have been working on as a leader of a law school and as somebody who knows lots of folks who are law school deans is really thinking a lot more about wellness and happiness. In fact, the Dean of Students
00:26:30
Speaker
on my campus of the law school calls himself the Dean of Happiness, which is very sweet and he's a really wonderful guy. And we talk, you know, really from day one about, you know, the importance of mental health, the importance of seeking help when you need it, you know, the importance of being a whole person.
00:26:50
Speaker
But sometimes what we hear back from students is, well, yeah, you say stuff like that, but at the end of the day, the pressure, the institutional pressure is all still there, right? You're still surrounded by people who are often, you know, sort of type A people, very driven people, people who want to be successful. And even at a place like workers that I think of as being a lot less of that sort of, you know, head to head competitiveness that you might see
00:27:17
Speaker
at some law schools, there's still this really strong sense of how do I rise to the top within this group of people, the vast majority of whom are very accustomed to being on top. And how do I create, whether it's systems or routines or practices or whatever it might be, so that
00:27:36
Speaker
you know, when at orientation, we say, you know, make sure that you take care of yourself, that you actually are taking care of yourself. So that kind of brings us to, I think, talking about some of the more kind of practical steps that you might be able to offer up to folks, both in law school, which hopefully then become habits that they can have in practice. So the book that were the most recent part of your series, Fifty Lessons,
00:28:01
Speaker
for happy lawyers, and obviously we don't want to steal all the thunder of the book, so we're not going to ask for all 50. But I'm curious, right? I mean, what do you say to people when they're trying to figure out, well, it's really nice to have this story about how we should take care of ourselves, but how are we actually supposed to do that?
Implementing Wellness Strategies in Legal Practice
00:28:19
Speaker
And I'm going to ask you to start, Nora, and then give Chelsea some space to talk about that too. Sure, of course.
00:28:27
Speaker
that question is a great one because the thing about this book, we're not going to talk about all 50 lessons, but it is designed so that people can actually implement, do those things that we talked about in the book. You know, I mentioned in my origin story that I've been working with lawyers and law firms for over 16 years now. And my work with my clients
00:28:55
Speaker
is focused on helping them to be more effective in their business, more effective in their business primarily. What that leads to, and what I've found it has led to in my years of coaching, are conversations with my clients about how they work, what their workday looks like, how they manage their time, for example. And the reality is that the culture of law and the legal profession, which Kim, you noted,
00:29:25
Speaker
about law schools is very slow to change, very slow to change. You know, the law is written on a model that is hundreds of years old and lawyers are very, lawyers and law firms, by the way, are very resistant to change. So lawyers are stuck in a model of work that is really antithetical to their happiness and to their
00:29:53
Speaker
productivity and effectiveness as a lawyer. And let me kind of give you an example of what I'm talking about. So when we talk about happiness, you know, a dictionary definition of happiness is essentially a state of well-being and contentment. But that's different for everybody, right? It's a subjective thing, you know, especially the sense of well-being. That can be a very, very subjective feeling. Some of the research that we talk about in the book speaks to exactly that. So
00:30:23
Speaker
A specific example of what I'm getting at is that lawyers, as we talked about when you're in law school, you're taught to think like a lawyer. Thinking like a lawyer means spotting issues, looking for problems constantly, working out worst case scenarios in your mind.
00:30:44
Speaker
I think we say something to the effect of, you know, we've never met a lawyer who went to law school and said, wow, I was like so cynical before I went to law school and that really came out feeling so much happier and better. No, it's kind of the other way around. But the truth is that our brains are most effective. We think more critically. We think more creatively when we are in a happy,
00:31:09
Speaker
positive mindset. There is a ton of research out there on just this one topic. So when you think about being a happier lawyer, it impacts not just your personal life, but your work as a lawyer. You are going to be more effective in your work for your clients if you can bring a happier, more positive mindset to your work.
00:31:34
Speaker
So that's what each one of these lessons in this book essentially gets to. Let me just, I'm going to hand it off to Chelsea. I just want to say one thing about the structure of the book itself. Okay. There are tons of books out there on how to be happier, how to be healthier, how to be, you know, how to practice mindfulness. The challenge is it's not enough to just know this information, to read the books and to have the information.
00:32:03
Speaker
The challenge is around doing those things that are recommended to you in these books. So I've built 50 lessons for lawyers in a structured format. There's 50 lessons in this book, 50 things that you can choose to experiment with if you like, but you don't have to do all of them. Maybe only one or two of them might resonate with you, but the changes that could come from actually implementing those one or two lessons can be exponential in your life. So each lesson ends with this little section called living the lesson,
00:32:33
Speaker
where we give people suggestions on how to actually implement those things, how to actually do the things that you've just read about in your life in tiny, small, incremental, consistent steps every day that will create change, positive change in your life over time. I recently read a quote from C.S. Lewis that I think sums it up. This quote is not in the book, but I wish it were. And he says, isn't it funny
00:33:03
Speaker
how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different. Isn't that true of life? So if you're taking small steps every day to move toward happiness, to move toward more wellness and wellbeing in your life, you're going to look back in a year or two years and say, wow, everything's changed.
00:33:22
Speaker
Chelsea, I want to give you a chance to have this broader conversation as well. But I wonder if, as you're speaking, if you could also talk a little bit about whether you think there are lessons that our profession is going to take out of this pandemic that we've been living through, where everybody had to shift gears, where the line between work and home just
Impact of the Pandemic on Lawyer Well-being
00:33:50
Speaker
disappeared for lots of us. And where we also know, we certainly know this in the law school setting in terms of faculty, but I've heard similar things in this sort of law firm and other sort of legal employer settings is that for women in particular, the impact of the pandemic and the ability to continue to be successful has been
00:34:17
Speaker
really astronomical. So I wonder as you're sort of talking about how to implement these lessons, if you could also think about whether there's some good stuff potentially that's going to come out of the pandemic or whether in fact it has set us back substantially. You know, you could make the argument that it has set us back, but if I take a more zoomed out look
00:34:40
Speaker
In working with lawyers in all different type of work situations, my impression is that it actually has given us more of an opportunity to question. And that has to be the first step. I always tell my clients, question the status quo. You need to question the status quo, which frankly, we're not often encouraged to do in our legal professions or in law school, even though we're supposed to be inquisitive as lawyers.
00:35:07
Speaker
And the pandemic in the past two years really forced us to change so much about our habits, to change so much about what we think work looked like, that kind of put us in a position where, even if we didn't want to question the status quo, we had to.
00:35:23
Speaker
And so in that, I think it has been helpful. A lot of people have realized that work can look differently. Now granted, for many of us, especially early on in the pandemic, that meant pandemonium in our homes and in our careers. And that's all right. We were pretty much all in the same boat and we had to figure out what worked for us. And that actually brings me to the lesson that came to mind as you were posing your question.
00:35:52
Speaker
It's titled, Get Clear on Your Why. And essentially, what the lesson is going through is demonstrating the importance of at least getting a grip for what you're even getting up for in the morning. And I realize that the question can come across as very nebulous, very woo woo, third wave and all. But really, it's one that is quite practical.
00:36:21
Speaker
Scientific research has shown us over and over again that the greater the disparity between our values and our behaviors, the greater the likelihood of anxiety, depression, burnout, substance abuse, you name it. And the less the disparity between values and behaviors, the less the likelihood of all of those mental health issues and more.
00:36:45
Speaker
And if the challenges we experienced working from home and meshing our personal and professional lives very intimately over the past two years has given us anything, it's perhaps a challenge to figure out what really matters to us. And that's what getting clear on your why is all about. Why are you working as a lawyer? Why are you parenting?
00:37:14
Speaker
or not parenting or parenting in a certain way. What is the reason behind just shuffling papers back and forth or digitally back and forth all the time? There's a connection to all of this for all of us. The more likely we are able to connect
00:37:31
Speaker
why we're going through the motions we're going through each day to something that actually matters to us, the more likely we are to enjoy our time with our families, to enjoy our time with ourselves. And for a lot of us here listening to this podcast, to enjoy our academic and professional careers, there has to be some personal connection there. And we're certainly not advocating, oh, everybody needs to go out and save the world, not at all. Values are actually just
00:37:56
Speaker
categories or brief words or descriptions of what matters to us, what we as individuals identify as living well, plain and simple. And in this lesson, we go into the scientific research as we do in every lesson in the book. And as Nora pointed out every lesson, this one included has a living the lesson section where you as the reader can right away that day start implementing practices to help you live that lesson out.
00:38:27
Speaker
And this one also includes kind of like a worksheet of a list of a variety of different values that the reader can follow the instructions with and basically use to challenge themselves. Okay, all right. What is really important to me? Because it's easy to write it off, but when you're actually challenged to write something out and give yourself a moment or a word or two to explain why, it's a different psychological experience. And we find that it's very, very important for
00:38:56
Speaker
people to connect their reason for what they're dedicating 12 hours of their day, six days a week or more of their lives to in order to actually find some enjoyment in it. I think that students in particular don't always really get until they're actually out in the world and doing work, right? That the way that you spend your days is going to impact the way that you spend your nights and how you interact with people.
00:39:26
Speaker
outside of work and so working in a place that where you can't find satisfaction or where you don't feel valued or where you feel constantly overworked, it's not just gonna stay within the confines of that building, it's gonna bleed out into other parts of your life as well. So there are two other sort of big issues that I definitely wanna talk to both of you about before our time winds down. So I wanna, which one do I wanna start with?
00:39:55
Speaker
Let me start with this one. So it sounds like a lot of what you all are talking about is on an individual level, right? What can I do as an individual to change my experience in my workspace, in my chosen career, whatever it might be?
00:40:14
Speaker
Are there other sorts of systemic changes that you think we might need to be pursuing as a profession? And so I'll just give you an example. One of the conversations that has been going on over the last several years is about the character and fitness process for getting admitted to the bar exam. I mean, getting admitted to the bar in a particular jurisdiction.
00:40:41
Speaker
and the kinds of often very invasive questions that applicants are asked, including questions about mental health, about substance use, about histories of incarceration, right? And there is some discussion about whether we should even be asking those questions or how they should be asked or whether they're appropriate to ask them, in particular to the extent that they
00:41:08
Speaker
potentially discourage people from seeking help because they don't want to have to later disclose it on a character and fitness application. So that's just sort of one example of something that's really not individual, but that's really much more systemic. So I wonder if there are other sorts of bits and pieces that you think of as being systemic issues that we might need to work on as a profession.
00:41:32
Speaker
in addition to some of the individual things that folks can do to hopefully bring more happiness to their lives. Nora, do you want to start that one? Or sorry. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, before I go there, Kim, I just want to circle back around to what Chelsea was talking about with respect to lesson number five, which is find your why and finding your purpose and how that impacts every aspect of your life. I know we're here to talk about our book, but I'm going to recommend another book that we cite in our book.
00:42:00
Speaker
And it is a book called Transforming Practices, Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life. It's written by a man named Stephen Kiva in the 1990s. And when I taught alternative dispute resolution, this was required reading in my class. It speaks absolutely directly to what Chelsea was just talking about and the importance of having a life and work
00:42:29
Speaker
that are aligned with your values. And the lack of alignment in that area causes lawyers so much pain and stress over their lifetime. It's a conversation beyond what we have time for today, but that's why I recommend that book. It is just eye-opening to read it. Stephen Kieva was far, far ahead of his time in what he brought to lawyers and law students all those years ago.
00:43:00
Speaker
I'll speak briefly to your question about systemic change. Our book does not focus so much on systemic change of the legal culture, specifically. Our book is designed for the individual to be able to pick up and actually implement. Now, that said, how does systemic change happen over time? It happens.
00:43:28
Speaker
both from the ground up and the top down. And leaders within law firms, law schools, legal aid organizations, etc., are the people that can begin to model the kinds of habits and behaviors that we talk about in this book. It's one thing to say to the people in your firm, oh, I want you to have work-life balance.
00:43:56
Speaker
and at the same time say, and oh, but you need to bill 2,300 hours a year, figure out how to do that. So while lawyers who work in law firms that, there are certain areas, I mean, let me rephrase what I was going to say. As a lawyer, you may have a limited amount of control over the culture within your own law firm.
00:44:25
Speaker
But our goal is to give you strategies that you can apply to your own life, to expand your level of happiness within your own life. And let me, I want to say two more things and Chelsea, I'm going to hand it over to you. The very first lesson in this book is titled, Like the Law, Happiness is a Practice. You know, there are lots of memes out there now that say, oh, happiness is just a choice. Just choose happiness. Well, it's not really that simple.
00:44:55
Speaker
I wish that it were but it's not. However, while it might not be that simple, there are simple things that you can do each day just like the law as a practice in your own life to make those changes and your circle of influence spreads as you begin to expand your own happiness and well-being because how you behave affects other people around you. So I think that's really an important
00:45:25
Speaker
take away that I'd like anybody listening to us to really hear that happiness isn't necessarily a choice that you can make, but it is something that you can engage in. And the other thing that I want to be really clear about, sometimes when we use the word happy, we're not talking about toxic positivity here in this book at
Leadership's Role in Promoting Well-being
00:45:45
Speaker
all. We make that very clear at the front.
00:45:48
Speaker
Toxic positivity essentially just asks you to, you know, say, oh, we don't really have any problems or we're not going to pay attention to any problems or issues that we have. No, no, we're not asking anyone to do that. We are, however, suggesting, and it's not just Chelsea and I, neuroscience is telling us that when we are positive, genuinely positive, we are, we're better lawyers. When we're creative people, we think better.
00:46:15
Speaker
But that positivity doesn't mean, you know, if you have weeds in your garden that you look and go, oh, there aren't any weeds there. No, no. There are weeds, pull them out, deal with them and move on while maintaining a positive mindset. Building on what Nora was sharing, a lot of it comes down to believing that it's OK to take care of oneself, believing that it's OK for you to need more than just sleeping, eating and studying.
00:46:44
Speaker
or working. And if we're going to communicate that as a legal culture, it has to not just of course be bottom up, right? We need to acknowledge that we need this, but it needs to be top down as well. I often talk about wellness washing in the legal culture. Perhaps this is what some of your students were maybe alluding to.
00:47:08
Speaker
when you mentioned that they say, well, this law school tells us to take care of ourselves, but how are we supposed to do that? Same thing happens in law firms and in government agencies and in nonprofits too. So how are we supposed to do all these things when the system is set up to make doing all these things either not okay or impossible or seemingly impossible? And well, that's where the leadership has to take responsibility.
00:47:35
Speaker
If we're going to see a real cultural change long-term, it needs to be more than changes in policy and some lip service. It needs to be where students and actual associates and lawyers see the express application of these wellbeing policies being acted out in their supervisors, in the CEOs, in the team managers.
00:48:04
Speaker
the group practice managers. They need to be able to see people taking those mental health days. And leadership needs to be more proactive about this. Maybe they are taking mental health days, but they're not talking about how they want others to do so as well. I am doing this. You need to do this as well.
00:48:20
Speaker
And of course, that could take a variety of different manifestations. But the main principle here is that we need to see the leadership putting those words into action in a way that is really meaningful for the people coming up under them. Because you can take care of yourself and be an excellent lawyer at the same time. They're not mutually exclusive. But it does take some effort, and primarily it's a mindset effort. And to have the leadership show you that that mindset is possible,
00:48:50
Speaker
And you can be successful is one of the first steps that really needs to happen. Excellent. So I have another question that I was going to ask, and I'm having a debate with myself whether I want to ask it or not. But I'm going to just throw it out there, and we'll see how it goes. And if it doesn't go well, then we'll just cut it.
00:49:13
Speaker
People who work as lawyers work in a lot of different environments. So we've talked about law firms, government agencies, Chelsea just mentioned nonprofits, people are solos, all sorts of different things. And as somebody who started my career as a public interest lawyer doing poverty law work, my sense is that sometimes folks who are in that space, that their experience of what is
00:49:42
Speaker
really difficult about their jobs is not so much, oh, I'm not going to build enough hours, or I have to go to this fancy dinner after work or something like that. But it is, I'm holding somebody's life in my hands, or somebody's freedom, or somebody's ability to bring their kids home from foster care. And the sense of responsibility
00:50:08
Speaker
that comes from that is very high, as well as recognizing, as we're doing finally, that if you work with people who are traumatized, that you experience some of that trauma as well, right? So how do you deal with your own trauma? And then also how do you help clients who are dealing with often some really tough life situations? And I wonder whether in your book or just in the work that you have done,
Addressing Compassion Fatigue and Burnout
00:50:37
Speaker
whether that sort of distinction in terms of what kinds of work people are doing and the things that are stressors for them, whether there are any particular lessons that you have for folks in that space. And I ask that in part because I feel like there are a lot of students now, not just I feel like I've heard from them, who are feeling really people who sort of went into law school with dreams of changing the world and who are sort of watching what's unfolding at the Supreme Court and in other spaces right now.
00:51:06
Speaker
just feeling really cynical about the whole enterprise. So I wonder if you have any lessons or thoughts for those folks right now. And I'll throw that to Chelsea. Well, the first lesson that comes to mind is compassion fatigue. And actually, I'm going to throw it to Nora because she did such a great job with that lesson. And why don't you jump with Laura?
00:51:33
Speaker
Oh, thanks, Chelsea. And I'm going to throw it right back to you because we do have a lesson that speaks to exactly what you're getting at, Kim, and it's entitled Protect Yourself Against Compassion Fatigue. And this lesson is closely tied to another lesson in the book I'm going to let Chelsea talk about, which is burnout. So compassion fatigue and burnout are similar
00:51:57
Speaker
but they're not the same. Some of the symptoms of both compassion fatigue and burnout would include emotional exhaustion, worrying, negative thoughts, not being able to sleep, feeling disorganized, feeling helpless, you know, kind of everything that's going on in the world right now. While they're similar, and how you can kind of protect yourself against both is similar. They're different in that burnout is essentially the result of work-related stress. Compassion fatigue, on the other hand,
00:52:26
Speaker
is comes to us as a result of the cumulative exposure to secondary trauma, essentially, which is what lawyers face every day. You're constantly hearing about the suffering and the problems and the challenges of your clients. And it does not take long for those events and that information to take its toll on you in physical ways, physical manifestations.
00:52:57
Speaker
of compassion fatigue. Now, interestingly, while compassion fatigue and burnout are standalone lessons within this book, nearly every lesson in this book speaks to ways you can combat both compassion fatigue and burnout by doing some of the things that we suggest in this book. And in the lesson on compassion fatigue, we cite a wonderful article by the Missouri Bar that gives you steps on
00:53:27
Speaker
how to protect yourself from it. And we take those steps and we link them to actual lessons in our book that go specifically to the very things that are being suggested. Beating burnout and protecting yourself against burnout, again, similar, but a little bit different. And that is a lesson that Chelsea is primarily responsible for. So hand it back over to Chelsea for that one.
00:53:52
Speaker
All right. Thanks, Nora. So I'd like to add to the distinguishing qualities of burnout and compassion fatigue.
00:54:01
Speaker
and throw in vicarious trauma in there too, which is something that lawyers deal with. So as all lawyers would eventually learn in their evidence classes, there are certain exceptions to the evidence rules and one of them is actually associated with vicarious trauma. When say we hear someone else being abused or hear a tragedy or see a tragedy happening to somebody else, that's vicarious trauma. And then we also have secondary
00:54:31
Speaker
trauma, which is what lawyers experience regularly, especially in the fields of family law, of criminal defense work, because they're dealing with such the difficult nature of life. There's some of the toughest times in people's lives.
00:54:53
Speaker
And those lawyers who are more vulnerable to secondary trauma as a result of hearing all these stories and needing to advocate under very difficult circumstances, and as you said, Kim, people's lives and families are on the line, are also more vulnerable to burnout because there's that connection to the service.
00:55:20
Speaker
That doesn't mean that other lawyers in other areas of law aren't severely vulnerable, and here I go again, vulnerable to burnout. But we do need to talk about how certain areas of law
00:55:36
Speaker
need more support and more attention because of the nature of the work, which is incredibly necessary and worthwhile. I know many lawyers over the years who work in nonprofit work, who are family lawyers, who are criminal defense attorneys, and they have found a way to make themselves healthy and happy lawyers in that context. And it takes effort and it takes support. Because burnout, like secondary,
00:56:06
Speaker
trauma is going to likely bring us to a point where we feel apathetic. We're less invested in the work, ironically, because we were so invested in the work. So for those of us who happen to be in those lines of work, it's even more important to take the preemptive measures to protect that passion that you have.
00:56:29
Speaker
Because even if maybe you don't think you're in a field where you or you don't think you have the mentality where you might suffer Compassion fatigue or secondary trauma, which let me tell you we are all vulnerable, but not all of us believe that burnout is very real and
00:56:48
Speaker
We need to protect against it just as much and in very similar ways. And as Nora said, the accumulation of different lessons in this book is designed so that you can step by step, little by little, make small changes in your life. Maybe you need to start mitigating some burnout or compassion fatigue. Maybe you're looking to prevent. As I know, many of your listeners are
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah, long students are considering going to law school. And so they want to be successful, happy, thriving lawyers as well. So prevention is a big part of that.
Conclusion: Fostering a Supportive Legal Environment
00:57:25
Speaker
And knowing that compassionate fatigue is real, that secondary trauma is real, and that it's something that you can work with and work through and work to minimize is an important part of entering this journey into the legal profession.
00:57:41
Speaker
Terrific. So I want to just thank both of you so much. One, just for the work that you're doing in general, I think it's just so critical for us to be having these conversations within our profession. And there are just multiple pieces that I've heard from you today, both thinking about vulnerability, which is something that I think, and this might be a little risky to say, but I think that as we have more
00:58:07
Speaker
women moving into leadership positions in law schools and eventually in law firms as well, although we're still very poorly represented in a lot of spaces, that vulnerability becomes something that we talk about a lot more and stress the importance of it. Because as you said, Chelsea, we are vulnerable. We all are in various ways. And then the idea of being really proactive and engaging in sort of prevention and not thinking that
00:58:38
Speaker
seeking your own happiness is somehow selfishness. And then the other piece that I really liked was this idea that people who are in leadership positions need to show, not just tell, right? So it's not enough for us at orientation to say, oh, listen, you should do things to keep yourself healthy and happy, that we should actually be showing examples of us doing that.
00:59:03
Speaker
as well. So I really appreciate this conversation. I'm looking forward to being able to share your book and your ideas with our students and the folks who are listening to this podcast. And just thank you so much for what you're doing and thank you so much for talking to me today.
00:59:21
Speaker
Thank you, Kim. This was fun. The Power of Attorney is produced by Rutgers Law School. With two locations, minutes from Philadelphia and New York City, Rutgers Law offers the prestige of reputation of a large, nationally known university with a personal small campus experience. Learn more by visiting law.ruckers.edu.