Lawyers

Imagine

By Robynn Moraites Imagine for a moment that you and your firm have an appeal going up to the Fourth Circuit and you are handling oral argument. Imagine the amount of prep work. The research. Writing and rewriting the brief. Fine tuning your arguments. Anticipating every curveball, every factual question, every procedural nuance. Rehearsing practice […]

Weather Patterns

By Robynn Moraites Why do some lawyers find it easier to kill themselves than to admit they are unhappy and need to make a change? This may seem like an overly dramatic opening to an article about lawyer mental health, but it reflects the urgency I feel about bringing to light the importance of an […]

Self-Care vs. Car Wrecks: A Compassion Fatigue Story

By Anonymous   I am smart. I really enjoy using my smarts to solve problems: logic problems, crossword puzzles, strangers needing directions, my clients’ problems, my friends’ problems, and my family’s problems. But, fixing problems has a sinister side, just like any addiction, and one can develop compassion fatigue. The best way to explain “compassion […]

A Defense Attorney’s Perspective: Then and Now

By Anonymous Little David, with his pitiful slingshot, vs. the mighty Goliath. In a nutshell, that’s how it felt to me for much of my career as a public defender. Now, with years of recovery in Al-Anon, I realize that so much of my perception of my role as a defender was tied up in […]

What’s Mindfulness Got to Do with It?

By Laura Mahr   After six weeks of Mindfulness Meditation for Building Resilience to Stress, lawyers from the 28th Judicial District Bar have the answer…   There are few things we lawyers love more than our brains. Which is why, when our brains tell us we are tired, most of us lawyers tell our brains […]

The Control Enthusiast

By Cathy Killian The Lawyer Assistance Program holds support groups across the state for lawyers who are actively engaged in a recovery process (recovery from all kinds of issues, not just drug or alcohol problems). Often these meetings are topic driven, providing lawyers an opportunity to uncover, examine, explore, and share their attitudes, thoughts, beliefs, […]

Three Months of Saturdays—One Busy Lawyer’s Most Excellent Summer Sabbatical

By Chris Connelly Imagine every day is Saturday. The week is over, the successes and failures of the week are yesterday, the prospect of another week—stress, demands, egos, self-importance—is days away. Do what you want, where and when you want. Sit back and watch the world go by, or maybe even choose to be part […]

Messy, Unruly, Chaotic Life

After working at the NC Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) for the past 5 years, I can say with confidence that most of what we see clinically is lawyers’ and judges’ responses to the serious difficulties of life and a career in law. Not that there isn’t true psychopathology, because there certainly is. But it is […]

A Parent’s Roller Coaster Ride into Recovery, Part 2

This story is continued from the last edition of the State Bar Journal. Finally, the time came for Brian to leave the treatment center. The day we picked him up, my wife and I met with Brian and his counselor for a discharge conference. I have a vivid memory of two points from that meeting […]

A Parent’s Roller Coaster Ride into Recovery – Part 1

My son is an addict. His addiction has had a profound impact on my life. Addiction—which includes alcoholism—is a disease, and it wreaks havoc on family members as well as the addict. Naturally, we seek and yearn first for the addict’s sobriety, and we want to do whatever we can to “fix” the addict. However, […]

The Dirty Not-So-Secret Ashley Madison Affair

“Life is short. Have an affair.” You might also want to have a good lawyer. And if you are a lawyer, you might want to “drop, cover, and hold on.” Ken Metcalf, Chief Technology Officer for a prominent security provider, recently compared the Ashley Madison (“AM”) security breach to an earthquake and its aftershocks. It […]

Getting Lost in Our Own Lives

Lawyers are especially adept at maintaining a façade. “Never let ‘em see ya sweat” is wonderful advice for entering into a tough mediation, negotiation, or lengthy trial. The problem arises when we take an adage like that to heart so strongly that we completely disconnect from our authentic internal experience. Most lawyers we see at […]