And Covid! Continues. Really? Aren’t we in the home stretch yet? Apparently not. Breaking news (that surprises no one): vaccine rollout not happening as quickly as planned/predicted… B117 Covid Mutation Bomber now looms…blah blah blah. There is an adage in long-term recovery. “If you stick with the basics, you never have to get back to […]
Posts Tagged ‘lawyers’
Trauma and Resilience
Posted byTrauma and Resilience Trauma is not necessarily what comes to mind when one thinks of lawyers and judges. Yet a surprising number of us come from traumatic backgrounds and childhoods. In fact, many folks who enter the legal profession do so precisely because of the historic trauma we have experienced. Maybe we want to work […]
Eyes on the Prize
Posted byI’m 10 years old and just won enough money performing in a group at a talent show to buy the toy I’d had my eye on for months. This is how the story of my first regret begins. The show, put on by my religious community, was aimed at raising money for a capital project. […]
Perfectionism-Part 2: Maladaptive Perfectionism
Posted byThere is a national effort underway to raise the consciousness of the legal profession. Individual stories, like Payal Salsburg’s, are being promoted on social media sites like LinkedIn as part of a #fightingstigma campaign. I encourage you to read her short story – one of super success, by anyone’s measure, and of the dangers and […]
Imposter Syndrome
Posted byThink everybody else has figured out a special something that you have yet to discover? They haven’t. Worried secretly that you are, at best, deficient, at worst, a fraud that has no business practicing law, sitting on the bench, or holding your current position? You aren’t. And you are not alone. In fact, if I […]
Sweet Dreams
Posted byBy Robynn Moraites Lawyers Weekly called me requesting a quick one-to-two sentence quote as to how I would advise a lawyer having difficulty with sleeping. Finding myself unable to succinctly summarize what I know about lawyers and sleep, a few paragraphs later, I realized I had the beginnings of this quarterly column for the Bar […]
Imagine
Posted byBy 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 […]
Stuck? Take a Quick Inventory
Posted bySocial scientists have researched and examined the relationship between material well-being and emotional well-being or happiness. For most of the world, greater levels of material wealth have led to greater levels of perceived emotional well-being—most everywhere, that is, but in the United States. (The Atlantic, January/February 2003). In the United States, the total numbers of […]
Anger and Alcohol
Posted byRecently I was speaking at a CLE program about lawyers, and chemical addiction. I talked about the need to understand the signals one gets from the dashboard of the physical/mental/emotional vehicle that we call the self. After the program I talked with a lawyer who told me that the only emotion he was aware of […]
Demystifying 12-Step Programs
Posted byIf you are bewildered by the workings of 12-step programs but think that you or someone you know might benefit from one, this article is dedicated to you. If someone (or more than one person) has recommended that you check out a 12-step program but you don’t think that you have an addictive or compulsive […]