By Anonymous To be fair, it wasn’t good news. But the partner was practically hyperventilating. By his account, the news that we’d just received would destroy our client’s case, embarrass us in front of a federal judge, imperil our relationship with the client, and pitch the firm into financial freefall. In short, it was, through […]
By Robynn Moraites and Cathy Killian In the context of hurricanes, a “wind field” refers to the spatial distribution of winds around the eye of the storm. Think of it like a “blast radius.” It includes both the hurricane-force winds, which can extend from about 25 to 150 miles from the center, as well as […]
When I think back and remember the latter part of my active alcoholism and its impact on my family, more than anything else, I think of the extraordinary amount of time I spent trying to hide my drinking. It felt like I spent almost all my time either hiding the purchase of alcohol, hiding the […]
NCLAP publishes a quarterly e-newsletter, Sidebar. LAP volunteers regularly submit articles for Sidebar around recovery themes or slogans. LAP volunteers understand, as few others can, the sense of loneliness and isolation that are so devastatingly integral to depression and drinking problems. “You Are Not Alone” is a popular theme because it offers so much hope. […]
Trauma 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 […]
I’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. […]
There 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 […]
Think 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 […]
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 […]
By 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 […]
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 […]
Social 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 […]