You’ve already been at the office for nine hours. The senior partner is on your case about a research memo you haven’t had a chance to begin. That difficult client who insists on calling several times a week to complain about everything under the sun is at it again. Oh, and you’ve got a brief […]
Practicing law is stressful. Practicing medicine is stressful, too, but there is a difference, as illustrated in this example we often use in our CLE presentations: As a lawyer, you are like a brain surgeon. Imagine the patient is laid out on the table in front of you. It is your job to operate and […]
The emerging scientific field known as positive psychology helps us understand how the brain can change, and that we can purposefully change it to create more positive emotions. Positive emotions, in turn, broaden our cognitive capacity, allowing flexible, open-minded thinking for creative problem solving and building of personal resources such as skills, knowledge, and relationships. […]
Most of us decided to go to law school because we had a passion for justice and helping people. While we may not think of the legal profession as a traditional helping profession like we typically think of social work, the reality is that we serve in a primary helping capacity. Clients are in distress, […]
The legal profession has a problem. Lawyers are suffering and, far too often, they are taking their own lives. Lawyers, as a group, are 3.6 times more likely to suffer from depression than the average person. A John Hopkins study found that of 104 occupations, lawyers were the most likely to suffer depression. Further, according […]
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 […]
The LAP recently conducted an interview with a managing partner of a firm who years ago orchestrated an intervention with a leading lawyer in the firm. This example illustrates how a law firm can proactively address an issue of impairment. The following is taken from that interview and told from the point of view of […]
Most lawyers, regardless of practice area, are accustomed to solving others’ problems and providing solutions. Lawyers are helpers by nature. While many of us may try to project a certain image, and despite whatever lawyer-joke-du-jour may be fashionable, most lawyers have big hearts and want to help people. It only makes sense that when a […]
I am a wife. I am a lawyer. I am the wife of a lawyer. My father is a lawyer. My husband’s father is a lawyer. My first cousin on my mother’s side is a lawyer. If you have ever seen the movie My Cousin Vinny, you know where I am going here. Despite all […]
Over the years I have heard from hundreds of you who have read this column and taken the time to say thank you for something that I said that was helpful to you. This column is my time to say thanks to you. Thank you for reading the column and thank you for reaching out […]
In a recent Atlantic article entitled, “The End of Men,” author Hanna Rosin writes provocatively about women—in the workplace, in education, and in society. She argues that society is embracing women in a way never before seen, perhaps because “the modern, post-industrial economy is more congenial to women than to men.” Rosin cites researchers, educators, […]
The legal profession is a helping profession. Most days lawyers find themselves trying to solve problems for their clients. We are paid to have answers and to fix situations that have gone awry. One of the difficulties for professionals who are supposed to have the answers for others is that it is difficult for them […]