authors - brilliantlegalmind.com

Mindfulness Insights for Lawyers from the Latest Podcast

Lawyers can learn a lot about mindfulness from reading. I wouldn’t have started this blog if that weren’t true. But there really is no substitute for good conversations when it comes to learning how mindfulness really works. That’s why I am thrilled this week to share the latest podcast interview I did.

Odette Ansell is a lawyer in Canada and she started the Non-Billable Hours Podcast to share wisdom about how lawyers can craft thriving lives. I sat down with her recently to talk about my mindfulness practice and how it has supported my law practice over the years.

I really like the episode and not just because Odette made it fun and let me talk about my next book. What I liked most was that her questions really helped me explain how mindfulness practice works for lawyers. Here are a few of the highlights.

Lawyers Can Start a Mindfulness Practice at One Minute a Day

Most podcast interviews asked me how I got into mindfulness. Because the interviewer for this podcast was another lawyer, she asked me about the details of my practice. In the interview, I shared that I started meditating at one minute a day.

This is absolutely true because it was all I could tolerate at the time. This is also the way I teach mindfulness to other lawyers now. I stress the importance of starting small. In addition, I teach the one-minute method in my first book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer.

The biggest impediment to regular meditation practice for most lawyers, myself included, is lack of time. But in the midst of such business we often assume that small amounts of time don’t make a difference.

As I explain in the podcast, starting small has many advantages. And the reality is that even small practices done over time can change our lives. When it comes to meditation, it definitely changed mine.

Image of Claire E. Parsons with quote from the podcast interview about mindfulness for lawyers that says "You can't solve anxiety by thinking."

How Mindfulness Helps with Anxiety

One of my favorite parts of the interview was when Odette and I talked about mindfulness and anxiety. It took me years to face my own anxiety because I believed for too long in the power of my own thinking.

Many lawyers find themselves in this same problem. We are smart people and thinking solves many problems for us. So, when we get scared about something, it is only logical to use the skill we know so well, right?

Though it was painful for me to see this, I ultimately learned the truth. As I shared on the podcast, anxiety is not something you can really solve with thinking. In fact, sometimes the thinking makes it worse. As I experienced, trying to solve anxiety with thinking just led to unhealthy overthinking.

Instead, what has helped me more is letting myself feel the fear behind the anxiety. Truly this means feeling the physical sensations because emotions often register in the body. Then I can care for the emotions and employ self-compassion. It’s only then that my thinking becomes clearer and more helpful.

Mindfulness and Facing “What If” Questions

Another favorite part of the interview was when Odette asked me about the dreaded “what if” questions that arise for lawyers. She shared a worry about appearing before a strict judge and most lawyers can resonate with that.

The strategy I shared in the interview was to answer the “what if” question instead of fearing it. As I wrote here when I faced anxiety with public speaking, it can help to get super practical about these questions.

Sometimes we ask ourselves these “what if” questions as if it’s game over if one thing goes wrong. That’s almost never true. In truth, we sometimes can entertain these worrisome thoughts and forget that lawyers are trained problem solvers.

As I have written before, it can sometimes help to “quantify the suck.” If I am calm enough to think practically, this means I answer the “what if” questions and think through what I would actually do if the worst happened. When I am practical, this reminds me that I have skills, resilience, and people who can help me if I need it.

Image that says "Anxiety Tip: if you are calm enough to be practical, just answer the 'what if' question. This can help you remember that you are creative, resilient, and have people who can help you."

Simple Ways for Lawyers to Start Meditation

To end the interview, Odette asked me how lawyers can get started with mindfulness. I shared in the interview that lawyers should not feel like they have to be “true believers” to get started. In fact, skepticism about meditation can sometimes be a blessing when it is held in moderation.

Even so, lawyers have to practice meditation to get benefits from it. To that end, I recommended that lawyers do what they can to make the practice pleasant. As I shared in the interview, difficulty in meditation practice is how we build skills and grow. This is good because it means we shouldn’t stress about making our practice perfect.

On the other hand, though, if you enjoy meditation practice it is much more likely that you will want to do it consistently. For those lawyers new to meditation practice, it really helps to be easy and gentle with oneself. This can include some time sitting outside on a nice day or even a movement practice like walking meditation.

How to Listen to the Podcast Episode

If you want to listen to the podcast episode, you have several options. You can listen to it here on:

Or you can you can listen to it on YouTube here.

Want to learn more about mindfulness and compassion? Check out my new book, How to Be a Badass Lawyer, for a simple guide to creating a meditation practice of your own in 30 days. And to share mindfulness with your little one, check out my new children’s book, Mommy Needs a Minute.

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

Lawyers in Fact and Fiction

I am a trial lawyer who writes but also a writer who tries cases. Which profession takes top billing turns on the day and hour. While law is my day job and literature my nighttime pursuit, the longer I toil at both jobs, the more I appreciate how they complement each other, rather than conflict.

My decades as a federal prosecutor and white-collar defense lawyer have made me a better writer. Likewise, the thousands of hours spent writing and rewriting have turned me into a better lawyer.

How Law Practice and Fiction Writing Came Together

The first hint of the synergy came in law school, when a professor noted that 99 percent of being a lawyer was picking the right word at the right time. That describes 100 percent of what makes a good writer.

Nowhere does my legal work lean more heavily on my writing style than in crafting a closing argument to a jury. The key is to remain clear, concise, and compelling.

Before every closing argument, I reread Elmore Leonard’s rules of writing, especially his golden rule: “When you write, try to leave out all the parts that readers skip.” In preparing a jury argument, I delete the parts that will cause a juror’s eyes to glaze over.

Jury argument mirrors the writing process. There is a sad but true saying that there are always three jury closings. There’s the argument a lawyer prepares; the one he delivers; and the one he wishes he had given.

About the New Novel

Chasing the Chameleon, which was published last week, is my third book in the Cash McCahill series and my fifth book to be published. By now, I have learned the hard lesson that each work is always three books: the novel I envisioned, the one I wrote, and the one I wished I had written.

Lawyers who write on the side are perhaps the fastest growing minority in the country. At any writers’ conference or book festival, a person can’t throw a hardback without hitting a writer-attorney. Every attorney I know is either writing a book or aspiring to do so, and there is no shame in that.

Inspiration for Lawyers Who Write

In my Mount Rushmore of attorney-authors are four titans who have scaled the heights of both professions: Sir John Mortimer, Scott Turow, John Grisham, and Erle Stanley Gardner.

Like barrister-author Sir John Mortimer and his enduring fictional creation Horace Rumpole, I was privileged to read law at Oxford. Mortimer enjoyed a distinguished career at the bar, occasionally defending authors and artists facing criminal charges of obscenity. He wrote more than fifty books and scripts but is remembered best for Rumpole, the rumpled, resilient barrister who practiced his trade at the Old Bailey in London.

The older I get, the fonder I grow of Rumpole the curmudgeon. His inner voice during witty but doomed arguments with his wife Hilda (“She Who Must Be Obeyed”) and pompous judges are priceless. There is nobility in his dogged efforts to defend the downtrodden.

Some Lawyers Truly Write What They Know

I later attended Harvard Law School during the tenure of Scott Turow, whose nonfiction book One L was published during my law school years. Turow went on to write thirteen fiction works, the most famous being his first novel: Presumed Innocent. No one is better at portraying the vicissitudes of a criminal trial and the tinderbox of emotions unleashed in the courthouse.

While I share no school ties with John Grisham, he graciously visited our home in Dallas to support a fundraiser for a charity for which his wife and mine serve on the board: Share Our Strength/No Kid Hungry. His success as a novelist is unmatched. Thirty-seven consecutive number one fiction bestsellers. More than 300 million books worldwide.

During the visit, I asked Grisham whether in the wake of his great success he ever missed the courtroom. He stared at me as if I were a madman and said no.

Much like Rumpole, however, I would miss the courtroom. Perhaps that is easy for me to say because I haven’t racked up the sales of Grisham or Turow. But trial work by day and writing fiction at night gives my life balance. One pursuit is largely public and performative. The other, mostly private and contemplative.

How Writing Works with Law Practice

The allure of the courtroom helps me understand why so many actors on both sides of the pond return to the stage, though a theatre gig pays far less than they could command for film. In a criminal trial, the lawyers play to a live audience, and the feedback from closing arguments may come in hours or days.

That leads to the fourth giant on my personal Mount Rushmore of attorney-authors: Erle Stanley Gardner. If Grisham is prolific, Gardner was super prolific. More than 300 million books sold under more than a dozen pen names. Among his 131 works of fiction are the mother lode: 82 full-length Perry Mason novels.

Gardner was a lawyer’s lawyer, often representing the poor and powerless, including Chinese and Mexican immigrants. He founded the Court of Last Resort to advocate for the wrongly convicted.

Yet, he still found time to create the most popular lawyer in fiction: Perry Mason. Mason is to fictional lawyers what Sherlock Holmes is to detectives. Both are brilliant knights who fight like hell for their clients and to discover the truth. In Gardner’s world of fiction, the truth is what frees Mason’s clients.

In real life, not so much.

This Lawyer Will Keep on Writing

As a kid, I spent countless hours watching black-and-white reruns of Perry Mason and reading the source material: the Mason novels. The experience inspired me to plant one foot in the law and the other in literature.

Gardner’s long run with Mason also inspired me to launch my Cash McCahill series, the third entry of which (Chasing the Chameleon) which was published last week. With 82 Mason novels, that means only 79 more Cash books to match Gardner’s otherworldly output.

Author Bio: Paul Coggins is a nationally prominent criminal defense lawyer and the former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. He has published two Cash McCahill novels (Sting Like a Butterfly and Eye of the Tigress), with a third entry in the series (Chasing the Chameleon) to be published in March 2026. A fourth Cash book (Canary in the Courthouse) is in the works. You can follow Paul on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media:

Author and Zen Teacher Ruth Ozeki Helps Readers Explore What We’d Rather Ignore

There is a slightly evil thing that happens when you start writing. You love reading other people’s writing. You want to be generous in your judgment because you know how maddening the craft can be. But inevitably you find yourself evaluating the work both as a reader and a writer. In some cases, this can ruin the pure appreciation of the work.

When I found Ruth Ozeki’s novels, however, I was delighted to enjoy the inverse of this situation. I loved her books as a reader and, as a writer and teacher of mindfulness, I felt nothing short of awe. Ruth Ozeki is a Zen teacher, author and filmmaker from California. Her novels tell tales of tragedy engendered by modern life and the unexpected beauty and hope that can be found therein. The key, as Ozeki shows us, is that we have to look closely and lovingly in the places we’d rather ignore.

That’s exactly what Ozeki’s novels do. She covers the isolation and alienation of contemporary life, including our throwaway and commercialist culture that leads to massive garbage patches in our oceans and hoarding in our homes. Her novels explore inhumanity in our meat industry, media outlets, modern workplaces, and even among well-intentioned educators, social workers, and medical and mental health professionals.

In doing so, Ozeki doesn’t teach the concept of what suffering means. She helps us feel it. Through her characters, we experience how suffering takes root, how we get embroiled in it, and how we overlook the habits that perpetuate suffering for ourselves and others. As any Zen teacher would, of course, she also shows us that there is a way out of this trap if we are willing to open up our eyes and see it.

For example, while reading Ozeki’s latest award-winning novel, The Book of Form and Emptiness I wanted to walk into the book and save the wayward Annabelle who couldn’t cope with all that life had sent her. She would frustrate and dismay me in one chapter with her refusal to face life and be the parent her son needed. Then in the next, she’d be positively brilliant in advocating for herself and her son and show that she didn’t need saving, but simple social support.

In our lives and in the world, we often look for the simple and quick answers and so the big, nasty problems may feel too overwhelming to address. One wouldn’t think that novels, a form of entertainment, could tackle the big problems of the world and still be enjoyable. Ozeki’s novels show that this assumption is wrong.

If you want to learn about mindfulness in a totally new way or you just want some novels that are as wonderfully strange as real life, check out Ruth Ozeki’s work, including:

A Tale for the Time Being;

My Year of Meats; and

The Book of Form and Emptiness.

These books may force you to look at the parts of life you’d rather ignore, but they will help you find beauty, joy, and hope that you’d never expect.

Like this post? Subscribe to the blog here or follow us on social media: