Mental Health - brilliantlegalmind.com

Collective Care and Lawyer Wellness

Beyond the Individual Focus

Self-care habits like rest, exercise, and mindfulness are meaningful parts of a healthy legal career. They help lawyers steady themselves against the pace and pressure of daily practice, yet resilience doesn’t come only from looking inward.

An even broader source of balance can be found when lawyers give time and attention to causes beyond the office. Serving and caring for the community is sometimes referred to as “collective care” and shifting focus outward in this way can widen your perspective, relieve stress, and create a sense of connection that the profession itself doesn’t always provide.

What Collective Care Means

Collective care takes shape through service outside of billable work. It can look like volunteering with a nonprofit, mentoring a younger lawyer, serving on a board, or joining a civic project. The value comes less from the scale of the effort and more from the consistency. A steady commitment, even in small doses, creates connection and purpose that extend beyond daily casework.

Stress Relief in High-Conflict Work

So much of legal work is built on conflict because you’re fighting deadlines, pushing through discovery, arguing points that never seem to end. The grind can take a toll, but contributing to community projects can flip the script and help manage the stress. Instead of bracing for a fight, you’re working with people who share a goal, which can take pressure off and help you come back to the office with a clearer head.

Identity Beyond Case Outcomes

The Narrow Scorecard

Lawyers constantly deal with numbers, things like billable hours, win rates, settlement or verdict amounts, which makes it easy to reduce a career to a set of scores. A bad result in court or a client who walks away unhappy can feel like a judgment on you as a person, not just your work.

A Broader Foundation

Service outside of the office can help change the way you see things. When you mentor a younger lawyer or sit on a nonprofit board, no one is keeping track of wins and losses and the value shows up in relationships built and in the progress of the people you help. Being involved in collective care settings can remind you that your worth doesn’t live only in case outcomes.

Image of guest poster with quote from the blog post that says "Lawyers who give time outside of their practice discover energy and perspective that steady them for the long run. Service ties you to people and goals beyond the case at hand, and that connection can make a demanding career feel sustainable."

Mentorship and Role Modeling

When experienced lawyers give time to mentoring or to projects in the community, they can set an example that highly influences younger attorneys. Balance doesn’t come only from managing hours or squeezing in rest; it also grows from steady contribution to something larger than your own practice. A mentor who makes space for work like this shows that holistic wellness includes more than self-care.

Over time, those choices set a standard. New lawyers see that longevity in practice depends not only on private routines but also on the connections built through service. It gives a new perspective on what a legal career can look like by showing that resilience grows from community as well as personal habits. Over time, that perspective influences how newer lawyers balance the demands of practice with the need for purpose outside of it.

Perspective from Practice

Community work has been a steady part of my career. Our firm has donated to Austin nonprofits, helped build playgrounds, supported food banks, and backed programs that strengthen families. Giving in this way doesn’t take me out of my role as a lawyer; it gives me the perspective to do it better.

Focusing on causes outside of daily legal work provides balance and contributing to the community helps reduce stress and allows lawyers to return to their clients with stronger energy and focus.

What’s important isn’t the size of the contribution but the habit of returning to service again and again. Each project is a reminder that the profession doesn’t have to drain you if you anchor yourself in something larger.

Simple Ways to Start

Lawyers will sometimes hesitate to take on community projects because the workweek already feels overloaded. Fitting in one more thing can feel impossible, but collective care doesn’t need to mean adding hours you don’t have. It can begin with a single commitment that fits naturally into your schedule, like mentoring one law student each semester or serving on the board of a neighborhood nonprofit.

The key is to begin, even on a small scale and then once community involvement becomes part of your calendar, it starts to feel less like an obligation and more like a steady source of perspective.

Wellness Through Community Connection

Collective care, though community work doesn’t replace personal wellness habits, but it complements them in a way nothing else can. Lawyers who give time outside of their practice discover energy and perspective that steady them for the long run. Service ties you to people and goals beyond the case at hand, and that connection can make a demanding career feel sustainable.

Author Bio: Adam Loewy is a leading personal injury attorney in Austin with over two decades of experience. Since founding Loewy Law Firm in 2005, he’s handled serious injury and wrongful death cases, consistently securing multi-million dollar recoveries for his clients. Known for keeping a more focused docket, he ensures each case receives full attention, while his firm extends its impact through charitable giving, community sponsorships, and support of local nonprofits.

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.

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How Mindfulness Helps Break Mental Patterns

Seeing your mental patterns clearly is one of the biggest benefits of a mindfulness practice. I experienced this recently and the results of a few minutes of meditation were so pronounced that I had to write about it. I had a big attack of anxiety about a party with my law firm. Despite this beginning, the night was actually really fun. I had an amazing time and ended up singing “Pink Pony Club” in front of my colleagues without the slightest feeling of fear.

So what changed? How did I go from social anxiety to social butterfly in the course of a night? The long story is that I have practiced mindfulness for more than a decade. The short answer relevant to this particular situation is that I spotted my mental pattern.

This post will share some steps for recognizing and navigating challenging mental patterns with mindfulness and self-compassion.

What Are Mental Patterns?

People new to meditation are likely to notice that the mind generates a lot of thoughts. If you keep meditating long enough, you eventually will see that thoughts are often not original. Many of the same thoughts repeat themselves or fall into categories.

These can fall into a wide array of categories, but many people have a select few that dominate their minds. Some examples include obsession with planning, a recurrent theme of self-doubt, or even a preoccupation with past harms or slights.

One of my most obnoxious mental patterns is the anxiety that arises around social settings. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to shake the fear of being rejected in a social situations. This can make it hard to enjoy myself during the networking events and parties that lawyers often have to attend.

Clearly, taken to the extreme or left unchecked, patterns like this can cause us to feel shame, and miss out on connection, opportunities, and fun. This is why learning to recognize and navigate mental patterns is one of the most important power moves that mindfulness practice can offer.

The Problem: Mental Patterns Can Be Tricky

Here’s the problem with well-worn mental patterns: we often don’t recognize them for what they are. Many lawyers are too busy to pay close attention to our thoughts and feelings. We also are often intent on projecting an image of strong self-assuredness.

So, when nasty mental patterns arise, they can be hard to spot. These patterns don’t announce themselves. Instead, they slink in through the back door of your mind and whisper awful things about you and your life. They have the bleakest and most savage view of every situation.

In my case, the pattern revealed itself by creating little worries about nearly everything associated with the event. My mind criticized the outfit I had selected. It worried about whether my shoes would be too uncomfortable. It offered concerns about whether I would be too tired to have fun. It presented me with mental imagery of me standing alone in a crowded room with nobody to talk to.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Image with quote from blog post that says "mental patterns don't announce themselves. Instead, they slink in through the back door of your mind and whisper awful things about you and your life."

Mindfulness Can Help You Recognize Mental Patterns

After a while of these nagging thoughts, I started to zoom out and get some perspective. Instead of seeing the thoughts as individual rational reflections, I saw them for what they were. These thoughts were the manifestation of my social anxiety.

This hardly sounds like good news, right? I know it is counterintuitive to feel relief that a litany of negative self-talk is *just* one’s anxiety. Even so, there is a very practical benefit to be had from recognizing that the worrisome thoughts are part of a pattern.

An implicit idea underlying all of my nasty thoughts was the idea that I was not good enough and would never be good enough. This is a constant lie that anxiety tells me. But when I saw the mental pattern as just my social anxiety talking, I realized that it was not the voice of reason. I stopped believing it for a moment and that gave me enough space to break free.

The Practice: Holding the Toxic Mental Pattern in Mindful Awareness

When I created enough space, I saw that I was struggling. So I did the thing that I have trained myself over years to do: I took a pause.

It is not a fun to sit and let nasty thoughts just bounce around in your mind. I am sure that this is why so many people say that they can’t meditate. Trust me, I get it. It truly sucks.

Over the years, however, I have learned something cool. If you can sit and let the thoughts bounce around in your mind, they don’t hurt so much. Sometimes the thoughts change. Sometimes other insights arise to counter them. Or sometimes the thoughts just bounce around until they lose energy and they just stop or disappear.

With this experience, I knew that I should just meditate for a few minutes and let the thoughts do whatever they wanted. I let them wash over me and thrash around. All the while I kept returning my focus to my breath or softening and relaxing my body.

Finally, the big insight came that I was nervous about the party. My thoughts weren’t truths. They were signs of my fear. They were signals that I wanted to connect with people, but was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do so.

The Red Flag: Don’t Judge Yourself

In years past, noticing a childlike vulnerability like this in myself might have made me feel worse. But in my case, this was actually the path forward. Years of mindfulness practice, has taught me a lot about self-compassion. That has helped me cultivate a healthy dose of caution when it comes to self-judgment.

Instead of feeling like a loser about my anxiety, I recognized that I just needed some self-assurances. I needed to take care of my fear. First, I offered myself some perspective by reminding myself that this was supposed to be fun instead of a test. Then I remembered that I did not have to stay at the party for any specific period and could leave if it wasn’t fun.

Finally, I drew on common humanity to remember that I was probably not the only person who had these fears. I recalled that social situations are hard for a lot of people and that we had several other new people in the firm. In reality, most of us were too busy, but we made the effort to attend the party because connection matters.

Image sharing the four steps to break mental patterns with mindfulness as shared in the blog post: recognize, hold it in awareness, use self-compassion, and disobey the pattern.

The Result: Being Brave Enough to Break the Pattern

The final step of the process is to break the pattern. Once you see the pattern, investigate it, and take care of yourself, the only way to get out of a pattern is to disobey it.

I won’t lie. This is really hard. If you are new to mindfulness practice, it may not always be possible to get out of mental patterns so easily or you may have to take baby steps. As someone who has practiced mindfulness for more than a decade, I have learned that part of changing my patterns is acceptance.

Life experience helps me run a quick cost benefit analysis whenever my anxiety flares up. I know that fear, worry, and nerves are often going to be part of many social activities I undertake. So I sit with them, take care of my fear, and then make the brave choice to proceed anyway.

Before the party, all my anxious thoughts were attempted roadblocks. They were concocted objections and warnings trying to convince me to skip the party. Life experience has taught me that the best way to silence those thoughts was to take their power. I did that by ignoring them. I just decided to go to the party and be afraid. A few minutes in at the party, I wasn’t afraid anymore.

Conclusion: Mindfulness Practice Is One Way to Check Mental Patterns

Don’t get me wrong here. There are a lot different types of mental patterns. All of us cannot necessarily expect to face those mental patterns on our own. We all deserve the support of trusted friends, medication, and other mental health treatment to face down our most challenging mental patterns, including those relating to anxiety. Even so, one of the great blessings of mindfulness practice is that it can help you support yourself and build the skills to check, disrupt, and break free from some of the mental patterns that hold you back.

This post is just one example of how this can be done, but once you learn a process that works for you it can help you many times over the course of your life. I hope that, like I was able to do in the example shared here, you can recognize difficult mental patterns before they keep you from doing the things you want to do in life.

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Talking Meditation with the Lawyers Who Learn Podcast

Image from appearance of Claire Parsons on the Lawyers Who Learn Podcast with title "The Meditation Practice That Built a Speaking and Legal Career"

When I started meditating more than a decade ago, building new skills was the last thing on my mind. As I shared in a recent episode on the Lawyers Who Learn podcast, this is exactly what happened.

At that time, I was treading water and desperate for anything that might provide a little bit of relief. I was a new mom and a young litigation associate with a major case heading to trial. This is when I started meditating–one minute each day–and I was shocked when it actually helped me.

Over time, it helped my life and law practice so much that I started teaching. I share this story and a lot of insights about mindfulness on the podcast episode.

What Is the Lawyers Who Learn Podcast?

Lawyers Who Learn is a podcast created by the founder of Lawline David Schnurman. If you aren’t familiar, Lawline is an online CLE provider. I have already done two Lawline courses on compassion fatigue and confidence. Next month, I will be presenting a new CLE on dealing with difficult people, including opposing counsel.

Obviously, Lawline found me through our past collaborations. However, I was pleased to appear on the podcast because it’s purpose is aligned with my own personal mission. The show explores how an attorney’s lifelong learning fuels their growth. On the podcast, there are many stories of attorneys like me who have learned new skills and used to improve their lives and law practices.

What Were the Highlights of the Podcast Episode?

In the show, I share how I got started with meditation and how it helped my life and work. I also explained a few ways that mindfulness and compassion practice support my life and work now. This includes dealing with high-conflict and emotional cases, as well as the trials and tribulations of staying calm with a teenager in the house.

I also shared a lot about how I began teaching mindfulness to lawyers and professionals. Though I confess that I have always enjoyed public speaking, the truth is that it was very much a learning process. Importantly, I explained in the episode that a big turning point for me was learning to deal with fear.

What is the Biggest Insight about Meditation from the Episode?

My favorite part of the episode was when David asked me to explain how I finally decided to get started. People ask this for an obvious reason. Mindfulness practice may make you more aware, but it does not automatically make you more brave. Right?

As I have written before, this may not be exactly right. In truth, mindfulness helped me become more brave because it helped me face fear. I mean this in the most literal way possible.

When I started to notice fear and all the details surrounding it, I got a little bored with it. I realized I could tolerate it. After some time and a little work with self-compassion, I decided I could just let fear be there as I did whatever I wanted to do in life.

Where Can I Find the Lawyers Who Learn Podcast Episode?

If you want to check out the full podcast episode, you have a few options:

You can listen to it on your web browser here on Lawline’s website.
You can listen to it on your normal podcast providers, including Apple, Amazon, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Podbean.
You can also watch it on YouTube here:

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How Much Do Lawyers Need Deep Work?

I have a book club discussion with other lawyers coming up, so I recently read Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. (paid link) Consistent with the book title, I was glad to have had a few hours concentrated time to digest the book during a long car ride.

As you might assume, Deep Work is about finding focus in an increasingly digital and unfocused world. Unlike the book, Stolen Focus, which a friend reviewed on the blog previously, this book is less about examining the role of technology in our lives. Deep Work addresses this but it is more interested in correcting the loss of focus that technology has caused in work and life.

Because Deep Work offers strategies around a common pain point for many lawyers, I decided to share a review here. Read on to learn my likes, dislikes, and takeaways from the book.

What I Like about Deep Work

Though I have a few criticisms of the book, here are the three things I liked most about Deep Work:

1. The Book Addresses a Common Problem for Many Lawyers

It’s hard to argue how distracted and unfocused most lawyers and professionals are these days. Many of us are too busy and our mental health, happiness, and and work performance suffers as a result.

Though Deep Work is now almost ten years old, it remains an important read because focused attention is so lacking for most of us. The book makes a compelling argument about the need to solve big problems and how essential uninterrupted attention is to doing that.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book was that it explains how intertwined focused attention is with happiness. The book discusses the idea that humans find meaning in the places we direct our attention. Though the book primarily addresses focus at work, it points to something deeper about human happiness and well-being. If you struggle with feeling distracted at work, Deep Work may offer some validation and thoughts for a way to find clarity.

2. Deep Work Correctly Identifies Technology as a Major Source of Distraction

It’s hard to argue that technology is both a blessing and a curse for most lawyers and professionals. The evidence continues to pile up which shows that technology has had massive negative effects on mental health and work performance. In this regard, Deep Work correctly zeroes in on technology, specifically email and social media, as the likely problem areas.

As discussed below, not everyone has the freedom to implement limits on email or social media use. Even so, I have had to find ways to manage this myself. Many law firms and companies are now working to implement policies to help employees find a better balance when it comes to work-life balance. Books like Deep Work may have influenced this positive trend by encouraging limits for better focus at work.

3. It Offers Analysis and Solutions that Lawyers and Others Can Easily Implement

Perhaps the best thing about Deep Work is the practical solutions it offers for finding more focus. The book does not claim that focused attention is one-size-fits-all. Instead, it explains the varying approaches that professionals may take with respect to deep work. These include:

The monastic approach where you cloister yourself away for periods of intense concentrated work;
The bimodal approach which schedules focused work and shallow work on separate days each week;
The rhythmic approach which incorporates blocks of focused work into a routine and often follows a pattern; and
The journalist approach where you learn to focus in small or found increments of time amidst less concentrated periods.

Identifying your personal philosophy when it comes to focused work can be helpful in itself. Hearing these varied strategies also helped me understand that focused work can manifest differently depending on context.

Of course, even if you have an established philosophy of deep work that suits you, impediments to concentration are bound to arise. For this reason, I appreciated that the book shared some strategies for making email more efficient, limiting social media, or even just getting away from your phone.

One of the best strategies the book offers is the idea of “productive meditation.” This is when you take a walk or do something physical, like cooking or cleaning the house, and let your mind process an idea. I can personally vouch for this approach because I have used it for everything from pondering a question of legal strategy to writing my book.

In short, there are many great points about Deep Work. It addresses and correctly diagnoses a common problem for many lawyers and professionals and it offers practical solutions that can help.

Image titled "What Kind of Deep Worker Are You" with four descriptions as shared in the blog post

Criticisms of Deep Work

As discussed above, Deep Work is a worthy read but it has a few drawbacks. Here they are.

1. The Book Assumes Technology Is the Culprit for Distraction

When I read Deep Work, I kept thinking “but what if it is not email or social that’s distracting you?” As I said above, Newport is correct that our phones have a distracting and in many cases negative influence on our lives and work. But what Newport fails to address is the fact that not all of us can achieve focus just by managing our phones.

Newport references his family at times in the book, but it’s telling when he says he wanted to “be present for them.” As a mom, I never had the option not to be present for my family. My source of distraction was not always my phone, but instead a child who may be hungry, sick, or need a ride to an activity. Deep Work did not address this issue at all and it assumes that you have a certain level of control in life and work that many lawyers or working parents don’t have.

Clearly, not all books can be everything for everyone. If you want more on the art and science of managing time which integrates both work and family caregiving responsibilities, I suggest Laura Vanderkam’s work.

2. It Was Odd that the Author Appeared to Ignore Mindfulness

Deep Work is a book ostensibly about focus. It recommends strategies and practices to increase focused attention at work. Despite the fact, the book barely mentions mindfulness practices.

To be fair, it is possible that the author wanted to avoid delving into a territory in which he’s not an expert. He may have wished to avoid offering what he perceived to be another meditation or mindfulness book. Newport had a right to focus his work in the way he wished.

Still, the book was published in 2016 and there was ample research demonstrating the efficacy of mindfulness practices to improve focus. As a lawyer who has experienced the benefits of these practices in may law practice, especially in relation to focused attention, reading Deep Work felt a bit incomplete.

3. Deep Work Assumes You Need Deep Work

The other thing I kept wondering about as I read the book is “how much do lawyers really need deep work?” Don’t get me wrong, I think most lawyers need some deep work. Some lawyers probably rely on periods of deep work for most of their days.

For me, though, I have to admit that a lot of my work is shallow. Much of my work consists of client emails with simple questions and addressing banal problems. Deep Work addresses this to a certain degree by sharing an example that some C-suite executives thrive in mostly shallow work.

But the book does not offer much in terms of evaluating the relevance and importance of deep work in most professional lives. Instead, the book seems to assume it is valuable and essential for most professionals. Thus, if you are curious about how much deep work matters to your own life, the book may not help to self-assess on that issue.

In short, though Deep Work is a good book to read it is not a perfect book. This is not an argument against reading it, but instead a suggestion that further reading on the topic may be needed.

Brief book review of Deep Work by Cal Newport as shared in the blog post explaining what it offers to lawyers and professionals

Key Takeaways from Deep Work

Deep Work is a good read for lawyers and professionals who are interested in creating a work life that facilitates focused attention. It offers a compelling argument for the importance of deep work for most professionals that holds true to this day. It also correctly identifies technology as a common impediment for focused attention and suggests a variety of practical strategies that may help.

Despite its downsides, Deep Work is worth the few hours of your time. It will help you consider where your attention goes and whether it is serving you well. It is a good book to read, consider, and discuss.

The link to the book mentioned in this review is an affiliate link. The review is unsponsored and sincere but the link to Amazon is paid.

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Finding Balance: Lessons from Philosophy, Structure, and Resistance

If balance isn’t what you escape to, but what you build from, then the next question is obvious:
How do you build it?

Not just in theory.

In a world that runs on overstimulation, scarcity mindset, and status games:

How do you actually live differently?

The answer isn’t in hacks or habits. It’s in philosophy.

The kind that orients you when ambition is loud and clarity is quiet. The kind that helps you walk away from things that reward you for abandoning yourself.

Balance isn’t just about rest. It’s about rhythm, resistance, and re-centering, again and again.

1. Rhythm: You Are What You Repeatedly Do

Aristotle said it best: “Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

What he really meant is: the shape of your life is formed by what you do consistently, not what you feel inspired to do once in a while.

That includes your inputs: what you read, consume, scroll, and rehearse in your mind.

It includes your defaults: what you say yes to without thinking, what you say no to because you “should.”

It includes your silence: what fills your attention when no one is asking for it.

If you want balance, you need rhythm.

And rhythm means making space on purpose, before the world fills it for you.

Ask yourself:

What are you building repetition around? Clarity, or chaos?
What time of day belongs to you, without negotiation?
What anchors you when you’re off-center, and do you actually return to those anchors regularly?

2. Resistance: You’re Allowed to Not Want the Same Things

Stoicism is often misunderstood as suppression.

But Epictetus wasn’t telling people to be numb.

He was teaching them to guard their energy, to distinguish between what’s in their control and what’s not. Because the more noise you react to, the less signal you can hear.

In today’s context, that’s a revolutionary act.

Because the system doesn’t just reward overwork; it shames you for wanting less.

It pathologizes rest. It glamorizes imbalance.

It makes ambition feel like obligation, and burnout feel like progress.

Balance, then, becomes a form of resistance.

It’s how you reclaim your time, your nervous system, and your identity from a culture that treats your worth as performance.

Ask yourself:

Where have you internalized urgency that isn’t even yours?
What values are actually yours, and which ones were just inherited from the environment?
Are you okay with being seen as “less ambitious” if it means being more intact?

3. Re-centering: You Need a Philosophy, Not Just a Schedule

Viktor Frankl wrote, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’”

He was writing about survival under the worst conditions imaginable, but the lesson holds in everyday life: if you don’t choose what your life is for, something else will choose for you.

The point of balance isn’t to feel relaxed.

The point is to remain aligned, so that your output reflects your values—not just your fear or momentum.

That means checking in regularly. It means zooming out from metrics.

It means seeing your calendar as a moral document, not just a logistical one.

Re-centering isn’t an emergency button. It’s a regular practice.

Ask yourself:

What does success feel like in my body, not just in my inbox?
What would my week look like if it reflected my actual priorities?
What am I tracking, and is it helping or distracting me?

Design the Balance Before the System Designs You

You need a structure that protects your time before law school starts—not after. You need to know what hours are yours. What thoughts are yours. What parts of your identity aren’t up for negotiation.

You need:

Mornings that belong to you, not your inbox.
A body that isn’t treated like a taxi for your brain.
Relationships that don’t just tolerate your goals—but remind you who you were before them.

If you don’t set that rhythm early, the default will become your design. And once you’ve built your ego on that design, it’s much harder to undo.

Bonus: You Don’t Have to Be Chill to Be Balanced

There’s a trap that shows up, especially for high-performers.
We think if we’re anxious, tense, or reactive, we must be “off-balance.”

But balance doesn’t mean calm.
It means not losing the thread.

Tricia Hersey, in Rest is Resistance, reminds us: the system was not built for your healing.

So of course rest feels unnatural.
Of course silence feels boring.
Of course boundaries feel selfish.

That’s not a personal failure. That’s conditioning.

Balance isn’t a vibe. It’s a discipline.

One that protects your clarity, even when you don’t feel clear.
One that steadies you, even when you’re overwhelmed.

Balance isn’t just the absence of stress.

It’s the presence of structure, space, and sovereignty.

You build it by remembering, daily, that your life is not an accident.

It’s a design.

And it’s still yours to shape.

Author bio: Moshe Indig is the founder of Sharper Statements, a premier law school admissions consulting firm known for its depth, strategy, and results. A former litigator, Moshe helps aspiring lawyers craft powerful
narratives that reflect both who they are and where they’re headed—without sacrificing voice, clarity, or balance. Drawing from years of experience inside and outside the legal system, he teaches applicants to
center precision and authenticity in every part of the process. Read more at sharperstatements.com.

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Five Steps to Help Lawyers Handle Hopelessness

There is a lot going on in the world right now, but if you are a lawyer in the United States the term “a lot” doesn’t quite cover it. It’s not just that major and devastating events are happening. It’s that the conflict surrounding each event may call into question the legal system in which we work every day.

Regardless of your political viewpoints on the events themselves, the turmoil surrounding our institutions of government might leave any lawyer questioning their work. The term that keeps popping up in conversations, messages from lawyer friends, and my social media feed is “hopelessness.”

Why Hopelessness Is a Problem for Lawyers

While you may not have thought about it this way, hope is important to legal work. Clients put faith in us to handle their problems. In turn, we put our faith in the law, the legal system, and our own talents and processes to secure the best results we can.

All of this turns on the idea of hope: that we have the power to do something good for someone else. But, when institutions change, appear to change, or are called into question by world events, hope can be hard to muster. This can drain energy, distract us from critical work, and in the extreme lead to conditions like rumination, anxiety, and depression.

So, what can lawyers do when they feel a sense of hopelessness? It’s a hard problem and I don’t know that there is one perfect answer, but I have experienced this before myself. Here are the steps that have helped me.

Image with quote from blog post about dealing with hopelessness for lawyer which states "Feelings just need to be felt."

1. Let yourself feel the hopelessness.

People ask me all the time how to “mitigate” or “deal with” emotions like sadness, anger, loss, or even hopelessness. My answer is always the same: let it be there. This is the hardest step and perhaps the hardest truth of life to accept, but feelings just need to be felt.

Sometimes we may want to push them away or try to rush through them because we may fear that the feelings will last forever or that they signify more doom and gloom in the future. As we all know, though, all things are temporary, and we can’t really know the future until it comes.

So, if you are feeling hopeless, let yourself feel hopeless. That means noticing what’s there, whether it is thoughts or physical sensations or moods. Don’t push yourself to feel hopeful or pretend that you are happy when you’re not. Just let yourself feel how you feel.

2. Treat hopelessness like a form of grief.

When you allow your feelings to be there, it may be obvious to you what you need next. Directly experiencing your own pain or emotions often gives you clues about what you need to address them. If not, though, your imagination can help.

My experience of hopelessness is often very similar to any other kind of loss. The bad news is that most lawyers hate and fear loss. The good news is that most emotions, including those relating to grief and loss, don’t last forever. Thus, the best approach is to care for yourself the way you would care for any friend who has experienced a loss.

Image of woman comforting man with quote that says "When you feel hopeless, care for yourself just as you would care for any friend who experienced a loss."

To do this, you’d ask them if there was anything you could do or anything they might need. Do this for yourself and give yourself what you need. If this is too much for you to do effectively on your own, connect with a friend or loved one and ask for help. Most of us wouldn’t try to handle a broken heart on our own, so don’t feel any obligation to deal with your own hopelessness by yourself.

3. Reconnect with positive things.

After you have given yourself the time to feel and heal a bit, it can help to start reconnecting with positive things in your life. When you experience hopelessness, you may almost need to remind yourself that good things still exist.

Let yourself experience those things as if they are totally new to you. Let yourself be surprised by how much even small things mean to you. Resist the urge, however, to jump to this step to push the negative feelings away with positive distractions. The point here isn’t to override or ignore how we feel, but instead to reconnect with the positive parts of our life as part of the healing process.

Image with quote from blog post that says "The nature of our human experience is that we can enjoy beauty in a world that is often harsh and find goodness even in dark times."

You may have to be intentional about this because, when bad things happen, we can sometimes feel guilty or even foolish for enjoying positive things. In truth, however, the nature of our human experience is that we can enjoy beauty in a world that is often harsh and find goodness even in dark times. We also may have to get away from our devices so we can stop the negative information loop.

We don’t have to rid the world of all darkness or ourselves of all dark emotions to earn the right to good things. We deserve good things and, as a practical matter, we need them more when life is hard. Reconnecting with positive things, whether we plan them specially for ourselves or just enjoy what’s there in our everyday lives, is a way to remind ourselves of this truth.

As I have written and shared before, some examples of positive things that always lift my spirits include:

4. Draw inspiration from lawyers who didn’t quit.

Once I have reached a certain level of equilibrium with bouts of hopelessness, it always helps me to remember the people who didn’t quit when they faced hopelessness. I intentionally wait to do this step until later in the process because it can easily turn into comparisons and self-judgment.

Image with quote from blog post that says "When I feel discouraged, I draw inspiration from people in my life or historical figures who didn't quit when they experienced hopelessness."

After stabilizing my emotions, though, I find it inspirational to remember the people in my life or from history who must have faced hopelessness and continued in their struggle. This is a way of connecting with the idea of “common humanity” because it reminds me that it is normal and human for even the best people to experience hopelessness at times. It also helps me because it reminds me that there is value in doing good work even if success doesn’t happen every time or if circumstances derail your efforts.

In case you need help with this, I created a guided meditation with this very practice. It’s inspired by Mr. Rogers’ sage advice to “look to the helpers” in times of trouble. I have used this practice during stressful times in my law practice and I hope it helps you.

5. Remember your values.

One of the hardest parts of hopelessness is that it can cause us to question our identities or our roles in the world. Hopelessness happens when our faith in something essential is shaken, so it can create all kinds of doubts about the work we do, the way we are living our lives, and the people with whom we spend our time.

Doubt can be hard for us lawyers because we often look for certainty and solidity since we rely on those things as we advise clients and help them through difficult times. Yet, the truth is that we don’t really need certainty or solidity; those things just make us feel more comfortable, safe, and supported.

So, what can we do when the world gives us a lot of reasons to doubt? The same thing we do when there are gray areas in the law: we trust ourselves and make a judgment call. When it comes to something like hope, this means we remember what we value and we try to live accordingly. World events may shake our faith in institutions and may make us worry about what the future may bring. That’s when our personal values matter the most because wise action may be even more essential in times of uncertainty. For this reason, reconnecting with our personal values may help us remember the ways that we can bring good into the world even during difficult circumstances.

Image with quote from blog post that says "World events may shake our faith in institutions and may make us worry about what the future may bring. That's when our personal values as lawyers matter the most because wise action is even more essential in times of uncertainty."

Lawyers Can Learn to Hold Hopelessness in Kindness

Hopelessness is a difficult emotion to experience because it is something that can make us feel helpless, alienated, unmotivated, and alone. Though it can be a challenging emotion to face, each of us can learn to hold our own hopelessness in kindness.

This will help us reconnect to ourselves, reevaluate our roles in our communities, and better understand the values we wish to bring into the world. Perhaps we may never recover the same hope we experienced before, but I don’t know that must do so in order to lead a good and happy life. Instead, it may be more effective to learn to let new forms of hope grow in us in each new phase of our lives.

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How Law Firms Can Support Attorney Well-Being

Though I often teach strategies that individual lawyers can take to manage stress, I always balance this with the reminder that law firms have a big impact on attorney well-being. When I joined my law firm, Bricker Graydon, a few years ago I saw this first hand. While I had generally positive experiences at prior firms, the firm’s commitment to well-being was deeper and more explicit.

Many staff members at the firm help make this happen, but one I want to mention today is Mina Jones Jefferson. She’s the Chief Culture and Engagement Officer at my firm. I’ve worked and presented with Mina on topics relating to stress management and attorney well-being. She’s so knowledgeable on these subjects that I asked her to join me on the FDCC FedSpeaks podcast to discuss steps law firms can take to support attorney well-being.

Keep reading to learn more about the insights from the interview, where to listen, and how to learn more about this subject.

Attorney Well-Being Should Be a Law Firm Priority

One of the things that Mina shared first in the interview is why law firms should make the well-being of lawyers and all staff a priority. In the interview, Mina explained that supporting attorney and staff well-being was not just the right or feel-good thing to do.

Instead, she explained how mental health directly contributes to law firm business goals. Mina shared studies showing that how employees feel about their work contribute to the quality of their work. It can also correlate to absenteeism, which translates to lost work time and billable hours. Or, in the alternative, presenteeism where employees don’t miss work but their performance suffers.

In general, Mina explained, happy lawyers and staff members are more productive and do better work for clients.

How Law Firms Can Monitor Attorney Well-Being

The idea of mental health can sometimes seem hard to define, but Mina didn’t skip a beat when I asked her about this. First, Mina explained that there are many signs that firms can monitor to gauge the well-being of their employees. As noted above, these include sick days uses, absences, and productive work hours.

To get more information, though, Mina suggested that firms should consider asking their employees regularly how they feel about work. She shared about the value of employee engagement surveys to gather information from attorneys and staff members directly. This can help law firms identify practical steps that may need to be taken to make the work life of their employees better or more satisfying.

Image of podcast guest, Mina Jones Jefferson, with quote from the interview shared in the blog post which says "Attorneys with the lowest risk of attrition are in law firms where they feel valued for their skill, talent, professionalism, or inherent worth as a human being. This shows that the value system of an employer can affect employee mental health."

Simple Steps Law Firms Can Take

Armed with this qualify information, Mina explained that law firms can make good decisions to support employees better. This can include reviewing internal policies, benefits plans, wellness offerings, and employee assistance programs.

It can also include leadership strategies that keep mental health a top priority in the law firm’s culture. These can include things like “leaving out loud”, where firm leaders don’t hide the fact that they prioritize things outside of work. It can also include simple strategies, such as honoring business hours for email and text communications.

As Mina also shared, however, it should also include a review of broader firms policies and procedures and leadership. In some ways, Mina explained that attorney and staff well-being is a function of a well-run organization.

Where and How to Learn More

This blog post was just a summary of the insights that Mina offered in the interview, but I strongly encourage you to listen to the full episode to hear it straight from her. If you want to listen to the full interview, you can find it on Apple Podcasts here. You can learn more about Mina Jones Jefferson and her work at Bricker Graydon on LinkedIn.

For more great interviews relating to lawyer well-being, check out the following episodes of FDCC Speaks:

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Tips for Lawyers: Manage Stress Getting Back to School

As a school lawyer, I normally love back to school season. This year, though, I am struggling. The summer was busier than I expected and the back to school rush at work happened earlier too. This means that I am feeling overwhelmed, tired, and stressed.

What is a lawyer and meditation teacher to do with this situation? Well, I don’t promise to be an expert here. This struggle is real for many of us for a reason. But I can say that a few intentional strategies have helped me establish order and get ready for back to school.

Manage the Biggest Stress Points First

When things get very busy, I narrow the scope of my focus. My guiding principle is to do now what has to be done today. Clearly, this is not a sustainable approach on a long-term basis. Living day to day has some advantages, but so does planning ahead.

Even so, focusing on what has to be done right now is an essential strategy for regaining order in times of chaos. It can help you build some momentum for managing the challenges of life. It can also help you avoid other problems that may emerge later if you don’t tackle priorities first.

Thus, when your schedule is too busy or life is in flux, a first essential step is identifying prioriy tasks and addressing those first.

Simplify and, If Possible, Delegate

After you have triaged the priority issues, another step for reestablishing order is to simplify whatever you can. Remove unnecessary steps or flourishes from projects. Look for easier ways to accomplish tasks. Delegate or get help in any way that you can.

Many lawyers tend to be high achievers. This means that we often do more than what the circumstances truly require. When time allows, this is not a terrible life strategy to adopt. But in times of stress or change, it can add work and sap energy that you do not have. Simplifying tasks and focusing on what is truly essential can help you avoid this trap.

As a quick example of this, I used this strategy to handle some of the back to school chores for my kids. They had a doctor’s appointment and needed new shoes. Instead of going to my favorite shoe store, I went to one very close to the doctor’s office. This allowed me to consolidate travel time, so the kids could get new shoes and I could get the job done.

When time is limited, don’t make extra work for yourself. Simplify tasks as much as possible.

Image of post it note with question "How could I make this simpler?" as discussed in the blog post about back to school

Prioritize Healthy Habits

When times are busy or stressful, healthy and supportive habits are often the first things to suffer. Even though most of us know what is good for us, disarray in one’s schedule can make it harder to eat, sleep, and exercise like we should. These habits, though, can have an immediate beneficial impact on how we feel mentally and physically.

For this reason, when my schedule is in flux, I often prioritize the basics. I try to refresh my sleep hygiene protocols and get a regular schedule back in place. I make sure I have some healthy ingredients on hand so that I can eat nutrient-dense meals to power my days. Even though it can be a struggle, I get back to my normal meditation and exercise routine too.

Let me be clear. All of these things take time and energy to manage. Despite this, I prioritize them in times of change or stress because I know they are priorities. These habits help me feel my best and manage stress, so that I can face whatever I need to face in my daily life. In addition, because these practices are part of my normal routine, returning to them helps me create a sense of normalcy and order.

Conclusion

Back to school time can be a fun and exciting time. For many lawyers, though, it is also a stressful time. It’s a time of change and extra work to transition to a new phase in life. With some intentionality, though, you can manage the time crunch, stress, and extra work. I hope these tips help you regain some control and establish a new order that will help you and your family thrive this school year.

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What Is MBCT? An Interview with a Mindfulness Expert

Back in May, I met Sophie Lazarus, PhD when I was about to start a seven-day meditation retreat. It started out as a simple conversation about our mindfulness practices. When the topic of work came up, I realized I had met an expert on mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.

As you will learn if you keep reading, MBCT is a treatment program rooted in mindfulness that can help people who have experienced anxiety and depression. It’s not as well-known in the United States as other programs, like mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) so I asked Dr. Lazarus to explain more here. Read on to learn more about the program and for other helpful resources.

Q: Tell me about yourself and your work as it relates to mindfulness-based cognitive therapy?

I live and work in Columbus, Ohio, though I am originally from the East Coast. Outside of work, I love reading, spending time in nature, traveling, and connecting with friends and family.

My journey with mindfulness began in 2009 during graduate school and deepened in 2014 when I started practicing in the insight meditation tradition. I’m a clinical psychologist and currently serve as an Associate Professor at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. I lead the Mindfulness-Based Programs for Resilience and Well-Being and am a faculty member within our Depression Recovery Center.

In my role, I develop programs, conduct research on MBCT and other treatments for depression, supervise and train PhD students, and provide care for individuals experiencing mood and anxiety disorders. I trained as an MBCT teacher through UC San Diego in 2018 and have since expanded my training to include MBCT-L (Mindfulness for Life) and workplace mindfulness through the Oxford Mindfulness Foundation. I’m also the author of Mindfulness Meditations for Depression: Practices for Cultivating Self-Compassion and Insight.

Q: What is Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is an eight-week, group-based intervention designed for individuals who experience recurrent depression, anxiety, or chronic unhappiness. It integrates cognitive therapy techniques with mindfulness practices to help people become more aware of the thought patterns and habits that contribute to emotional distress.

By cultivating this awareness, participants learn to relate to their experiences with greater kindness and wisdom, supporting long-term well-being. MBCT is best suited for individuals who are not currently in the midst of a severe depressive or anxious episode and are ready to focus on relapse prevention and staying well.

Q: How does MBCT compare to other kinds of mindfulness programs like MBSR?

MBCT was originally modeled after Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), but tailored specifically for individuals dealing with depression and anxiety. Researchers recognized that while existing treatments were effective, many people still experienced relapse. Mindfulness offered a promising approach to address this specific vulnerability.

MBCT incorporates core elements of MBSR but adds specific practices and psychoeducation to help participants understand the nature of depression and anxiety. It teaches skills to work wisely with the mental habits—such as rumination and avoidance—that often accompany these conditions.

Image with quote from blog post explaining what mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is

Q: Does MBCT offer any specific advantages for lawyers or other professionals?

Absolutely. MBCT can be particularly beneficial for conscientious, high-achieving professionals—such as lawyers—who often operate with high standards, perfectionism, and self-critical thinking. While these traits can drive success, they may also make it harder to cope with internal challenges like disappointment or loss, especially when those experiences can’t be “solved” in the usual way.

MBCT helps individuals recognize these patterns and develop a more compassionate and balanced way of relating to themselves, which can be transformative both personally and professionally.

Q: What are you most excited for people to know about MBCT?

MBCT is backed by strong research evidence that has accumulated over many years. It significantly reduces the risk of relapse in depression and is included in national treatment guidelines in both the UK and the U.S. (APA). Given the profound impact of depression on individuals, families, and society, I’m passionate about making MBCT more widely available to those who could benefit.

Q: How can people interested in mindfulness learn more about MBCT or access the program?

We offer MBCT through the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Ohio State. Groups are available both in-person and virtually, making them accessible to anyone in Ohio—and in other PSYPACT-participating states. To learn more or register for MBCT and other mindfulness-based programs for resilience and well-being, visit our website.

You can also find trusted MBCT providers internationally through this directory.

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Understanding Perfectionism: Lessons from Season 4 of The Bear

Spoiler Alert: Read with caution if you haven’t finished watching Season 4 of The Bear yet. There are a few references to the end of season that some might consider spoilers.

“Mistakes.”

When I heard this word uttered in the latest season of The Bear, it cut like a knife. This single word accentuated the theme for the season: perfectionism. Carmy, the head chef and lead of the show, said it when his colleague and sometimes screaming match partner, Richie, asked him what he was thinking about after a grueling night at the restaurant.

With only a word, Carmy let all the perfectionists watching know exactly what he was experiencing. He was ruminating over his past failures. They were swirling in his mind. It’s fair to imagine they had been with him that entire day, screaming in his ear while he was trying to live his life. Fans of The Bear also immediately knew that they had been with Carmy a lot longer than that.

Perfectionism Can Be a Mistake

The surprising thing that you come to see later is that one of the mistakes that Carmy had to have been thinking about was perfectionism. In the episodes that follow this tepid bath of negative thoughts and self-recrimination, Carmy makes some positive steps forward. He scales back on his overly ambitious strategies. He eases up on his colleagues, Syndey and Marcus, enough to see that they have become masterful chefs. And he even apologizes to his girlfriend months after a panic attack caused him to flee the relationship and ghost her.

As I watched the season, I couldn’t help but see it as a mirror for my own life. I joked with my husband that watching this season in college would have saved me a whole lot of heartache over the years. Just like Carmy, perfectionism was never something I chose but it continues to be something exceptionally hard for me to stop. As the show illustrates, some of us are incentivized for our efforts to be perfect. This makes it very hard to see that perfectionism has its downsides too.

The Downsides of Perfectionism

Season 4 of The Bear shows us these downsides. It shows us how Carmy can’t enjoy success or relax with peace. It shows us how perfectionism can erode the relationships around us and wear down the people we love. It shows us that good results are a double-edged sword for perfectionists.

We may feel good for a moment, but as soon as that moment fades, we are thinking, often unconsciously, of how we can raise the bar higher. When that bar gets too high, and it always does, we crash and feel like failures. This can cause us to turn what we love into a grind, so that even the things we are good at suddenly feel hard.

The Bear Is a Realistic Depiction of Perfectionism

If you are thinking that I am telling you that Season 4 of The Bear is painful to watch, you are right. It was painful for me to watch, but only because it was so painfully true. I knew how easy it is to absorb perfectionism even if no person in your life consciously pushed it on you.

Even if we come from a loving family, the desire to be good and create something good can get twisted by what we miss or maybe by what we see too much in childhood. By the time we get out of school, our tendency to be organized, conscientious, and high performing helps us excel in demanding and intense professions.

And before we know it, we start to emulate the very behaviors we told ourselves we never would. We do this all with the noblest of intentions. We want to make something better, more decent, and gentler than we have ever had. It’s just that we never learned the skills to build this peaceful life we want.

The Good News for the Perfectionists Out There

It absolutely hurt to watch Season 4 of The Bear and to relive all the ways I have hurt myself and others in the process. The good news, for me and for all the perfectionists out there, is that the season has some light at the end of the tunnel. By the end of the season, Carmy has stopped thinking so obsessively about all his mistakes. He starts instead to face them and tries to learn how to avoid repeating them. He stops isolating himself. He gets out of his head. He leans on his friends and admits how he feels.

By the end of the season, Carmy is not fully self-actualized. It is a TV show after all and TV shows about peaceful people who have things figured out would probably not get very good ratings, let alone a slew of Emmy awards. Instead, the season ends with you questioning whether Carmy is once again running from goodness by threatening to leave the restaurant he founded and all the people there he loves. It may turn out that Carmy makes yet another huge mistake.

Mistakes Happen to Us All, Perfectionists Included

And you know what? He probably will. And so will I. I don’t know you, but I bet you will too if you are a perfectionist. Because perfectionism doesn’t leave us easily and for some of us it may never leave entirely. I’ll have to wait for Season 5 to know how it turns out for Carmy, just like I must wait for retrospection to arrive to know if my life choices were really the product of perfectionism. I’m going to keep rooting for Carmy, though, and hope he can learn that mediocrity is sometimes amazing, flaws are opportunities for connection, and you can learn to be okay with peace.

Until then, if you find yourself sitting at a table somewhere with only mistakes rolling around in your head, I hope a friend comes up and asks you what you are thinking about. I hope even more that you do what Carmy did and tell the truth even if all you can muster is a single word.

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