Rules and Limits as you Practice Law

It’s no secret being an attorney is tough. Most often, clients need you at their most worst: accused of crimes; financially destitute; dealing with divorce; scared of immigration; angry with neighbors, employers, former friends. The list goes on and on. For most Latina lawyers, we practice in these emotionally heavy areas, and all attorneys working in these high stress areas experience what’s called vicarious trauma–a sort of second-hand stress from these stories and interactions.  It’s a dirty secret that we don’t talk about for fear of seeming weak or unable to advocate like all the other attorneys who seem to be cool with what they’re hearing.  But other attorneys experience vicarious trauma too–even if they don’t want to admit it; exhibit A would be the fact that our industry has such high rates of alcoholism and depression.

Instead of self-medicating with too much alcohol or ignoring signs of depression, why not acknowledge the mental stress being an attorney can take, and make it a point to prioritize your mental health. This is important not only to keep yourself mentally fit, but to also ensure you keep apathy away from your practice.  I’ve only been practicing five years, but even then, I see signs of burnout in other attorneys and know that without appropriate care, I’ll be headed that way too.  What can you do as a young attorney to be aware of these stress factors and manage them in a healthy way?  

One. Recognize the signs. You really need to know yourself to recognize signs of stress. I am an overeater, and I feel annoyed by any little thing. Maybe others feel angry or start putting off responsibilities because of the stress. The key is to recognize your tipping points early on in your practice so that you can learn to manage them.

Two. Plan short-term care. When I sense these tell-tell signs of stress, I reason with myself to not indulge in junk food and/or also force myself to exercise.  I may treat myself to something small or think about something fun to do in the weekend.  Sometimes the stress is from having so much to do so I calendar out everything and make to-do lists so that it all seems more manageable–when I do things that I know work for me, I’m able to control the stress in a healthy way.  And healthy is the key word–one thing I also decided early on was that I would not drink alcohol on nights I felt sad or upset by clients’ stories. I just knew that would put me on a path that needed to be avoided.

Three. Plan long-term actions. Most importantly, legal careers are long, but it’s sometimes hard to practice in the same area and see the same injustices occurring and people being harmed or marginalized.  It’s really tough. I realized early on that burn-out is a real thing–I hope to not experience it and I’m going to do my best to treat vicarious trauma so that I can advocate for clients for as long as I can.  But I also know I’m human and don’t want to do mediocre work.  I’ve drawn a line in the sand, which for me means that if I ever reach a point where I’m working on a case and I don’t feel a real push to seek justice for my client, then it’s time to look for new work.  We should all take stock of what it is that inwardly fuels us to seek justice and make sure that we don’t allow burnout to extinguish that fire.

It may seem odd to figure out when to call it quits when you’ve only been practicing a short-time, and fortunately, vicarious trauma or not, many attorneys practice successfully and happily for decades–that’s my hope for my career and everyone else’s–but I also know how hard practicing law can be (statistics don’t lie).  Rather than letting the stress eat away at our health, let’s work on ways to overcome it so that the zeal we feel towards practicing law on Day 1 as attorneys last for our entire career.

What do you do for self-care?  Do you recognize vicarious trauma in your area of practice?