For many lawyers and judges, anxiety is a constant companion that is driven by fierce competitiveness and perfectionism. Depending on the individual, anxiety levels may rise dramatically during law school and then continue into the practice of law. Over time, if anxiety continues to build, the person may develop mental health disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder or social anxiety disorder.¹ Biological factors, family background and particularly stressful life experiences can play a role in the development of anxiety disorders.

The practice of law is, in fact, a very noble profession and is extremely rewarding on many levels, but it is equally demanding. Periods of anxiety are inescapable in an adversarial system that routinely pits practitioners against one another and sometimes clients against their own lawyer.

The challenge of law school, and practicing law thereafter, renders seasoned lawyers and judges who can and do withstand high pressure, but it is concurrently important to acknowledge that literally every single one of us are made of flesh and blood. And that means that, through no fault of our own, some of us may eventually develop real anxiety problems.

While anxiety levels surely vary from practice to practice, there is one common denominator that impacts virtually all lawyers and judges: the expectation of perfectionism. Law is a profession that demands perfection from imperfect human beings.

Of course, our dedication to perfectionism begins in the dynamic of law school competition. Thereafter the legal profession demands precision, because mistakes can irreparably harm our clients, damage our professional reputations and impact our malpractice insurers.

Just the thought of the possibility of making a big mistake in a case can render a wave of anxiety-driven fear in any lawyer. In June of 2003, out of the blue, I had an unusual episode of high anxiety. I was a very busy solo practitioner at the time. For no apparent reason, I sat straight up in bed at 2 a.m. one Saturday morning, totally convinced that I had missed the deadline for filing suit in a personal injury case.

Of course, I had a very reliable calendaring system, and my law firm had never missed any such deadline. There was no objective basis whatsoever to believe that there was even an issue, but an alarm had somehow gone off in my brain.

I was so worried that I knew I would not go back to sleep. I got up, and still in my pajamas, I grabbed my wallet and car keys and drove down to the office in the middle of the night. On the ride in, I contemplated terrible outcomes and catastrophized.

Once in hand, the file revealed that the deadline was in July, not June. I had 30 days to file suit. I was jubilant! My spirits soared! It felt like my guardian angels escorted me as I walked out of my file room and down the hallway. And I felt very silly for “worrying so much over nothing.” Then, as I walked past my conference room on the way out, I saw the four boxes of documents that I would be digging into over the weekend to prepare an appeal brief. Instantly, I lost sight of my angels. My lawyer-brain kicked back in, and I began recalculating all the complex and negative issues in that case, including frustration that my winning client had to incur costs for what I considered to be a frivolous appeal by opposing counsel.

But I also thought on the ride home: “at least I was truly joyful for the 15 seconds it took me to walk from the file room to the conference room.”

I did not see it at the time, but I did not afford myself any downtime from thinking about my clients’ cases and my law practice. I didn’t even know I had a choice. If I was mowing my grass on Saturday, I was also planning my cross examination of a witness on Monday. No matter where I was, I carried my caseload with me. I had no boundaries at all. It was like having a perpetual “low-grade fever” of stress that sometimes boiled over into anxiety.

In retrospect, I just didn’t know any better. In 2003, I had been sober from alcoholism for more than 20 years and had a program for that, but I had no idea how to manage stress, set boundaries, turn off my brain now and then, and just enjoy the “present moment.” I had no plan to fight stress and anxiety. Instead, I simply grappled through it all head on, determined to spin all those plates and never let one fall.

I was vigilant indeed and very fortunate to never have a malpractice claim or bar complaint in my career, but the way I went about it was surely not balanced or healthy. In the end, I needlessly sacrificed too much of my happiness and gave away too many pieces of myself at times.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with high standards in any endeavor. Healthy levels of stress can be motivational and can help us to succeed. But, when anxiety becomes unrelenting and all-consuming, it can decrease productivity and significantly reduce one’s quality of life. In the most extreme cases, anxiety can degrade mental health and executive functioning to the point that it renders a lawyer or judge unable to fully function and not safe to practice.

Practicing law in 2024 is more stressful than ever, but the good news is that the profession is outgrowing its risky old “just be tough and ignore stress” culture of the past and has instead begun to acknowledge that lawyer well-being and wellness practices are paramount to lawyer competency and happiness.

While we surely can’t eliminate all anxiety, at least there are better tools and practices available to pragmatically reduce stress and anxiety to manageable levels. For one thing, we can make a decision to consciously minimize pessimism in our thinking and reduce what is known as “ANT” thinking (automatic negative thoughts).² In the management of your cases or docket, ask yourself if it is your nature to view things optimistically and hope for best, or do you tend to predict the worst and worry about when the terrible outcomes will materialize?

What we are learning is that it is very unhealthy to focus great thought on the past or the future, while concurrently being unfocused as to the present moment. As strange as it may sound to legal professionals, it is simply unhealthy to think too much. Many lawyers’ brains run in a continuous loop of judging evidence and future strategies to resolve all clients’ cases. There is very little time for practicing “mindfulness” and appreciating the present moment.

An example is asking the question “who is in the shower with you?” in the morning. Some lawyers are so preoccupied with the coming day that while in the shower they are already thinking 100% about work and can’t even remember if they just washed their hair, so they decide to wash it again.

The fact is that our brains need sufficient downtime wherein we think of nothing. This is an extremely challenging concept for lawyers who live in a fast-paced world of intense analytical reasoning and thinking, and a world of smartphones and screens.

Many lawyers are now successfully reducing their stress and anxiety levels through learning and practicing the effective tools of meditation and mindfulness.

This book can help with meditation: The Anxious Lawyer: An 8-Week Guide to a Joyful and Satisfying Law Practice Through Mindfulness and Meditation.³ It can also help lawyers and judges utilize new and better strategies to reduce anxiety in their day-to-day professional lives. The book also suggests that setting realistic boundaries and expectations in your law practice is important and asks: “As a lawyer can you control: the law; the facts; what witnesses say; what opposing counsel does; what the opposing client does; what your client does; or, what the judge or jury does?” and “It is unreasonable to expect to win, or even achieve justice in in every case. Such expectations can cause a negative self-image, feed anxiety and lead to depression.”

This book can help with mindfulness: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment.⁴ It asks, “Can you be free of your mind whenever you want to? Have you found the ‘off’ button or are you a ‘slave’ to thinking. I would say that 80 to 90 percent of most people’s thinking is repetitive and useless.” Practicing mindfulness offers relief to constant thinking and worry.

If unrealistic expectations of perfectionism are creating unhealthy levels of stress and anxiety in your practice, make a totally confidential call to the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP) at 615-741-3238 and talk to our professional clinical staff, or confidentially email us at tlap@tncourts.gov. TLAP offers support, resources and tools specifically for legal professionals. TLAP can help! |||

BUDDY STOCKWELL was appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court in July 2020 as executive director of the Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program (TLAP). He comes from south Louisiana where he has been a volunteer and program monitor for the state’s Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse and the executive director of Louisiana’s comprehensive Judges and Lawyers Assistance Program (JLAP) peer professionals’ program. He is a certified clinical interventionist through “Love First” training at the Betty Ford Center and has personally been in recovery from alcoholism for over 38 years. Stockwell earned his law degree from LSU Law School in 1993. He practiced in both large and small firm settings, including a solo practice in Baton Rouge where he focused heavily on domestic litigation. Read more about him at tba.org/Stockwell.

NOTES
1. National Institute of Mental Health, Anxiety Disorders, www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml, last accessed Sept. 25, 2024.
2. Anxiety Network, Generalized Anxiety, Perfectionism and Pressure, http://anxietynetwork.com/content/perfectionism-and-pressure, last accessed Sept. 25, 2024.
3. Jeena Cho, Karen Gifford, The Anxious Lawyer: An 8-Week Guide to a Joyful and Satisfying Law Practice Through Mindfulness and Meditation, American Bar Association (2022), www.theanxiouslawyer.com.
4. Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, New World Library (1999 and 2004).