CBA Record July-August 2023

YOUNG LAWYERS SECTION

The Importance of Self-Care By Brian M. Bentrup

How Did We Get Here? Before the Covid-19 pandemic, attorneys were already expected to work long hours and bill substantial time; if they weren’t billing thousands of hours annually, the belief – fair or not – was that the attorney wasn’t a hard worker. This put pressure on attorneys to always be working, available, and reachable. If you were to stop a random person on the street and ask them to create a car icature of an attorney, they would likely create one defined by stress, poor mental health, and substance abuse. Indeed, attorneys show greater incidence of alco holism, substance abuse, and depression than the general population. Awareness of the issues affecting attorneys has become so pervasive that it has penetrated society’s consciousness and its perception of the profession. While the effects of the pan demic are not exclusive to the practice of the law, they exacerbate preexisting prob lems in the legal profession. The added isolation of working from home without direct, human-to-human interaction only made matters worse. Three years later, the state public health emergency declara tions ended at both the federal and Illi nois state levels, but these issues persist. Anecdotal and empirical evidence sug gests that attorney stress levels have been pushed to new heights, mental health has

deteriorated further, and incidences of substance abuse have risen significantly. The pandemic fundamentally changed the practice of law and forced a seismic shift virtually overnight. Firms scrambled to implement work-from-home poli cies and set up home offices as a mass of attorneys, paralegals, and support staff migrated to home offices in March 2020. As a result, the line between “work time” and “home life” became blurred, if not erased altogether. Pre-pandemic, attor neys already lived in a world in which home and life were partially integrated thanks to instant access to emails on smartphones, devices which are rarely, if ever, out of reach. But when Covid hit, attorneys jumped into a world in which their time at home was no longer regarded as “their” time. It became all too easy to reach out to a colleague outside normal business hours and expect an immediate response. Some attorneys already had home offices set up, but now all attorneys are expected to fully replicate their work office at home. This makes it even more difficult to demarcate work time from home life. Smartphone apps now connect personal devices to work numbers. Tex ting a professional line has also become more acceptable, further blurring the line. If you hear a work email alert from your

smartphone, you can easily walk to your desk at home to respond. No longer is it necessary or even professionally accept able to wait until you go to the office the next morning. This is because the expec tation is that if you can work from home, you should be able to respond from home regardless of the time. The expectation that you are and will always be available will worsen over time unless you set, maintain, and adhere to clearly defined boundaries. Below are a few focused tips for attor neys to destress, establish balance and boundaries between home and work life, promote their mental health, and avoid succumbing to substance abuse: 1. Define Clear Boundaries. It is critical to set boundaries and to express them clearly. If you decide to start work at 7 am and have a hard stop at 6 pm, make that intention known. Put up an out of-office message and discuss it with colleagues and partners. This may be a difficult tip to implement because it depends on colleagues respecting such boundaries and telling a partner that you won’t be available after a certain time. While this may be a difficult Tips to Reestablish Balance Between Work and Home

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