CBA Record May-June 2025

MAY IS MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH

W hether you’ve been practicing law for a month or for 50 years, well-being is a crucial dimension of personal success and professional fulfillment. It’s never too late to implement healthier habits, starting with mindset. Our habits, thoughts, and ways of being are not set in stone; they are ours to refine and shape. As lawyers, new or experienced, our minds are our working asset. Critical thinking is key, of course. But critical thinking can start to create thinking patterns that can take a toll on our well being and mental health, and therefore our practice. Wellness requires an equal force to act as an antidote to the daily stresses of our practices. To be well means to care for our minds, emotions, and thoughts. This is a challenge for many of us. Reasons for the Struggle What are some reasons we, as a profession, struggle with wellness? For one, starting on the first day of law school, we get primed to think abstractly and analytically. Emotions become sidelined. We spend several years analyzing risks, spotting issues, and identi fying potential harms. Once we sit for the bar exam, we have become proficient at finding, seeing and addressing problems. We may not even be aware of the change to our mindset and way we see the world, but there certainly has been a shift. The way a doctor might come to see people as symptoms, we learn to see problems in almost everything. It becomes hard to turn off that mindset. Over time, it can become fused with our identities, not just as attorneys, but as humans. Of course, exceptions exist, but often we are touched by this change in perspective to some degree. Why does it matter? It matters because without a counterbalance to this intense focus SHIFTING GEARS: Using the Power of Perspective to Build a Healthier Lawyer Mindset By Karen Munoz

on issues and problems, our mind has no refuge. We begin to adapt to this mental environment, which can make us hypervigi lant, restless, and unwell. How does this manifest? Often, we see it by learning to sup press our emotions and temporarily shutting down feelings that might overwhelm us. Over time, we may adapt in the form of overusing drugs and alcohol, and/or developing depression or anxiety. This impacts our ability to thrive and be healthy, in and out of the profession. It is easy to wonder why lawyers are so stressed and why the numbers reflect higher rates of mental health and substance use issues than other high-stress professions such as ER doctors, fire fighters, and teachers. But consider what makes the practice of law different. The firefighter doesn’t have a counterpart trying to undo the firefighter’s work of putting the fire out. The surgeon doesn’t have another surgeon in the room replacing or switch ing out the surgeon’s tools. In law we have an adversarial system designed to arrive at the truth. Coupling the mental reset that occurs over the practice and the adversarial pressures that arise, the reasons for higher-than-normal depression, anxiety, and alco hol use start to make more sense. We don’t intend to be hardened as we travel through our prac tice, but over time, without our awareness, that can be the condi tion we find ourselves in. There are a few things worth noting; the skills of planning for the future, strategizing, and analyzing are necessary for skillful lawyering. We must always be several steps, several months, and several years ahead and must plan for many eventualities, contingencies, and unexpected obstacles. But these skills are not exclusive to the legal profession. However, the consequences attached to the lack of planning in our profes

30 May/June 2025