This paper is a short book report on “Stress Management for Lawyers - How to Increase Personal and Professional Satisfaction in the Law”, third edition It was written by Amriam Elwork, Ph. D with contributions by Mark R. Siwik, J.D. and Douglas B. Marlowe, Ph.D, J.D. and published in 2007 by Vorkell Group.
Without going into great detail of the many points made by this excellent book , I will provide an overview of the contents and highlight the most interesting discussions that hopefully will encourage lawyers to read this useful book. At times I will not be able to avoid including my comments.
Dr. Elwork is a Director of the Law - Psychology Graduate Training Program at Widener University in Pennsylvania. He is a lecturer and consultant to lawyers, law firms and bar associations on how to manage law practices and enhance the psychological leadership skills of lawyers . The book and the subject are a work a progress for him. This is now his third edition, the first edition was published in 1995 and the second edition in 1997.
The book is divided into 10 sections. The author starts with a discussion of statistics of how lawyers are stressed and then moves into the various techniques to help lawyers cope with stress. My headings are his chapter headings.
A Profession in Distress
Lawyers have high rates of job dissatisfaction, depression, alcoholism and other physical and mental ailments related to stress. Lawyering is a stressful job for many reasons. Lawyers work in an environment where there are time pressures, more work than they can handle, economic competition and difficult people. Other jobs may have these issues but law has the major additional problem that its environment is an adversarial system and the adversarial process promotes aggression and suspicion. Lawyers also are under the pressure of being responsible for solving other people’s problems and bear the pressure of working in an environment where mistakes can be very costly. They also have to deal with the negative feelings that many of the public have for lawyers.
Some practices are more stressful than others. Private practice is more stressful than a legal practice in the government. Litigation is more stressful than non-litigation practices. Family and criminal law are more stressful than other forms of litigation practices. It would stand to reason that family law lawyers, being in the most difficult categories, suffer even more from stress than the general lawyer. I would think and hope however, that family lawyers do experience a lot of job satisfaction because of the worthwhile legal work that they do.
Another source of stress in law is the general personality type of lawyers. Generally, lawyers are perfectionists and that is a problem since the probability of everything going according to plan is close to zero. The author believes that lawyers are also much more analytical and emotionally detached. Therefore they do not know how to deal with their own emotions. They also don’t deal well with their client’s emotions. Lawyers often have difficulty handling outcomes that they feel are not justified.
Overview of Stress Management
The author emphasizes that the goal is not to endure stress because that is harmful physically and psychologically. The aim of stress management is to reduce stress. If the stress producing stimulus cannot be reduced to control a stress reaction, one must first interpret or change the appraisal of the stressor and properly deal with their emotions. One must also be physically fit to be more resilient to stress. In a nutshell, one should reduce the stressor or get away from the stressors, be physically in shape to handle it and to have the healthy mental approach.
The biggest stressor for lawyers is long work hours. The main solution (though not in this chapter, but more eloquently stated in chapter nine), is “the cure for overwork is called less work.” Of course, the problem litigators have is court scheduling which is something beyond their control. A major good point made in the book is that lawyers should lobby to improve their own working conditions, as they have lobbied to improve the conditions of other groups in society. North Carolina guarantees the right of a lawyer to take three weeks’ vacation at which time court matters cannot be scheduled. Perhaps we should lobby to do away with NAD’s (Notice of Approaching Dismissals), lobby for fixed trial dates or at least more notice. Perhaps we should lobby to have a rule that the rules of the Continuing Record will be guaranteed to stay the same for at least 12 months - that it is after they get it right. The author says that lawyers should create more camaraderie and mentorship because isolation is a source of stress. He says that we should promote civility. A survey showed that there is a major problem of growing uncivil behaviour and that the present undertakings to promote civility are not working. He and others have suggested that there be more penalties for misbehaving uncivil lawyers.
My favourite argument for change that he makes in the book is that there is a problem that the
majority of lawyers and judges consider it an ethical duty to represent clients zealously. He quotes well-known Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, promoting the zealous representation concept. The problem is that zealous representation promotes incivility and over-aggressiveness. It produces stress for all concerned including the lawyers. He suggests we rethink the concept of over-zealousness in our legal system and points out that the public is also disgusted by it, which is probably a contributing factor to the lawyer jokes. I heartily agree and believe judges should be tougher on overzealous behaviour and over-aggressive arguments rather than tolerate them as “just doing their job.” I was encouraged to see that this discussion featured in the book.
Like all stress management books, there is a chapter on why it is important to be physically healthy to deal with stress. Therefore, there is the importance of good nutrition, weight control, exercise and not smoking. The author gives advice on how to get into good habits and describes relaxation techniques.
The author explains that psychological stress has four elements: stimulus, thought, emotion and behaviour. He suggests that one can control an emotional response to a stressful situation by controlling the mental interpretation of it by shifting their point of view. He suggests an exercise where lawyers would record how they think or feel when they have a stressful situation so they will become aware of the specific thoughts that cause us stress. Lawyers should then slow down and challenge those thoughts and consider other interpretations. Is their thought true? What would others think ? What can the lawyer do to generate solutions? People who suffer from anxiety and depression often do not take the steps of confronting the problem of generating solutions. To digress for a minute, I also recommend the classic Dale Carnegie book “Stop Worrying and Enjoy Life” which is more pop psychology but has many suggestions along the lines stated in this chapter on how to think differently to reduce stress.
This was the most interesting part of the book to me as I learnt the most new suggestions, probably because, as the author says in this chapter, that lawyers, and I am a lawyer, suppress their emotions to their detriment.
He discusses the importance of the concept of “emotional intelligence” which is the practical ability to understand, evaluate and improve the role that emotions, of both ourselves and others, (mainly our clients and other lawyers), play in our lives . This involves recognizing the emotion, identifying the cause and consequence of the emotion and responding to the emotion in a successful way.
The author says that lawyers suppress their emotions. Lawyers generally idolize Mr. Spock, of Star Trek fame, who believes that emotions are from a lower form of life and everyone should be rational. The problem is that ignoring and repressing emotions is not productive because it will not get to the root of the distress.
Emotions are often the result of unconscious appraisals. They are gauges that are felt, not read, and should not be suppressed to reduce stress. To reduce stress, one must be aware of their emotions. Emotions produce physical reactions with stronger and louder reactions coming from negative emotions.
Negative emotions cause physical harm and therefore the goal is to produce positive emotions. There is an excellent discussion of what he calls the six primary emotions: guilt and pride, anger and affection, fear and hope. Therefore, we have negative and positive emotions, emotions related to self and emotions related to others, emotions related to the past and emotions related to the future. There are also compound emotions and there are degrees of each emotion.
The author continually stresses that positive emotions are healthier physically and mentally, though some short term negative emotions such as guilt can be beneficial. It is the chronic long- term guilt that is a problem. He points out that getting approval from others is good but that it is more important what you think about and tell yourself. He says it is a mistake to inflate the power of successful outcomes and downplay the importance of effort and struggle. Confronting frustrating challenges helps you grow and gain confidence and concludes that you deserve to feel good about yourself. He says don’t wait to become perfect before feeling good about yourself as it will never happen. He recommends “unconditional positive self- regard” which is a global sense of self-worth which is constant and unaffected by short term success and failures. One should say that although they are not perfect and do make mistakes, overall they feel good about themselves. He says we should judge ourselves on how we would judge others and be more forgiving of ourselves. We shouldn’t think that success is what brings happiness, but the process should make us as happy as the outcome.
I think all his suggestions are very relevant to family law because let’s face it, generally no one is ever totally happy with the outcome. Clients often want to win all the many issues, which, of course, is impossible. One should strive for growth, not perfection.
The emotion of anger ranges from annoyance, contempt to rage and affection ranges from approval to love. There are a lot of angry emotions in law because of the nature of the adversarial system. He says that trial lawyers are particularly aggressive and actually have a higher testosterone level than non-trial lawyers. Angry lawyers’ experiences at work are directly related to the higher stress levels. Anger has actually been found to be harmful to health and is even related to dying younger. Like short term guilt, short term anger is o.k., it is long-term chronic anger that is bad. He says that lawyers are really unaware of how much anger they have and that they become irritable and impatient from it without realizing it. I am sure our families would agree with this. He says we should take concrete steps such as avoiding stressful situations, physically relaxing, eating well, etc. and reduce the perfectionist goal. Of course, being a psychologist he thinks anger is maybe due to unhealed psychological wounds. They should be investigated and part of stress management is to talk to a professional.
Affection is a powerful need. People who have a strong connection to others have a lower risk of becoming physically ill. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of affection found in the lawyering environment and in family law, a lot of clients just do not appreciate their lawyer. Therefore, because lawyers are not getting affection at the office, they have to pay more attention to their friends and family. He does say lawyers should try to foster positive relationships with clients and colleagues and be less critical of themselves. That will make lawyers less critical of others and feel more affection for them.
Fear includes anxiety, pessimism, worry. Hope includes confidence and optimism. Again, he points out how it is physically healthier, and one performs better, when hopeful rather than fearful. Again, it is chronic fear that is bad. Short-term fears help one to perform better at times. He suggests, “hope for the best, but feel just enough fear to prepare for the worst.” Of course, being completely fearless is not good and can be dangerous. It is best to welcome fear, assess the validity of it and conquer it. The problem is sometimes people, because they are fearful, avoid
something they should not. That also makes them feel guilty for being a coward.
Unfortunately, many fears are triggered automatically. Common among lawyers is the fear “I can’t handle it.” To combat that, he says to say to yourself: I can handle this. I’ve handled it in the past and will handle it in the future. Even if I am unsuccessful, I will feel better for having faced it. If I run from it, I will be a coward and feel worse. “ He points out that there are three types of fear fears you cannot do anything about, fears you can do something about and fears that are overstated or irrational. For fears that you can do nothing about, he says to tell yourself they are not worth fearing because you are not responsible. If you have a client who is impossible to please, or the facts are not in your favour, it is not your fault. If it is a fear that you can do something about, then do something about it. If it is an overstated fear, then cross-examine yourself and get an objective analysis of the fear.
Hopeful emotions reflect the belief that one way or another things will turn out alright. Again, he stresses that hopeful, optimistic people are healthier.
The author says that some people make the mistake of being pessimistic because they say it is more modest and courageous, but, he says it is not healthy and not good for you. Also I think you have to have a balance with your clients so they are able to make the right decisions. He talks about how to develop optimism and refers to the attitude of thinking these three points:
The six basic emotions are building blocks. He says you should understand emotions you are actually feeling , evaluate the validity and improve by asking what you should be thinking. If you are a true counsellor of law, you have to be able to evaluate your client’s emotions so you can help them also. This is especially true in family law when the clients are so emotional. Lawyers have to figure out why they are not acting rationally -whether it is fear, guilt or anger or all of them. Lawyers must get the client to determine the validity of their emotion and tell them what they should be thinking to get them rational. The author says lawyers do have to be amateur psychologists.
He points out that everyone thinks their facts are the true ones and the others are wrong, that their intentions are good and the others are bad, that they are not at fault and the other side is. He says we have to question both sides on these three issues and try to get the clients to realize that maybe there is some truth to both sides, that there are no bad intentions and no one is at fault.
This is another very interesting chapter. The author has to explain why a discussion of values is even part of stress management . One’s values are what is important in life to them. People who suppress their values, and behave out of sync with their values, get stressed. That is because they feel guilty whereas if they act on their values, they feel pride and pride is a good emotion. It is very common for people not to behave according to their values and that causes stress.
Therefore, one should pay attention to one’s values and act accordingly. He lists seven areas that are most important to people: finance, work, character, growth, relationships, society and religious faith. He suggests people first become aware what their values are and evaluate whether they are living up to those values. He has an interesting exercise to see if one is doing that.
He says how important it Is to prioritize values, but one shouldn’t have too many high priority values because it is probably impossible to satisfy them all. It is important that values are fulfilled, as not following values causes emotions such as guilt and regret.
He points out that one has to be satisfied doing less than perfect in some areas because as stated we cannot do it all. Remember that one can do anything but not everything.
People also have to figure out how they will achieve their goals. He emphasizes that one should strive for growth, not perfection because growth is a less stressful goal and perfection does not exist. One is doomed to be frustrated if one pursues perfection, yet perfection is preached by lawyers. It is another example of how lawyers are being misguided. He also thinks lawyers believe that true success comes from making money, defining a successful lawyer as one who makes a lot of lawyer. Whereas happiness is what counts. He says one should write out one page of what one believes is success as an exercise.
The author points out that goals are first created in one’s mind and then in reality. One should have concrete plans to achieve goals with those plans broken down to small, achievable steps that are not overwhelming, and fun to do. One should remember and appreciate that not everything will go according to plan and, as stated, there is no such thing as failure, only opportunity for growth. He points out the usual importance of time management delegation and spending the time in a quality way. He also points out the importance of law practice management.
The Impaired Lawyer
There is plenty of advice for the impaired lawyer, but they didn’t pay me enough to do a book report on that section.
Basically, again, the author says that life is a continuous growth experience and unfortunately there are no shortcuts.
I have read many books about stress management, so much so that my wife bought me the Mad Magazine self-help book. I found this one of the best books for me because it is related specifically to lawyers. It is the best book on this important subject because it is done by an expert whose whole life deals with stress management for lawyers. I appreciate that he promotes that lawyers fight for everyone else’s rights, but not their own, and should start fighting for their own rights. I like his argument that we should be fighting hard to be tougher on incivility and over-zealousness also. I strongly recommend this book.