Becoming a Resilient Attorney
Of all the professions, practicing law can be one of the most challenging and stressful. Attorneys deal with high stakes cases, long hours, tight deadlines, difficult clients, and the pressures of achieving success in a competitive environment. The constant demand for results and the need to manage multiple cases can take a toll on the mental and physical well-being of attorneys. Therefore, it's crucial for attorneys to develop resilience, which is the ability to bounce back from setbacks, cope with stress, and adapt to change. 1. Take car…
Better Remote Court Presentation
Remote court proceedings are not going anywhere. That said, many attorneys continue to appear in court with poor audio and video production. Your "production" is the new suit coat and shoe shine of pre-COVID court. Looking and sounding good does not have to be expensive, even if you find yourself looking like a cat sometimes. NOTE: This article contains affiliate links that help fund See Generally. Audio In a word, lawyers communicate. You need to be heard at your hearing. Looking back at the past year and the various remote h…
Establishing Justice in Both Fertile and Infertile Soil
The Preamble to The Constitution of the United States reads as follows: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. The first step taken by the Framers in seeking a more perfect Union was to “ establish Justice .” Justice with a capital J. As noted by Andrew R. Sh…
How Having a Child in the NICU Has Made Me a Better Attorney
Earlier this year, my brand new baby girl spent the first 28 days of her life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) after being born 7 weeks premature. Rural Idaho has several excellent hospitals with NICU facilities. My daughter is doing great now, thankfully, but this experience taught me a lot about what matters most and how to care for people. Some of those lessons apply directly to the practice of law. Lesson 1: Helping those most vulnerable means listening to what they are telling you. Premature babies are constantly sending out sig…
Ecliptic Thoughts: Combining the Ordinary to Make the Extraordinary
The town I live and practice in was in the path of totality for the eclipse this past Monday. It was a life-highlight. I watched the crescent sun fade in my black glasses to nothing. I took off my glasses to find this in the sky: I inexplicably wanted to cry and cheer and hug everyone around me. I could see planets and stars. The temperature dropped. 11:33 a.m. became twilight. I can not overhype what I experienced. The exactness of everything that made it happen left me feeling the divine order of our universe. That said, after the eclipse p…
