EP 805- Handling Tough Emotions

Episode Notes

Transcript

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Heels in the Courtroom, a podcast about successfully navigating law and life featuring the women trial attorneys at the Simon Law Firm.

Mary Simon:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Heels in the Courtroom. Today I’m joined by Erica Slater. Elizabeth McNulty and Liz Lenivy. Hey ladies. Hey. Hello. Hi. So today we’re going to be talking about a topic that has recently come to my mind just thinking about the mental and emotional resilience that trial lawyers have to or rather get to endure at our jobs. And I know that this probably lands across several professions. It’s not limited to trial attorneys, but specifically working at a plaintiff’s office where we’re dealing with clients and families and folks who have children in their children’s cases. There are a lot of emotions that go into getting a client from point A to point B in their case, and there’s a lot of ups and downs in our day-to-day practice. We could be on the phone to start the day talking with an expert on a case, and then an hour later on the phone talking to a parent rejecting their child’s case.

Then we could have a hearing later on, a motion to compel within a very adversarial matter with opposing Counsel. Needless to say, it has a lot of quick pivoting between what can be heavy emotions to get through and get through them rather quickly. I just tried a case a couple weeks ago and I feel like in the days that followed, there’s a lot of congratulations, but then there’s also coming down from the adrenaline of trial and everything that goes with that. So I was thinking about this in the broader sense of how many truly emotions are we going through on a day-to-day basis in our jobs, and we’re all able to get through it, we continue to do it, we like to do this. So how are we doing that? And I thought this conversation could help facilitate a discussion between us sitting here at this table, but also serve as guidance to other attorneys who listen to this podcast and maybe give them some advice on their days that might be hitting a little bit harder than normal. So with that, I wanted to have a discussion of what is the hardest or some of the most difficult emotions that you experience as a trial attorney and how do you carry those at work? How do you get through it? How do you navigate it?

Erica Slater:

So Mary, I had a day last week that it would’ve been great if we had this conversation right before that day because it maybe would’ve armed me for the rollercoaster of that day because it unknowingly started out just with a very emotional conversation with a potential client. There are days in doing exactly what you said as far as you’re on a high from winning a really difficult motion, and then an hour later you’re talking to parents about how you can’t go forward with their case for their child who will have lifelong injuries. I mean, to bring yourself present in both of those moments within a couple of days of each other, I think can be difficult. To do it within an hour can feel manic. And I know that in the past we’ve kind of talked about compartmentalizing and how I think our jobs as plaintiff’s attorneys and as attorneys in general, depending on who your clients are, can end up being very trauma adjacent.

I know the word trauma is very controversial sometimes, but without all the rhetoric, we are people who work with people who need help in situations where there have been catastrophic changes to their life, to their wellbeing, often their physical condition, basically everybody’s worst nightmare. So the other day, my day started off with, this has happened before and I’m always happy to accommodate this. When our intake department spoke with someone, they said, I’m not really able to tell this story several times. I’d like to talk with a woman and I’d like to talk with a woman who is one of your attorneys. Can you do me that service and call me back? And the answer is absolutely yes we can, and I won’t go into the details, but we could not help her. But I was on the phone with that person for an hour and Amy’s not here today, but unfortunately for Amy, the next person I passed in the hall was Amy after that conversation.

And I wasn’t reeling. We’ve been here before, but it was just so devastating to hear this information and to hear this person’s story, and I kind of feel bad in retrospect that I did this, but nobody better than Amy. I unloaded it really quickly on her and said, I just heard this. Oh my gosh. And she could see that. I was like, woo, I need to take a five or 10 minute break and stare at a wall real quick. It was very much like, wow, that was just a lot to hear. And Amy immediately validated like, wow, oh my gosh. And then immediately pivoted to putting on her armor and the rational brain that we use, the reason we couldn’t help this person had to do with the way the law operated. Then she immediately looked at me very earnestly and she said, you got to push that down.

And it wasn’t like being insensitive to it, but she knew immediately that it’s one of those moments that if you take it on or you dwell on it too much, you can’t do your job. And it was a great reminder of take a breath, remember your role, and thank God that I have that response because I never want to lose that emotional interpersonal response to talking to someone about really difficult things. But at the same time, it was so great to have in the moment someone that I could one be vulnerable with really quick. She could almost be strong for me in a moment. Get back to the rational brain and say, push it down. Go put on your armor and do your job. And that’s not critical. It’s exactly what I needed to hear because there are those moments kind of sprinkled throughout the weeks.

I mean, hopefully those moments don’t happen weekly, but it’s often enough that muscle you have to flex all the time. So Mary, when you brought up this topic, I made a quick list of all these emotions. It’s manic, it’s loss, trauma, exhaustion, grit, perseverance, indignation. Those are things that can be in the span of an hour and to always operate as if you have a chip on your shoulder basically because you’re always, for the most part, arguing. You’re advocating and arguing against someone whose job it is to beat you and you wake up in the morning and you have the same job against that person. And it’s just kind of a strange way to live your life. Once in a while when I sit back and think about it, because in my personal life I’ll go to bat for whatever I have to, but I don’t seek out conflict.

I do my damnedest to disarm and avoid conflict situations. So probably because I do quite enough of that at any other given time. But I think that just carrying that skill, it’s not carrying and dealing with other people’s trauma because if I couldn’t get over it for the rest of the day the other day, if it wasn’t taking five, 10 minutes in a quick conversation with someone I trusted to be able to get past it because that’s my role. I am there to evaluate and consult about legal things. And no doubt this work is personal and the further along you get in a case, the more personal it becomes. But at the same time, I think it’s just exercising that muscle and carrying that armor I think is one of the most difficult skills that we learn. But any muscle, I think it gets easier as you go on.

And I actually don’t regard that as I’ve become more callous because that’s not true. I am a sensitive person and I’ve never lost that through doing this job many years. So I don’t think that flexing that muscle is the answer is that you become callous to it. I think it’s that you understand how to work around our clients, you’re dedicated enough to their cause and what you’re doing to stick with it. Because if there’s any day that you wake up and you hear a story like that and it doesn’t affect you some way, then you got to pack it up and find something else because maybe you have hardened and become callous. And I just don’t think that you can effectively do this job if you’ve gotten there. So in a very long answer to your question of what’s the hardest emotion that I think we deal with at work, I think it is that emotional flexibility of being able to get through high highs and low lows in a short span of time.

Mary Simon:

It’s important I think, to acknowledge

The process of how you even got through that running into Amy in the hallway. It’s that when you go to bed that night, you might not be thinking to yourself, how did I manage to get through that moment? So it’s nice to consider how you did because I’m even sitting here thinking about the next time that one of those sort of overwhelming moments of hearing someone’s story, especially if it’s a situation where we’re unable to help them, is now I’m going to put in my toolbox, pick up the phone and just phone a colleague and say, Hey, this just happened and I just need someone to say to me, got it, it happened. That is crazy. Now take your five minutes and put your lawyer hat back on and dive back in. But shelf it for now because if you keep going down this, you won’t be able to easily dig out of it, but it’s something that matches, it matches the circumstance. So it is a good reminder to actually think about how you get through those moments. So when a year goes by of those moments that can happen weekly, hourly, whatever it is, you’re not at the end of the year saying, I can’t do this anymore. Could you actually have the bandwidth to continue? Yeah, exactly.

Erica Slater:

Yeah. And like you said, it was by chance that I ran into Amy immediately, and there’s the majority of our colleagues here that I feel like I could say, Hey, I just had one of those conversations and I don’t know, absent having that interaction, if it would’ve stuck with me longer and I would’ve gotten a little distracted and trying to get focused and back to work after taking a quick break after that. So you’re right, being proactive about it is a way of making sure that you’re keeping everything in line, I guess for your own emotional health as you go through your day. And I think that’s a burden that we all take on.

Elizabeth McNulty:

There are certain occasions though where you have to take the time to kind of sit with the emotion. Probably in cases where you’ve taken the case and you’re working with something that’s especially difficult. For me, it was a few years ago, I was working on something that hit a little closer to home. That client was close to my age, something very traumatic happened to her. She wasn’t able to talk about it quite yet. So we were having to do a lot of work to get to the point where she would be able to for a deposition. And so that was something I had to be a part of and it was really difficult to have to witness that and watch her go through that. And also I think you can’t help but put yourself in that situation as well. It was something that it was really hard to, once the meetings ended to just go back to sending your silly little emails, or at least they felt so silly after hearing what someone went through and what they were continuing to deal with as a result of that.

And I think that it takes such mental toughness to do this job, and I think it takes even more mental toughness not to let yourself completely wall off that emotion and to let yourself feel it sometimes. And you can’t always just push through it and let it not hit you. I think that that is why we’re good at this is because we let ourselves feel it. And I think that when we present cases, you can tell that we feel it too. And there’s a certain part where it can become too personal. And I think that we have to be weary of that because then it becomes too personal and you take things too personally and you can’t be an effective advocate when that happens. But I think that mental toughness is such a hard and important part of this job, but it certainly takes a few years to get the hang of it and it’s not a fun part, but it’s really hard.

Liz Lenivy:

It’s a necessary part of it. Absolutely. Like you said, Erica to avoid burnout. Yeah. Elizabeth, I think you are the youngest attorney in this group, and so I just am curious because you already have experienced so much in just the short amount of years that you have, what has that process been like for you in sort of developing this armor or learning how to compartmentalize that? Are there things that you have done or maybe lessons that you’ve learned that you can pass on to someone who might be even earlier on in their career?

Elizabeth McNulty:

I think at first I didn’t like to talk about it a lot. One, it doesn’t necessarily feel like our business to share and not share. I share every intimate detail with someone, but sometimes just when you’re talking to someone else about their day and they start to tell you something that feels very trivial, I think you have to be upfront, especially, it’s like someone very close to you. You have to be, okay, well this is kind of part of where I’m coming from with what happened in my day. And I think that sharing parts of your day helps you kind of at least unload that burden onto other people. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a colleague from my experience. Another thing I think is to just learn that it’s part of the job and it’s something that we have to get through. And at the end of the day, hopefully we’re helping these people, whether we’re able to take the case, helping them share their story, get some sort of justice or if we have to turn down their case.

I think that it is a really hard and it makes me feel very guilty. And I think that that’s another difficult emotion that we have to feel in this job because a lot of the reason that we do what we do is we want to help people. Lots of people say when they go to law school, they want to help people, but it is a thing that we actually get to do. And sometimes you want to help everyone and everyone has a really sad story when they come through the door and say you want to help them. But the truth of the matter is we can’t help everyone. And so when we have to tell someone who’s had this horrific thing happen to them that we can’t help them because of whatever reason, I think we are doing them a service as well because we don’t have to put them through a very difficult experience of having to share their story and go to trial and then it end with a jury telling them that finding for the defendant. So I think that that’s another service and it leaves me of that guilt sometimes I still think the conversations are very difficult. So those are just some of the things that I’ve learned, but I still think it never gets any easier. I don’t think you just kind of learn to deal with it as part of the job.

Liz Lenivy:

This is a really interesting topic for me to think about because of something that happened in the relatively recent past, but just a bit of background. I had spent the last couple of years working on a particularly difficult case and it was difficult for lots of different reasons. The client situation was difficult, the actual topic was very difficult. Everything I had to learn in order to proceed with this case, it was a very complicated medical matter. And it was the first one that I had handled of a case this size almost entirely by myself. And so that was a very strange experience for me. I worked really hard on this case. I got really close to the client and it had kind of consumed my life for several weeks. I mean it really consumed most of my working life for the last couple of years, but definitely ramped up in those last few weeks as you got close to trial.

As I was getting closer to trial and it was just a lot to process. Basically everyone was looking at me to give directions and answers, and I felt very overwhelmed by the situation. So the actual working situation was very overwhelming, but ultimately we were able to successfully resolve this case before trial and I felt really good about it. It was kind of my first glimmer of hope in this case. And it also came at a time where the client who again I grew very fond of, I found myself being really protective of his medical condition, seemed to kind of be on the improvement on the up and up, and I thought he was getting better. Everything was starting to look better. And so we resolved this case, I was feeling good.

And then very shortly thereafter, unexpectedly and really coming as a shock to my system, he passed away. It happened very quickly. It wasn’t something that it had been a week’s drawn out process or months or whatever. I mean, he had been in pretty bad shape for a while now, but it was kind of looking like some glimmer of hope for this client. And out of nowhere he passed away. And I remember it was late on a Friday evening, I get this news and I’m sitting in my office in shock. I don’t know how to process it. And I just found myself walking down the hallway trying to find someone to ask What do I do? Because everyone’s been coming to me with all of these questions and I’ve been doing my best to try to come up with answers and solutions and strategies. And now in this moment where I thought I’m finally going to be able to get some justice for this client, finally there’s some resolution

And he doesn’t get to see it through. And I walk into Erica’s office and Elizabeth, you were in Erica’s office. You all were talking about a case that you had at that time. And I just remember just sitting on Erica’s couch and saying, what happened? And you both looked at me kind of in shock as well, because I’d kept you updated on the case. You knew what was happening and you knew about how hopeful I had felt about the situation. And Erica, I think you both gave me your condolences, which feels weird in that situation of he’s not my family, I didn’t know him outside of the context of this job, but I appreciated the fact that you all immediately recognized how close we do get to our clients and what that feeling must have been like for me. And Erica, you immediately went into, okay, let’s start thinking, let’s start talking about it. We still have a job to do. There are still responsibilities that we have and we can’t sit here.

Erica Slater:

It was also late Friday night and you had a hearing Monday morning at 9:00 AM that was affected by this.

And I think it was just such it a moment because you didn’t have time to not respond or collectively we had to spring into action in the middle of being devastated by, after just getting this client, the feeling was you can take a breath, you will be taken care of for the rest of your life. And then this happens. I mean, you were not in the eye of the hurricane. The hurricane was coming right at you and you had to completely either get help shut down or the mode you don’t have is to be callous and not have any reaction and just like, well, I got to do this now. So

Liz Lenivy:

I mean, I’m sitting in Erica’s office in tears being like, we have to call this person and this is what we need to do. And Erica very much thank you for coming up with a game plan. And it made me think of the speech I heard. This was Reese Witherspoon in 2015 when she won Woman of the Year. Part of her speech was, do you know any woman in a crisis who has absolutely no idea what to do? I mean, we tell people in crisis, even children, if you’re in trouble, talk to a woman. And it’s because women handle crisis situations and we jump into action, we’re not going to dwell on it. And so Erica immediately came up with the game plan. And that’s the thing. You had all the strategy, I had all the parts and the pieces and the information about the people and you helped me.

We basically divided and conquered it where I called this group of people you handled calling this group of people. And we just made sure everyone was aware of what was going on. We came up with that strategy. You helped me get ahold of John again. It was late on a Friday evening, so John wasn’t at the office. And so John called and he helped us work out what the next steps were. And actually sitting here talking about this, I recognize that all of the women at this firm, I mean John was great, but all of the women at this firm did something for me in that moment. Obviously Erich, I have talked about how big of a help you were while I was back in my office, Elizabeth, you were working late on a Friday, you had something big coming up yourself, and you took the time prepping, you were trial prepping, and you came into my office and I looked at you and I said, this is the worst I’ve ever felt at this job.

I’ve never felt more hopeless than I do right now. What is the point of it all? And Elizabeth, you just looked at me like dead in the eyes and you were like, you have to remember, you were that kid’s biggest fighter. You were in that kid’s corner. You were his advocate. There was nothing more you could have done for him. And so you have to remember that even though you feel terrible right now, you did everything you could for him up until this moment. And I was like, that’s what I needed to hear. Amy called me because we had texted her informing her what happened and Amy was going to help me try the case. So she was really familiar with the details of it, and Amy called me and she does what Amy does best, which is talking us through everything that we’re feeling in that moment.

And I so appreciated having all of the experience that she has had and her imparting that wisdom on me. And then Mary, the next day you texted me to check on me and that was what I needed in that moment because at the time it was just so much to process and it was such a shock and I didn’t, it just felt so weird when you put in headphones and it’s like a white noise, you just kind of feel like you’re not fully hearing everything, but you can hear a little bit past your headphones. It was like that for me, which is just so weird. And I had had the night to process and marry you checking on me the next day once I had had more time to think about it and actually just let absorb it.

I am just so thankful. I work at a firm of compassionate people and also professional people. That was a combination of both of those that I needed. I had the professionalism from everyone that was willing to jump in and help me with this situation that I’ve never faced before. And I also had the compassion and the support that I needed in a moment that was really emotional. And I think about it, I hate crying at work and I’m crying right now, and it’s so embarrassing. And I think about it, I’m like, if I was younger crying in the office that night, I would’ve been so embarrassed at that time. And now I realize it is not something to be embarrassed about showing that level of emotion and that level of care that I know we have for all of our clients, but that I just really had for this particular client because of everything we had gone through leading up to that moment.

That is not a sign of weakness, that is a sign of strength and I think is a credit to the type of attorneys that we are here and the type of attorney that I want to be and that you are, and thank you. And so this is a really traumatic job. There is a lot that goes on, not just the actual physical and mental grind of it, but also having to take on what our clients go through. And also not being ashamed of it. That is the hardest emotion for me in this job. But it is also one that I’m so grateful I get to have and I get to be human at my job and I get to make a difference in people’s lives, and I get to be that champion for people. And so it’s hard, but it’s also kind of sometimes the best part about it.

Mary Simon:

Yeah, I think too, something that I’ve been thinking about listening to this discussion too is the upside to this is that I think experiencing emotions is a privilege. I think having the ability to even have a second to pause to experience an emotion is a privilege. And it goes to exactly what you were saying, Liz, that there’s so much strength in vulnerability and showing that side because that’s authentic. And I think that the not only clients, but even colleagues appreciate that more when we get to come together in moments like that and how fortunate are we to be able to be in a position to even have done so much help for someone that we are that impacted by something happening to this person. It’s a privilege to be able to experience the emotions that we all just talked about.

And I think too, it’s funny, as all of you were sharing, we were talking about what are some of the hardest emotions to carry at this job? And everyone was talking about things in relation to clients and hearing about that sort of those kind of gut moments that are hard to get through. I was almost laughing to myself because the first thing that I was writing down had to do with more interpersonal frustrations in an adversarial system when you’re just constantly, you wake up in the morning and you’re like, it is the people’s job that I’m working with to disagree with everything I say and vice versa. Let’s go. Let’s walk into the office. It’s almost funny that that’s what I was thinking was frustrating. And then hearing all of the stories, obviously those are harder. You guys understand, you understood the assignment, so to speak, that those are much harder than what came to mind for me.

But I don’t want to disregard it entirely because I think it’s one of the emotional bags that we carry, so to speak, is the, I guess it kind of does relate to a client because the things that I’m thinking about too have to do with when something just feels so unfair to the client that you have to even engage with somebody to talk about something. Especially if your time and efforts that you’re doing are, for example, spending time doing something to address a defense in a case that is attempting to put any aspect of the damages back on your own client. And you have to spend your time and energy attending hearings and depositions and taking significant amount of time for something that you just feel is so unfair and having to engage with another attorney on the record, off the record, whatever it is to talk about something that you just in your heart, you know that it’s not reflective of who your client is and what their experience has been.

I find that to be really frustrating. And I also kind of in my toolbox in those moments will either phone a colleague, and there’s only been one time so far that I’ve actually straight up left the office and went home and just kind of sat by myself for a second because I couldn’t. It was one of those things kind of a different way of thinking about it. Like Liz, when you were talking about the fuzzy noise, it was almost like I was looking at my computer screen and my emails and it was just a bunch of letters and words, and I was like, I’m so angry right now. It was more of a rage feeling that I couldn’t jump back into what I was. So I actually left and I got a cup of coffee, which probably wasn’t helpful, but then I just went to my house and had a cup of coffee and I actually felt better after a little bit.

I’ve only done that one time so far. Anyway, I’m sure there’ll be another day to do that. But I have really appreciated this discussion. And it also is validating to have this discussion, especially for folks who are listening to know that if you wake up in the morning and you’re listening to a great playlist as you’re going into work, and then halfway through the day it’s like you’re getting to the sad playlist and then it’s back on the happy playlist and then it’s back down. And then on the way home, it’s your rage playlist. It’s

Erica Slater:

Just manic.

Mary Simon:

Oh my gosh. And it’s just, that’s the job and that’s what we’re all doing and we all, there’s something in all of us that likes it. We keep showing up every day and we want to keep showing up in the future. So it’s just nice to have some of those tools in our toolbox to dip into whenever one of those emotions is carrying more weight than others. But I’ve really, really appreciated this discussion, and I hope our listeners can take something from it on the next day that you’re angrier sad or frustrated or just having a great day at work, which obviously we wish to all of our listeners.

Erica Slater:

I’m going to wrap that all up by organizing my list. I think the perseverance and indignation that I wrote down describe exactly what you were talking about. I agree with you completely. That’s on my list, but both of those put together equal fight, and every single person in this room has the fight in them to do the job every day because of why you came into this profession. You didn’t come into this profession to be the great mediator. You came in to be the great advocate, maybe later in life, the mediation sounds great, but not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not

Mary Simon:

Yet. And with that, ladies, thanks so much for another great discussion. Don’t forget our episodes drop every other Wednesday, and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us at comments at heels in the Courtroom law. See you next time.

Speaker 1:

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