Mental Health & the Legal Profession

Episode Notes

Transcript

Jason Ward:

You are a litigator. Your calendar’s full, you’ve got motions, you’ve got trials, you’ve got Factums to be filed, you got to talk to clients. At some point, you have a very full calendar that you do not have a hundred percent control over, and you have to recognize that that’s your reality that you’re working with, and it takes small steps going forward to try to make things better for you.

Announcer:

Welcome to the award-winning podcast, Lawyer 2 Lawyer with J.Craig Williams, bringing you the latest legal news and observations with the leading experts in the legal profession. You are listening to Legal Talk Network.

J. Craig Williams:

Welcome to Lawyer 2 Lawyer on a legal talk network. I’m Craig Williams. Coming to you from Southern California, the legal profession can be a stressful one, whether it’s workload, the demands of clients, financial pressure, or long days and nights, it can be overwhelming to many. So what kind of toll is this stress having on lawyers and where can you get help Today? On Lawyer 2 Lawyer, we will discuss mental health and the legal profession. We will talk about the stressors that come with the profession, the impact, and how to alleviate the day-to-day stress of our occupation. Without further ado, we’re joined by attorney Jason Ward, founding owner of Ward’s Lawyers PC out of Ontario, Canada. Jason is currently retired from the practice and is now speaking publicly about mental wellness and addiction. Welcome to the show Jason.

Jason Ward:

Thanks so much and very happy to be here.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, Jason, tell us a little bit about your story you’ve suffered with some issues in your practice as all of us have in one way or another, and how have you dealt with it?

Jason Ward:

Well, Craig, the short version is before age 47, I rarely drank alcohol a handful of times a year, rarely to excess alcohol was not a factor in my life. Similarly, before age 49, I had never used drugs of any kind throughout my life and despite those things at the age of 50, I exited the profession very abruptly as both an alcoholic and a drug addict. Just before those things happened to me, I was riding very high as a very successful litigation lawyer here in Ontario, for example, I was certified as a specialist in litigation by a regulator, which is a real crew for lawyers to be given. I had owned, I still own a 12 lawyer law firm. I’m a published legal author, and I had a very high end and lucrative civil litigation practice and was regularly asked to speak at lawyer conferences. Since that time, I’m now 55, that was at age 50. When I exited, I experienced rehab. And I’ve really spending the last four or so years making adjustments in my life and speaking out all over North America about mental health and addiction as you mentioned.

J. Craig Williams:

And it’s been something that I think every lawyer at some point in time suffers from. In fact, listening to you talk, I feel like I’m talking to my twin. I don’t suffer from alcohol or THC addiction or drug addiction. I suffer from PTSD. That occurred from a couple of near death experiences that we’ll talk about briefly, but in many, many ways I’ve owned my own law firm. I’m a legal, I’m a certified specialist. I’ve got two board certifications, just mirror image to what you’ve gone through. Tell me about the stress that you felt. What is it that led you to really slam that first drink and then go, ah, this is relief?

Jason Ward:

Well, I’ll tell you in reflection, I experienced what I call cumulative trauma in this profession, which I call the most dangerous profession over my 20 years of practice. And that came to a head for me in Port Avada, Mexico, sitting poolside with my family, my three children playing card games, and for some reason I ordered a rum and diet Coke, and that single drink turned into 10 that day and 10 the next day on my vacation, et cetera, et cetera. And eventually that level of drinking crept back home to me in Ontario. And over the course of two years, I accumulated to my average night of drinking. I came home earlier and earlier from my practice in order to be able to cope with what I was feeling. And my volume at that time would’ve been three or four rum drinks to get started and on average two bottles of red wine in every evening of the week. So it really became out of control for me. And all I wanted to do and needed to do frankly, was numb what I was feeling and to shut my mind down from the high pace, high driven lifestyle that I had built around myself over the past 20 years.

J. Craig Williams:

What is it about that lifestyle and that high pace? I worked at large law firms like Gibson, Dunn Crutcher, and I’m familiar with that 60, 70 hour a week base. What were you feeling? What is it that you wanted to numb out?

Jason Ward:

But to be honest with you, I think what I was feeling is somewhat generic in our industry and in my experience, having spent a lot of time studying this issue, namely mental health and addiction in our profession, I’ve kind of developed what are the five big triggers for lawyers to experience these issues? And those are what I experienced. Well, and first and foremost, it’s really unsustainable workload. So excessive billable targets are always on expectation and culture. We never really have any true recovery time as 24 7 lawyers. We also have dysfunctional workflow, so we work with constant interruption, urgent emails, last minute filings. We have very little control over our own schedule and lives. We end up being very reactive in our professional lives rather than engaging in an intentional methodical practice. Thirdly, Craig, we operate in what I call a conflict of culture. We have daily exposure to dispute, aggression and crisis, frankly.

And our nervous system stays in fight or flight mode constantly. And for me, perhaps the biggest contributing factor was perfectionism and fear of reputational harm. We operate in a zero error culture. We have a fear of malpractice complaints, online criticism, all of that contributes going back to law school, to my need to achieve perfectionism in my practice, leave nothing unturned, no every case, no every counter argument that I will face the day before. And then I think lastly, Craig, we live in an alcohol normalized coping culture for us, and it’s no secret, stress relief is often drinks with colleagues, for example. And I think alcohol remains the biggest kept secret in the profession. So it’s not that lawyers are weak and I’m not weak, it’s just that the structure of this profession really quietly rewards things like overwork. It suppresses vulnerability and it really normalizes unhealthy coping. And when you combine overwhelming workload, chaotic workflow, constant conflict and a culture that rewards perfection and drinking mental health strain becomes very predictable and shouldn’t be surprising at all.

J. Craig Williams:

You and I have both owned law firms. What kind of responsibility do employers have to observe this, especially given the perfectionism that we all have as lawyers?

Jason Ward:

That’s an excellent question because of all the speaking, Craig, just as an aside that I’ve done across North America, I have never once in the last five years been asked to speak about this subject at a law firm, big or small, which I think is somewhat revealing to me. But law firms, they can’t just use wellness slogans. They really have to engage in proactive work. And some of the things they can think about doing would be addressing workload realistically for lawyers. Reassess billable expectations, monitor capacity before signing new matters to lawyers, build true coverage so lawyers can disconnect and recover. They could also fix workflow and not just attitude, reduce unnecessary urgent culture that we live in, improve staffing ratios, use tech more to reduce administrative drag that we as lawyers often experience, they can engage in some leadership modeling. Partners should be taking vacations and protect boundaries.

We should have some email break times, especially after certain hours wherever possible. And I recognize the demanding nature of their profession. And it’s not always possible to take some recovery time in an evening, but we could certainly be doing better than we’re doing now. I think law firms need to do a better job at normalizing and promoting help seeking for lawyers. I think they should be training supervised in the firm itself and teach partners to recognize burnout, signs, reward management skills, not just revenue. I think we could be rethinking our incentives as lawyers. It’s about time in my view. We stop equating exhaustion with commitment and success. We really need to measure productivity and sustainability. Law firms don’t reduce stress by telling lawyers to meditate. They reduce stress by redesigning the system that’s creating it.

J. Craig Williams:

We’ve seen and heard that some of the tech companies, apple and Google have gone to the far extreme on the other side of this in terms of treating their employees a particular way. And I’ve just read an article this morning that’s two lawyers, apparently it’s Susan Godfrey are now charging $4,000 an hour. So are we really headed in the right direction?

Jason Ward:

I think there’s an ongoing shift in our culture. It’s slow, it’s dragging. It’s not enough progress, but it is changing. It’s changing at the regulator level, it’s changing at the institutional level. It’s changing systemically at law firms. And I think frankly, there’s, at least in my jurisdiction, a real ground swell of young lawyers who are starting to set more boundaries when they enter the practice of law and they’re not adverse to turning their phone off at five o’clock and not looking at it for the balance of the evening. And that’s very difficult for lawyers like you and I who practice in the traditional model to understand and accept. Because if you’re like me, when I was a young lawyer, I would make sure I was the last lawyer and I’d be turning the lights out every night at that law firm because that was the expectation. And I think at the law school young lawyer level, that’s shifting fairly quickly and I think is going to cause a cataclysmic clash between those lawyers who are setting boundaries and the more traditional model lawyers like us. And there’s going to have to be some common ground.

J. Craig Williams:

So this is going to have to start in law school, isn’t it?

Jason Ward:

I think so, yeah. I mean, I often speak to law schools in Canada and talk about what young lawyers need to be thinking about in terms of mental health and addiction. And many law schools are incorporating into their programs awareness of that. But what they’re failing to do in my opinion, is the greatest tool a law student can graduate law school from is a really good sense of practice management because practice management in my view is often the source or the trigger for mental health and addiction to initially arise. If you don’t have good practice management as a lawyer, in my view, you’re doomed to experience adverse circumstances like this. I view it as incredibly important, as important as setting boundaries as important for young lawyers to be intentional about alcohol. Choose your mentors carefully. Lawyers are all good humans, but not just good. And you got to ask the question, do I want the life of that senior lawyer or just their title? So choosing a mentor is very important, and I think young lawyers and law students need to start redefining what success looks like for them. In my view and what I promote is success is sustainability. A long career versus burnout. Your legal career is a marathon, it’s not a sprint. And if you sacrifice your health to build your practice, you’re going to eventually sacrifice your practice to rebuild your health

J. Craig Williams:

At this time. Let’s take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. We’ll be right back and welcome back to Lawyer 2 Lawyer. I’m joined by attorney Jason Ward. He’s a public speaker on mental wellness and addiction. Let’s talk about your health. What is it? What impact does stress and the model that you and I have worked in, what impact does that have on our bodies?

Jason Ward:

I think for attorneys, chronic stress isn’t just pressure. It really does biologically reshape mood thinking and behavior. For example, it has a neurological impact. Chronic stress keeps the brain in fight or flight mode all the time. We get elevated cortisol when we have stress, and that promotes and facilitates anxiety, irritability, sleep disruption. It also impairs our executive functioning, our judgment, our focus, our memory, things that are extremely important to lawyers. Stress also affects us emotionally. It does increase our risk of anxiety and depression and emotional numbing or detachment from our clients and our family members. It also encourages more cynicism and compassion fatigue within us. When we experience excessive stress, it affects us cognitively as well. We experience reduced concentration and decision making clarity. We tend to engage in catastrophic when we’re under a great deal of stress. And then I think lastly, it affects our behavioral coping.

So we have increased reliance on alcohol or substances in order to try to manage what we’re feeling inside caused by stress. And you and I both know that stress has a profound professional impact because it creates higher burnout rates. There’s greater malpractice risk when we’re exhausted in our practice. And frankly, it’s strains, it strains collegial relationships. So stress and law isn’t just a feeling. It really rewires how attorneys think, feel, and cope. And if we leave it unmanaged, it’s going to quietly turn high performers like you and I into burned out survivors like I am now.

J. Craig Williams:

Right. And Jason, I want to take a moment here. I know that we’ve invited you on as our guest, but I want to take a moment to share some personal experiences that I’ve had that contribute to this conversation, I think in a different way than alcohol and drug addiction. After about 40 years in my practice, I agree with you that I believe that that chronic stress had effect on my mental wellbeing. It was probably something I was struggling with and didn’t know about, but I had two physical near death experiences, one where the doctors have told me that I was about three or four hours away from death due to an abscess hernia that went septic and landed me on an operating table and a severe infection afterwards for a number of weeks. And then following that on a trip to Ecuador, I got air sickness and reported to ICU with severely high blood pressure as a consequence of that, stayed in ICU for a week in Ecuador, tried to communicate in medical Spanish while my wife was working, and I was there alone.

And the doctors there told me that because of that high blood pressure, I almost stripped out. So as a consequence of those two things I’ve just recently learned, that combination with the stress that I underwent as an attorney and these two near death experiences, kind of one on top of the other landed me in a depression that I was not really aware of. Thankfully, about six months ago, my wife called me out on it after about a year or so of that, or year and a half of that kind of cumulative effect on me. And I’ve gotten some help. I’ve gotten some mental health help, and I’ve also gotten some medication that has begun to restore the serotonin in my body that those events exhausted and just drained me of and resulted in my depression and so forth that I really didn’t see until just recently, until I started to get better.

But when you get PTSD, which is I think what I’ve been, I don’t think the doctors have told me I’ve been diagnosed with it. Where do you get the help in the midst of this once to reach out to my insurer to get some mental health help? I could not fathom how to make it happen. It was just impossible. So where do lawyers go to get this kind of help? I mean, you’ve sought it. I’m seeking it. And where do those that need it and hopefully listening to this podcast say, that’s me. I need some help. Where do I go?

Jason Ward:

Great question, Craig. Firstly, I’m glad you’re better and will continue to be better. That’s a traumatic experience. I’m also very glad you raised the issue of PTSD in the profession because I think it’s an entirely under realized condition that affects us greatly. And we don’t realize it. Attorneys absorb trauma through their clients and cases. I don’t think there’s any question about that. And there can be direct trauma, not as common but real. There can be secondary vicarious trauma, which I think is more common. That happens frequently in our profession. But what I think has become the most serious concern for lawyers is what I call cumulative stress injury. So it’s not one catastrophic event, but years of chronic exposure and adversarial stress and effectively, our nervous system stays activated for the long term. And interestingly, very recently, in addition to my other diagnoses, I was diagnosed with PTSD arising from my professional career of the cumulative variety.

So I think it’s really the elephant in the room that lawyers really don’t appreciate and need to be aware of. Niche lawyers don’t have classic battlefield, PTSD as you might think of it, but they do experience cumulative and vicarious trauma. And your nervous system doesn’t distinguish between your trauma and your clients when you need to get help for PTSD or other mental health or addiction issues. There are several options that are available to most lawyers in the United States, and that starts with your state sponsored mental health programs that they make available. And I think every lawyer has something like that available to them in their state, state lawyer assistance programs, et cetera. Often they’re confidential, but lawyers need to be mindful of disclosure to their regulator and even inadvertently, that’s something to be concerned about. Most of them are protected from disciplinary reporting, but that’s something that needs to be monitored.

Number two, the A offers really effective assistance and attorney wellbeing resources. So that’s something that can be pursued as well. But again, the confidentiality needs to be closely thought about by lawyers. There’s an a BA wellbeing toolkit. There’s model policies for firms. There’s research backed guidance for firms to look at, and there’s fairly strong credibility to the ABAs data. There’s also what’s called the Lawyer’s Depression Project, and I don’t know if you’ve heard of that, but it’s a free, confidential online peer support group dedicated to US based lawyers and law students. It’s not therapy, but really powerful normalization and connection. And that’s something that can be [email protected]. And then of course, if a lawyer is in real or true crisis, they should always consider 9 8, 8 suicide and other crisis lifelines for immediate crisis support. But they can also be used for severe emotional distress, not only self-harm. So I think lawyers don’t need generic help. What we need is profession specific support. And in your country, a lot of those resources already exist and often they’re confidential and free.

J. Craig Williams:

That’s a fantastic list of resources. Thank you. One of the things that happens is that family members around us are affected by our moods and our situation. So what a family members who might be listening to us, how do they identify these situations, these problems, and then help their lawyer get the help they need?

Jason Ward:

Well, that’s an excellent question. In my case, for example, I have a wife who’s also a lawyer. She practices corporate law. We co-own our law firm together. So she had a very solid understanding of what the vagaries and ude are that lawyers experience on a daily basis. So she was extraordinarily helpful, patient and tolerant of me as I plunged into this state of addiction and mental health. Eventually that reached a climax and she decided to talk to me about I have to do something in order for things to continue in the marriage. But I was very open and communicative with my spouse and my children about my alcoholism and my drug use. I talked to them throughout the process acknowledging that it was out of control and that I was trying to find a solution to it. But I get calls from lawyers all the time across North America who tell me that their biggest issue or concern is they are golden handcuffed to their job and their desk because they have financial responsibilities that they cannot ignore or not deal with, and they have spouses who they feel wouldn’t understand what they’re going through and therefore why they’re abusing substances.

So I think the best thing for lawyers to do is be open, be transparent, be communicative with spouses and maybe kids like I because they’re the ones who are going to help you make that decision to reach out and get some help. In my case, I was on a treadmill in the morning. I always used to walk in the morning to rid myself of the signs of hangover from the night before. And for me, it was as simple as emailing a sober coach in one of the cities in my province with one line that said, I need help. And that started a ball rolling that culminated in a medium term stay at a rehab facility, and I’ve been clean and sober since.

J. Craig Williams:

Congratulations.

Jason Ward:

Yeah, thank you.

J. Craig Williams:

Let’s get to the really tough question, which is we’re in a law firm, we’re working together, and I see another lawyer who is obviously, what do you want to label it? A functioning, A functioning alcoholic or just an alcoholic? I’m a lawyer in the firm. I’m not a partner, I’m just an associate. What do I do?

Jason Ward:

Recognizing your colleague is experiencing some substance use disorder.

J. Craig Williams:

Yes, exactly.

Jason Ward:

Well, first choice is to approach that colleague directly and use language and frame your discussion around a non-intrusive way to try to get that person to talk to you about it with the goal of hopefully directing that person to some resources to get started on getting self-help or help on his or her own if that’s not available. Most firms have incorporated wellness directors into their corporate culture, and part of the responsibility of wellness directors is to identify and recognize lawyers who may be experiencing those types of issues and to intervene based on their training and professional acumen. So sometimes that’s a possibility. What generally is regarded as not helpful is approaching that person and being accusatory or overly judgmental or directing them to take certain steps. I think the data suggests that people who are experiencing particularly substance use disorders reacted adversely to that and it’s very unhelpful.

Third step is you can consider going to other colleagues to try to devise a plan. Perhaps you may be able to speak to that lawyer’s, family members. If you have that type of relationship with your colleague, that may also be an option. And then of course, at the highest level, each jurisdiction has rules of professional conduct or a code of conduct. And often they say, if you was a lawyer, become aware that another lawyer is incapacitated in whole or part due to some condition or addiction, you actually have a positive obligation to inform your regulator of that concern. So if it’s at that level, it may trigger your duty to report that colleague to the regulator. And often that can’t be held confidential.

J. Craig Williams:

Let’s take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. We will be right back and welcome back to Loiter Lawyer. I’m back with attorney Jason Ward. He’s from Canada. He’s a public speaker on mental wellness and has dealt with addiction. I’d like to talk about personally what you can do individually, because as attorneys I think we have very strong personalities and sometimes the capability to see this ourselves and rescue ourselves. What would you recommend to someone who’s listening to this? I’m a lawyer, but I know I’m drinking too much. I know I’m smoking too much. I know I’m shooting up too much or snorting too much, whatever. What would you say directly to that lawyer?

Jason Ward:

Well, no one can be helped unless they want the help. And I’ve learned that the hard way personally. And I’ve also learned that from many, many lawyers who have contacted me or I’ve spoken to about those very same issues. So until that person decides for themself that they need to get some assistance, they won’t. So the whole key and the goal is to come up with an arrangement or a plan that will encourage that person to seek help on their own, whatever means or necessary. In my experience, having talked to so many lawyers about this, that’s really in my view, the most effective and sometimes the only way to approach it.

J. Craig Williams:

One of the things you can do leading into this, and maybe this is some advice to younger lawyers, is to set your life up and set your work life balance so that the stress doesn’t become cumulative, as you talked about with young people right now, setting their boundaries in my situation. And I’ll just share some briefly things that I’ve done, and I’m kind of curious about yours, the steps you’ve taken. I have made a conscious effort to try and not to work on Mondays and on Fridays, give myself some more time to relax. And at this point in my career, I can afford to do that and select my clients accordingly. I’ve also put some things into my retainer agreements that have kind of set some boundaries. My hourly rate is in there, and there’s also a note that says, if I inform you that I am on vacation, then my hourly rate is going to increase to this.

And if you call me or you force me to work while I am on vacation, and I’ve told you that I’m going to be on vacation because I found that most things can wait or can be fixed at some point in time, whether than statutes of limitation. And I’ve also done some things to kind of shorten my day and lessened my workload and also made some effort to get out into the world more, to walk more, to be more social and participate in life. Just a little bit more, what things have you done and what would you recommend to do to set up your life so that this doesn’t happen, and if it does happen, what you can do to resurrect it?

Jason Ward:

Well, I guess in my case, the reason I decided to start speaking about this publicly was that I think the profession is shifting, Craig, I think from a quiet stigma to what’s now a cautious openness about mental health and addiction. And I think my story helps to accelerate that shift. The reaction to what I do is often one of quiet gratitude. Many lawyers privately resonate with it. I often get emails or messages saying, that’s my story too, or I can very much relate. And high functioning attorneys are somewhat relieved in my experience that someone is talking out about this publicly. And there’s also, as you mentioned, a generational divide. Younger lawyers are more highly receptive and open to listening to what I have to say. Senior lawyers not so much. They’re generally more cautious, but they are becoming increasingly more supportive. So I think a culture change is happening, but it’s from the bottom up.

In order to really make a difference, there has to be institutional engagement. So theBar associations A BA has to continue and expand what it’s doing, and firms have to be more willing to, for example, host mental health programs and continuing legal education. So there is a residual stigma that’s still active in our profession. There’s no question about that. There’s still discomfort discussing addiction openly. There’s still fear around reputational impact. Craig, 10 years ago, this conversation frankly, would’ve been risky, and I wouldn’t have done it if I was still a practicing lawyer for fear of the repercussions to me in my community and my business. But today, I think it’s necessary, and I do think the profession is finally ready to listen.

J. Craig Williams:

And you’ve made some fantastic suggestions to some of us older lawyers, and you’ve been a lawyer for 25 years or so. I’ve been a lawyer for 40 years or so. But let’s have that conversation with those older lawyers right now. Talk to me. Tell me what it is I need to change as an older lawyer in the way that I think about this.

Jason Ward:

I think some of the initiatives you’ve already described are very proactive and very progressive. I’m assuming that you’ve gained the perspective to put these things in motion from your experience and wisdom as a lawyer. You as a five or 10 year lawyer out there, you probably weren’t thinking along these lines. I remember leaving law school in 2000 and no one had ever uttered the words or the phrase mental health or addiction to me. I never thought about it in my career. And if I did, I was willing to sacrifice it to achieve success, public notoriety and wealth, and that was the bottom line. It’s only when it cumulatively caught up to me that I recognized how important it was. So I think what senior lawyers like you or who aren’t as active as you in doing things already really need to start thinking about is focusing on that younger generation and recognizing the shift that’s going on and how to address those needs of the younger lawyers.

Because if that doesn’t happen, as I mentioned, there’s going to be a huge break here at some point, and that’s going to cause the profession to suffer as a whole. So that’s very important. But also doing the little things like you’re doing recovery time, turning your phone off at least for a period of time in the evening if you can. I could never do that. I was a 24 7 lawyer. If you emailed or texted me at one 30 in the morning, it was rare for you not to get a response from me within half an hour, if not shorter. That’s how I operated. That’s how I thought I had to operate to achieve the success I did. I now know looking back that that wasn’t necessary, that urgency wasn’t there, and my reputation in business wouldn’t have suffered had I taken a more sensible managed approach to it like you’re doing now.

J. Craig Williams:

Yeah. Well, and I’ll fully admit, last night I did four filings at 10 30 at night, so I’m still not over it. But yeah,

Jason Ward:

And some of it’s unavoidable, and you’re a litigator. Your calendar’s full. You’ve got motions, you’ve got trials, you’ve got factums to be filed. You’ve got to talk to clients. At some point, you have a very full calendar that you do not have a hundred percent control over, and you have to recognize that that’s your reality that you’re working with, and it takes small steps going forward to try to make things better for you.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, Jason, this has been an absolutely wonderful conversation. I think hopefully very helpful to a lot of people. Tell us a little bit as we close up today, tell us a little bit about your book and the things you’ve spoken about as well as your tagline on your website, which I think is absolutely fantastic. It’s okay not to be okay.

Jason Ward:

Sure. Well, you’re going to think this is maybe comical, but one of the books I wrote is about, well, it’s called The Law of Dead Bodies, and don’t ask me how I got into that subject matter, but interestingly enough, I’ve now become one of Canada’s experts on the loss surrounding dead bodies, which is pretty obscure and not something I ever contemplated for myself. But there’s an example of one of the books I’ve written. I also regularly get involved. I’ve been involved with some universities on rewriting rules of procedure to be more user-friendly so non can better understand them given the surge in self-represented parties across North America. It’s okay to not be okay. I think what that means, Craig, is high performance does not equal emotional immunity. You can be skilled, ethical, but you can still struggle at the same time. The stress is data not defect.

So anxiety, exhaustion, overwhelm, those are signals that you should recognize that something needs to be adjusted. It’s feedback about your workload, your workflow, and how you cope. But it’s not a failure on your part. You don’t use credibility by seeking help. Early intervention is professionalism and competence. What’s the real risk is suppression of what your feeling, recognizing or identifying. Because this profession has historically rewarded silence, frankly, and it’s ignored stress that becomes burnout, depression, and addiction. And I think lawyers need to start to realize that recovery is compatible with competence and excellence in law. It’s okay not to be okay. It doesn’t mean staying unwell. It really means that you’re human before the pressure turns into something worse.

J. Craig Williams:

Exactly. Right. So if our listeners want to reach out to you, how can they do that?

Jason Ward:

I have a website, www.mentallyspeaking.ca, or I can be contacted by email at [email protected].

J. Craig Williams:

Wonderful. Jason, thank you so much for being on the show today. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Jason Ward:

Thank you, Craig, very much.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, here’s a few of my thoughts about today’s topic. And as you know, I’ve shared some of my personal experience in the show itself. This is a tough profession to be in, and it’s tough because we’re all perfectionists me among them. And when we don’t feel ourselves being perfect, sometimes we turn to other sources, other substances, and other means of dealing with it. So do yourself a favor if you’re young and starting out, set yourself up for success and turn off your phone once in a while. And if you’re older like me, let’s start adjusting some of those attitudes. It’s time that we all recognize the toll that it’s taken on our lives, on our family lives. It’s not easy, it’s difficult, and it has a tendency to ruin family relationships. So do like you’ve always done. Buckle up, get ready for the ride and deal with it. Well, that’s it for my ran on today’s topic. Let me know what you think. If you like what you heard today, please rate us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. You can also visit [email protected], where you can sign up for our newsletter. I’m Craig Williams. Thanks for listening. Please join us next time for another great legal topic. Remember, when you want legal, think Lawyer 2 Lawyer. Thanks for listening

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