Positive Lawyering: Cultivating Values and Compassion in the Legal Profession

Episode Notes

Transcript

Molly Ranns:

Hello and welcome to another edition of the State Bar of Michigan’s On Balance Podcast on Legal Talk Network. I’m Molly Ranns.

JoAnn Hathaway:

And I’m JoAnn Hathaway. We are very pleased to have the amazingly talented and knowledgeable Jordana Confino join us today. Jordana is an attorney certified professional coach and founder of JC Coaching and Consulting, a company devoted to advancing the wellbeing of the legal profession. She’s also an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School where she previously served as the assistant dean of Professionalism and where she continues to teach courses on positive lawyering and peer mentoring and leadership in her blog Chronicles of a recovering type A plus perfectionist, Jordana shares stories and offers, science back tips and strategies for reigning and fear and cultivating joy, love and values-based living in our crazy cutthroat world. So with that, Jordan Anna, could you share some more information about yourself with our listeners and include if you would, a bit about your background and also your career journey?

Jordana Confino:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for that introduction, JoAnn, and thank you to you and Molly for inviting me to join you for this conversation today. I’m so thrilled to be with both of you. What else about me? So basically everything that I am doing in my career now is inspired by the fact that I was doing the precise opposite of it when I was in law school and early in my career. And so I am on a mission to spread the word about all of the things and tools and strategies and insights that I wish I had then so that other members of the profession could not only avoid burning out I did early in my career, and we’ll talk more about that, but actually maximize both their wellbeing and their success in a sustainable way in the legal profession.

Molly Ranns:

Thank you so much for being here with us today, Jordana. I am very lucky to have had a number of collaborations with you over the past year or so. Jordana is very well known in the lap world or the Lawyers’ Assistance Program world, and she actually just did a webinar for LA last Friday where she talked about the paradox of perfectionism. And as someone who kind of wore perfectionism as a badge of honor for quite some time, I got a lot out of that webinar and I’m so excited to have you here with us today. You have shared a little bit about yourself, your background, your career journey. I’m wondering if you could talk specifically about what motivated you to transition from law to psychology and ultimately founding JC Coaching and consulting.

Jordana Confino:

Sure. So I was initially a psychology major in college. I was drawn to it, I was fascinated by it, I loved it. I was interested in that and teacher prep. And then I ended up going to law school. And basically when I got to law school, I turned off everything I learned in psychology. And really at that point in my life, I could best be described as a raging overachiever who wore her perfectionism as a badge of honor. And I truly believed at that point that in order to be capital S successful, I had to forsake every single aspect of my wellbeing in the process. And so that was what I did. I focused 150% on my law school work and then my actual work to the exclusion of everything else. And I was motivating myself with this intense fear and shame and blame based internal monologue.

And all of that seemed to work really well for me at first, at least from the outside looking in. So I graduated from the top of my class at Yale Law School with street honors and two prestigious federal judicial clerkships, big law job offer. And if you looked at me, you would’ve thought like, oh, she’s killing it, right? But the truth is, is that on the inside I felt like I was dying and I was increasingly anxious and unhappy and honestly just completely disillusioned and panicking about what my life was going to look like going forward because I knew that the path that I was on was not one that felt right, but also I couldn’t see doing it any other way. And ultimately I hit a sort of breaking point mentally, physically, in all of the ways. And that was what led me to discover positive psychology, actually Googling how to be happy.

And so I studied psychology at Yale undergraduate where a lot of people now know Lori Santos, who has the famous Happiness Lab course. She was not teaching it when I was there and no one was teaching it when I was there. So I had never heard of positive psychology. And so I discovered this thing on the internet end up enrolling in this certification program because I just so desperately wanted to know how to be happy. And everything that I learned just completely blew my mind. And I was the only lawyer in that program. And my two takeaways were, oh my goodness, everyone in the profession needs to know this, and two, none of them do. And so that was what inspired me at that point to pivot and devote my career to sharing this information with other people in the profession. Again, like I mentioned earlier, not just so they don’t hit their breaking points, but so that they can actually do this in a sustainable and satisfying way that I was not able to accomplish or achieve going at it the way that I was going at it.

And so that my initial turning point was to legal education. My capstone project in the certification program was developing a syllabus for what I called positive lawyering, which is basically positive psychology, specifically tailored to apply to the unique circumstances of lawyers and law students and members of the legal profession. And I was laughed out of the room at every law school that I shared that course with at the time, but I was able to get a role in the student services office at Columbia Law School. So focusing on personal counseling for students, a little bit of wellbeing at that time around 2017 when the lawyer wellbeing movement was first starting to take root. And so I got deeply involved in that movement and fast forward a few years later, someone from Fordham Law School reached out to me saying, we want to create this office on professionalism.

We view wellbeing as a core element of that. We would love for you to come develop our curriculum and our co-curriculum in this area. You can teach these courses. And that was really where I was first able to dive into this stuff and really start sharing it in a more meaningful way. Fast forward a few years, my positive lawyering students started graduating and calling me from their jobs and saying, Jordana, there’s no way I would survive in my law firm job if I hadn’t taken your positive lawyering course. But we need more of this. I need more support, and I need someone to share these messages with my colleagues and my supervisors and the heads of my law firm. And so that was where the seeds for my future coaching and consulting business were planted. And so now I’m doing this work through my business with practicing attorneys as well as still teaching on the law school level, really trying to infuse these lessons into all corners of the profession.

JoAnn Hathaway:

That is a very inspiring journey. Molly and I are aware that you’ve developed a first of a kind course on positive lawyering, as you mentioned, and would you mind explaining the concept of positive lawyering and how it empowers legal professionals to achieve greater satisfaction and success as well?

Jordana Confino:

Yeah, absolutely. So positive lawyering, like I said, it’s basically positive psychology specifically for members of the legal profession. And so positive psychology, just taking a step back is the science of human flourishing. Traditional psychology, which was the only form of psychology up until the early nineties, was focused primarily around a disease model. So it was focused on diagnosing and treating what goes wrong with our mental health. And positive psychology extends that focus to look not just at how can we treat illness, but how do we identify and explore and learn to cultivate the factors that promote optimal human functioning or thriving. So instead of just bringing people from negative 10 to zero or depressed or suffering to neutral, or, okay, how can we set people up for thriving and experiencing the greatest possible satisfaction and fulfillment? And so in order to get a lawyer or a law student to want to be in this course, you first need to present the science of the why to them.

So why should we care about our wellbeing beyond just wanting to feel good or a fluffy self-help thing? Because as you know, basically lawyers have been trained to like me. I wasn’t unique in for believing I had to forsake my wellbeing for the sake of my work. But one of the most powerful things in positive psychology is demonstrating a clear science backed link between our personal wellbeing and our cognitive functioning, our creativity, our productivity, and our ability to excel professionally as well as personally. And so by showing this link that our cultivating our wellbeing, that’s actually a matter of professional importance as well as personal one. That’s the why. And so we get them in the door, and so then it’s like, okay, you’ve convinced me I should care about my wellbeing, so how do I cultivate it? And so we look at the core foundational aspects of wellbeing, so things like positive emotions, engagement, relationships meaning a sense of accomplishment and vitality, and then concrete tools and strategies that we can use to cultivate all of those things specifically in the context of a high stress demanding profession like law.

And I think that one of the things that makes many lawyers and law students write off self-care and write off wellbeing is like the demands of the job. And they say, well, I don’t have time to take five hours to meditate or do yoga every day, and my job is super stressful and there’s no way that I can avoid that. So this job just isn’t compatible with wellbeing, and that is not true at all. And so we’re looking at both the why and the how to cultivate wellbeing as a lawyer, as a law student in the profession as it is with also a broader eye towards how might we start trying to reform the profession in ways that’ll make it healthier and more sustainable and successful overall.

Molly Ranns:

I love all that Jordana, and I think really tying that wellbeing to competence is so key. And a lot of states have moved in that direction, and I’m hopeful that Michigan will be moving in that direction as well. But all of those pieces that you mentioned attorneys give when they can’t practice wellbeing because of the stress of my job or because of this or because of that, I always find that all of those things really won’t even exist unless we take care of our wellbeing because we’re not going to be practicing as well as we can, and the pieces of our life aren’t going to be intact and we’re not going to be thriving if we’re not taking care of our wellness. So when you talk about that in your positive learning course, can you share with us maybe some of the most powerful topics that are covered that you think are listeners would benefit from hearing?

Jordana Confino:

Yeah, absolutely. And I’ll say I guest lecture all the time in professional responsibility courses for exactly that reason. I know that Michigan, you don’t have continuing legal education credit, which is why I just have to give more than a hundred people who joined us for that program last week, so much credit because you’re coming without even getting a reward for it. You recognize the value. But I will say that I do CES with ethics credit in other states because this really is a matter of ethical responsibility and professional responsibility, not just, again, self-help for the lawyer themselves. My favorite topics, I love all of them. I think all of them are so important, but if I had to boil it down to my favorite, favorite topics and also the ones that I always pull my students both at the beginning of the semester, which are the topics that you’re most excited about?

And then at the end of the semester, which of the topics are most impactful for you? And the ones that always come up at the end are the discussion about values alignment and how to have a sense of meaning and purpose in your work as a lawyer, regardless of which sector of the profession you’re working in. And that one students often will predict that they’ll like that one. The next two almost never come up at the beginning and always come up at the end, which is self-compassion and perfectionism. And I will say that as JoAnn mentioned at the beginning, this topic has really become a core focal point of my work. And it wasn’t actually intentionally, that wasn’t the plan from the beginning. Initially, I was thinking, oh, positive psychology in general, and then in my own life I recognized I’m doing all the things that I learned in my positive psychology course or I’m trying, and yet somehow I’m still not feeling happy or healthy and I’m still burning out.

And I realized it was because I hadn’t touched my relationship with myself, I hadn’t touched that ruthless perfectionism, and I was still coming at myself from this viciously self-critical way. So I had removed myself from a toxic work environment, but I was still had a toxic boss inside my head. And so these kind of foundational, how do we relate to ourselves? How do we talk to ourselves? Issues are almost step zero I think for then being empowered to act on all of the other topics that we cover in the class. So those students are always super skeptical coming in about whether they need them or want them and then leaving. They say this, this is a thing along with values alignment, that one’s huge, that really sticks with them going forward the most.

JoAnn Hathaway:

So Jordana, you shared your journey on how you basically propelled forward from lawyering to coaching and consulting. And I know you just talked a little bit about perfectionism. Why don’t we take a deeper dive into that and talk about how it really came to the forefront to be the focal of your work?

Jordana Confino:

Yeah, honestly, it was I had started working in legal education, and so I had pivoted. I identified my values. And going back to the values point, it’s so important, and I’m related to the perfectionism point in a moment because I feel like so many members of the profession have no sense of their why. And either because they never had a clear why to begin with or because they’ve lost sight of it and gotten pulled towards extrinsic values and hustling to try to please or prove themselves to others. And that was certainly the case in my position. So early on when I was first studying positive psychology and working with a great therapist, I did this values alignment exercise, and I realized that everything that I was doing in my professional life and in my personal life was completely contrary to my values. So I listened to that, I pivoted, I made a lot of changes, ultimately found myself working in legal education, doing a job that could not be more squarely aligned with my values.

And then like I mentioned before, I had another breaking point and I was so confused because I was like, what is happening? I’m spending more time with loved ones. I’m honoring my values. Why aren’t I happy? And again, I realized at this point, and my very patient therapist who had been trying to introduce me to self-compassion, which is one of the most powerful antidotes to perfectionism, we got to that place again. And what she said was, she’s like, Jordana, if you were a broken down racehorse that had just collapsed from injury and exhaustion, would you just keep whipping yourself to try to get yourself to get up and run faster? And I said, no, of course not. And she said, well, then why are you treating yourself that way? And that was really illuminating for me. And honestly, at that point, I’m like, well, I’ve got nothing else to lose because nothing else is working.

And it really prompted me to take a step back and begin looking at my inner monologue in my relationship with myself in a different way. And that for the first time I came to understand, once I studied it further, that perfectionism, I had been equating perfectionism with drive determination, commitment to excellence, meticulous attention to detail, all of the positive qualities that I thought I needed to be successful. And I came to realize that perfectionism is actually quite distinct from all of those things. What it really is deep at its core is this fear and shame and criticism fueled form of motivation that was actually really, really toxic and destructive, not only to my mental health and my physical health, which it absolutely was. And when I say that I hit a breaking point. I don’t mean just mentally, although it was certainly mentally, but also showing up in all sort of physical manifestations in my body and my health, not only destructive in that way, but it was actually impeding my professional performance too, and my ability to step into the highest value that I could produce if I wasn’t holding myself back in these ways.

And so that started what was for me, a relatively lengthy and extensive process of learning how to rewire my brain and my inner monologue and my ways of relating to myself, and also learning how to treat myself in a different way that was resisting the anxious impulses of my perfectionism, because I realized that perfectionism just deeply programmed instinctive, anxious thoughts and behaviors that we’ve come to reinforce because we think that they’re helping us. But once you pull the veil back on it, and there’s an amazing body of research that helps prove this, thank goodness because I don’t think I would’ve listened or paid attention if there weren’t. Once you see that and you’re like, oh, this is actually not helping me, it’s holding me back, then you can begin thinking about, well, how can I begin trying to change it? And I will say, and this is really important for anyone who’s listening, there was a point where I just got really dejected, and I was like, oh gosh.

Well, I now see how my perfectionism is hurting me in all these ways, but it’s so deeply ingrained that I could never think or operate in any other way. And so I’m just basically spoiled goods. How sad is that? And then fortunately, I learned, and again, compelling scientific proof here, the power of neuroplasticity and our ability to actually change hardwired habits and patterns of thinking and behavior through repeated practice and exposure. And so I started that process myself completely skeptical about whether it would work and was just so blown away by one, the extent to which it is possible, but also how it transformed every single aspect of my life for the better. And that is why I feel so strongly and passionately about this topic and where I’m always telling my students and my clients, again, I want to give you everything I want to teach you everything that I’ve learned.

But if I could only give you one thing, it would be this. It would be self-compassion. It would be learning how to change to reign in the perfectionism and change this relationship with yourself because everything else follows from that. And I don’t think that anyone will actually ever reach the level of satisfaction they want in any area without touching that. If it is an issue for them, which I know it is, especially for so many members of the profession, including those who don’t think they’re perfectionists because they don’t do everything perfectly, which is not what it means to be a perfectionist. And those who know they’re perfectionists, but currently believe that it’s helping them.

Molly Ranns:

I could not agree more, Jordana, that perfectionism is really synonymous to self-criticism in my experience. And I think the antidote for that, as you mentioned, is self-compassion. In the same way that vulnerability is an antidote to shame. We look at what is it that helps us to combat these tendencies that we have. This is all such amazing information, and we are going to take a very short break from our conversation with Jordana Confino to thank our sponsors.

JoAnn Hathaway:

Welcome back. We are thrilled to be here today with Jordana Confino, attorney, certified professional coach and founder of JC Coaching and Consulting. As we discuss advancing the wellbeing of the legal

Molly Ranns:

Profession, Jordana in an industry that celebrates perfectionism as we know the legal culture does, how do you see it holding individuals back from achieving more in their careers?

Jordana Confino:

Oh my goodness, there’s so many ways. So I think the most straightforward way that people recognize is that it causes so many lawyers to run themselves into the ground because they are constantly moving that goalpost further. The second they reach it, measuring their self-worth, not only by their productivity and their past accomplishments, but by their next achievements. And so they’re never satisfied, they’re never actually validated. And so they’re always just pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And in order to do that, they end up neglecting everything else that we learned about positive psychology, about the core things that actually fuel our wellbeing and our professional performance. So that’s one. I think people recognize that one, but there’s a lot of other really pernicious, sneaky ways that even if people aren’t burning out, it’s still preventing and impeding them from stepping into their highest potential professionally as well as personally.

And so a few different examples. So one is it stifles growth and development. So a core aspect, a core type of fear that underlies perfectionism is this fear of failure, this fear of making a mistake, and it’s really, or this fear of not appearing perfect, which is really deeply rooted in a fixed mindset or the belief that our skills and our abilities are fixed, they can’t be increased. So basically we should only be doing things that we know that we’re good at because if we do something not perfectly, all we’re doing is exposing weakness, exposing our inadequacy, and jeopardizing our reputation and feelings of self-worth. This is the opposite of something called a growth mindset, which is the recognition that our skills and abilities are malleable and we can increase them with effort and practice, and actually that it is only by pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone, which will inevitably subject us to a steep learning curve in which we’ll make mistakes and not be perfect at things immediately, that we can actually learn and grow and maximize our capabilities over time.

And so growth mindset is very much linked with the highest levels of performance that’s researched by Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck, and so many perfectionists just keep themselves limited and cabined in their comfort zone because they’re so scared of not doing something perfectly and what that would mean for them. So that’s one way. Another way is it totally negates the possibility of creativity or innovation. And often lawyers are like, all right, well, I don’t need creativity anyways. I am a lawyer. I’m not an artist or a musician. But creativity is so essential for problem solving, which is literally what lawyers are required to do. And so again, so many lawyers because they’re like, I just need to follow the rules and do exactly what someone has already done. They never have those great ideas that would actually make them, the savviest negotiators or litigators are the best in their jobs.

It also, it impedes leadership development because again, if we’re just sticking to coloring as perfectly within the lines as we can, we can never add value in any unique way beyond simply replicating what someone else has already done. And this might be okay when you’re just a worker bee or a junior associate, but if you want to rise the ranks towards leadership in your organization or towards partnership, you need to be able to step into your power and show up in a different way and fulfill these higher level responsibilities that require so much more creativity. And again, perfectionism prevents so many lawyers from stepping into that higher level of potential. And just one more that I’ll note because this one shocks people, is that it actually perfectionism, it impedes productivity because it promotes not among all perfectionists, but so many, it promotes procrastination and perfectionist paralysis.

It’s ironic because I feel like so many lawyers that think that they have a time management problem or a discipline problem actually have a time management problem because it’s not that they don’t know how to manage their time, it’s that they are so terrified of the prospect of not doing a daunting task absolutely perfectly on the very first cut that they will find any excuse to procrastinate on getting started with it. And this just causes so many lawyers to be putting off the important tasks while doing all of these other ential things that leads them to having some real issues in terms of their ability to get work done, how they show up and seem to others in terms of their level of responsibility. And so these are just a variety of ways in which perfectionism is so much more harm than good without us even recognizing what the root source of these challenges are.

JoAnn Hathaway:

Those are such relatable issues, I think so many of us have had, I guess, felt that pressure to get everything just right. And hearing about the impact of perfectionism really makes me wonder when you work with your clients, what are the three biggest challenges they seem to face the most?

Jordana Confino:

That’s a good question. I would say the first challenge is fear of doing anything differently because so many perfectionists and just people in general assume that they only got to where they are because most of my clients are in, they’re high achieving lawyers. They’ve gotten places that other people would kill to be. They’ve worked really hard to get here, and they believe that they’ve only gotten here because of their perfectionism, because of their ruthless self-criticism, because they’ve forsaken every aspect of their wellbeing in the process. And so they are so terrified to deviate from what they’ve done because they think that it’s been the secrets for their success all along. And so helping people understand like, oh, no, actually you got here despite these things not because of them, and they’re actually holding you back, not propelling you forward. I think that is a huge learning curve and something that they have to wrap their minds around.

Another big one is how to use their discipline in whatever the way they are. So whatever it is that they want to work on, it involves deviating from, again, how they’ve been operating on autopilot, which for many people has just been a hundred percent for my work, or a hundred percent people pleasing or a hundred percent perfectionism, whatever it is. And using that discipline and that willpower to change whatever behavioral or interpersonal or inner monologue dynamics they want to, and recognizing that that’s actually a sign of strength when they do that because their anxious brains, the second that they deviate and start creating time for themselves or saying no and drawing boundaries or not running themselves into the ground, whatever it is, their anxious brains will say, you’re slipping. You’re slipping, you’re slipping. You’re weak. You’re not doing the thing that we’ve trained you so well to do.

And recognizing that your anxious brain isn’t always right, and they’re not always accurate. They’re trying to help, but they’re a little misguided. And recognizing that when your brain tells you that you are doing something weak and you’re failing, it’s actually a sign of strength and wisdom in these respects. A third big challenge for people is, and this is going back to the values question is for people who like me, had just been living a life of shoulds, figuring out what they even care about and what matters to them can be a really daunting and scary prospect. But I will say, who is one that is worthwhile at literally whatever stage you are in your career? Because if you have any life or any career left, it’s never too late to identify what your values are and to recalibrate and every moment that you can spend in that space as opposed to living the life of should and fears is so worth it. Those are just three examples,

Molly Ranns:

But there’s so many different ones. Thank you for sharing about those. Jordana. I think a lot of times one of the biggest reasons people come to therapy is feeling out of alignment with their values. And I see that a lot with law students where they come into school really valuing internal things like honesty and family and loyalty, things they have control over, and then they’re taught to value external factors like class rank and law review and grades and all of those pieces. And that causes such difficulty. And so I’m so glad that you brought that up, and I love the conversation of values throughout this discussion as we are wrapping up today as kind of a final question, I’m wondering what advice you would have advice for lawyers who might find themselves caught on that overachievers treadmill and are really seeking a more balanced, fulfilling approach to their careers?

Jordana Confino:

I would encourage you to ask yourself, what is that feeling that you keep telling yourself that you will experience when you finally get there, when you finally achieve enough and reach whatever the next hurdle is that you’re chasing? How is it that you want to feel? And then I would take a step back and think about how can you make yourself feel that way right now? Because I think that the biggest and saddest trope that so many people say is, I’ll be happy, I’ll be satisfied. It will be enough When not recognizing that when is, we’re constantly moving that goalpost further the second that we get there. And so if we will never achieve those internal feelings that we want, if we’re basing them on reaching some external outcome, that’s the bad news. The good news, though, is that we can cultivate those feelings right now wherever we are.

And it’s only when we commit to doing that rather than waiting for the external accomplishment or change to do it that we will ever experience them. But that’s work that people can start doing right now. So I would encourage them to ask themselves that and then start thinking about what changes they need to make. And it’s might be external things and a whole lot of people, it’s also going to be internal things like how you’re relating to yourself, how you’re speaking to yourself in your head. And so I would just encourage you to ask yourself those things and then seek out tools, strategies, advice on how to pursue whatever those things are that you feel like could give you those internal feelings of true satisfaction and contentment because it’s so worth it. And what I will say is if anyone’s like, oh, I would love to start relating to myself differently, but I can’t, I will just say, if I could make these changes, including learning how to reign in my ruthlessly self-critical, vicious inner monologue, truly anyone can, I was that far off the deep end. I really truly believe that. And the power of neuroplasticity is just mind boggling. And so I would challenge you to try it before concluding that you can’t do it. And just knowing that every little ounce of progress that you make is so invaluable in terms of the amount of your life that you get back.

JoAnn Hathaway:

This has been such valuable information. Jordana, if our listeners have questions, I would like to learn more about you or your work. Where can they find more?

Jordana Confino:

Absolutely. So my website is jJordana Confino.com, and there you can find my blog Chronicles of recovering type a plus perfectionist, as well as a number of resource guides that I’ve developed, including a guide on cultivating self-compassion and a values discovery guide. So if any of this talk about values or perfectionism or self-compassion has resonated with you, start there. There’s so much information. I’m also on LinkedIn Jordana Confino, and as you can probably tell, I am mildly obsessed with these topics and would be so delighted to speak with anyone who’s interested in learning more or contemplating making some of these changes for yourselves. So just thank you so much again for the opportunity to speak with you about this today. JoAnn and Molly, this has been such a treat.

JoAnn Hathaway:

As we reach the end of today’s episode, we’d like to thank our guest, Jordana Confino, for our truly

Molly Ranns:

Wonderful program. This has been another edition of the State Bar of Michigan On Balance Podcast. I’m JoAnn Hathaway. And I’m Molly Ranns. Until next time, thank you for listening.

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