legal sanity

This article about chronically overworked and overwhelmed Americans teams well with this one detailing how small firm and solo practitioners can make “meaningful changes in our professional lives.” The first piece highlights the recent Overwork in America study conducted by the Families and Work Institute. Of the 1,003 people surveyed, one-third say “they feel chronically overworked, while more than half report feeling overwhelmed at some point in the last month by the amount of work they had to accomplish.” A byproduct of these stressors, the study found, is the forfeiture of personal time on weekends and vacations. Indeed, the line between work and “competitive sport” has become so blurred that over 30% of study participants admit that they don’t use their full vacation time. The article ends with some steps employers can take to remedy the situation. While alluding to the same work-related ills, the second article focuses on individual, rather than institutional, remedies. Specifically, it encourages small firm and solo lawyers to help themselves out of the mire by recognizing that “the most important assessment of these problems begins with” them. As part of this personal assessment, we need to honestly appraise the “areas that are the most troublesome” in our practice. The piece provides some examples of such candid self-analysis, including these:

• I am totally disorganized; my office is a shambles.

• Matters slip between the cracks; there is no system for follow through.

• Even when working 10 to 12 hours a day, I seem to be running in place.

This reminds me of the reflective practice I discussed here and here. And it probably comes as no surprise that I think it’s the way to go. Whether a solo or firm operative, the individual – that means you and me – is always the first and best line of defense against the scourge of overwork and overwhelm. By accounting for our own role in creating and perpetuating the problem, we send the message to law firms and to the larger profession that career success and satisfaction must go hand-in-hand. This is not a revolutionary notion, but a basic one that’s been lost in the shuffle of the everyday business of law.