Even Lawyers Get the Twisties
Is anyone else enjoying the Olympics, ideally watching from an air-conditioned or well-ventilated location? I don’t watch sports very much, but I am an Olympics fanatic. If it is in the Olympics, I will watch it!
I think part of the appeal for me in watching Olympic sports is the stories about the athletes and how they have overcome incredible challenges along their paths. I am the furthest thing from an athlete, and when I was younger, I thought that people who were good at sports were just naturally good at them. The idea that athletes worked hard to hone their skills was a shock to me.
And as an [older] lawyer, I have seen newcomers to our profession struggle against almost insurmountable odds to be called to the bar and to progress in their chosen careers. I see similarities between Olympic athletes and lawyers who fought hard to make their way and who persevered even when their paths were obstructed. Some of the stories are about law students, articling students and junior lawyers while others are mid or late career lawyers who experience mental health challenges or addiction. The key similarity is that they address they address the issues they are experiencing and come back stronger than ever.
If you are an Olympics fanatic—or even a casual observer—you may remember that during the 2020/2021 meet in Tokyo that Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all time, withdrew mid-competition because she was experiencing what gymnasts call the “twisties,” losing one’s orientation in space which can be very dangerous when you are doing triple flips in the air.
It also seems to be an all-encompassing term for losing one’s mental edge. Simone Biles not only withdrew from the Olympics, but she also withdrew from her sport while she recovered and then she gradually re-engaged with training. As you know, she has returned to full form, winning gold medals again as if her path had not been interrupted.
As lawyers, we are not concerned about our physical orientation in space—we perform mental gymnastics, not the aerial kind. But we can lose our edge metaphorically. We know that practicing law can be a head game. We have to appear cool and confident even when we are shaking inside because of our paramount duties to our clients.
We can experience loss of confidence in a variety of ways. Sometimes we have an adverse file outcome that shakes us to our core—we wonder if we missed an important issue or made a mistake. Sometimes we can shake off our sense of failing, but sometimes our fears take on a life of our own, insidiously eroding our confidence. We begin to second-guess ourselves, questioning assumptions that we make in the course of our files. We over-analyze, and analysis paralysis sets in. When we are in that mindset, we are easily blown off course. And some effective litigators (and opposing corporate lawyers!) have an excellent nose for under-confidence and use it to their advantage, and our lawyer twisties become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Many lawyers experience burnout—about 56 % according to the National Study.
Here is how one Canadian lawyer who participated in the Study described burnout and its impact on their career:
“I did experience an episode of burnout [...], which caused me to work as a non lawyer for a few years. Several months before leaving my job at a firm where the billable arrangement was that I had to bill 3x the value of my salary, I approached the office manager to let them know I was struggling and that I wanted a break on my billable targets, and I was willing to take a proportionate pay cut. The office manager told me to go get some medication for stress and it would all blow over and be fine. I did not want to do this, I knew I just needed time for a few months to sleep, exercise, and take care of a couple very difficult family matters that had arisen. My request for lower billables in exchange for lower pay, culminated in a meeting with the partners who simultaneously praised my work quality and berated me for billing too low, working for too low of rates (it had been an ongoing tension between myself and the partners); and said they couldn’t accommodate my request, or do anything to help besides raise my rates, despite my clear mental struggles, because if they did it for me it would set a precedent and others would seek the same. Anyways [few] months later I ended up going on a stress leave for several months- by that point I was a real mental mess. During the stress leave I did seek help and learned some CBT techniques and the importance of physical exercise. But really, I don’t think I even would have needed that if I hadn’t been subjected to such ridiculous expectations, and if I’d been given a helping hand when I asked for one. After the stress leave I was afraid to go back to law, I felt like I was a failure even though I had left a very good practice that was really taking off. I was embarrassed and it felt like some former colleagues treated me patronizingly, and commented that it was good I got out if I couldn’t handle the pressure.” “
Cognitive behavioural therapy and exercise—I wonder how similar this was to the early days of Simone Biles’ recovery.
In addition to burnout, lawyers experience depression and anxiety at high rates. The chart below is my summary of data from the National Study—any errors are mine and not the researchers:
When lawyers experience burnout, anxiety and depression, we may need to ask for help. But because we believe that our colleagues will think less of us—stigma—we try to bury our condition, attempting to defeat pathologies with sheer will. Some bouts of depression may resolve without intervention over time, but are we doing our best job for our clients and colleagues when we deny our need for help?
More than half of the lawyers who participated in the National Study (53.2%) reported that they have “felt the need to seek professional help because of psychological health problems but did not.”
And the study affirmed that fears of being judged—stigma—is a barrier to seeking help.
Research tells us that mental health issues are more easily resolved the earlier intervention occurs. This is embodied in Assist’s vision which we show graphically:
We urge lawyers to call our professional counselling office when they first experience symptoms. You can even use our program proactively, having an annual checkup with a counsellor and developing strategies for staying healthy.
But when issues—the lawyer twisties—set in, think about Simone Biles. Had she continued to compete at the Tokyo Olympics, she might have suffered life-altering injuries, ending her career. But by withdrawing from competition and working slowly to rebuild herself, she returned to Olympic glory.
If you know that you are not at your best as a lawyer, you are unlikely to misposition yourself in metaphorical space and break your neck. But you may undermine your duties to your client, to be competent and to delivery quality services. And this can be our version of a career-ending manoeuvre.
Sometimes, we need to withdraw from the arena and tend to our well-being—whether it is through professional counselling or medical intervention. As we talked about in the last couple of blogs, sometimes we need to take a leave of absence and ask colleagues to step in on our files while we recuperate. We want to say that we can’t absent ourselves from our practices, but we also want to have practices to return to.
We want to challenge ourselves to be like Simone Biles—even if we are not amazingly flexible 4’ 8” dynamos—and set ourselves up for longer term success. And like Simone Biles, we can take the time we need to get into a better headspace. If we tend to our well-being when we feel damaged or fragile, we develop resiliency and strategies, and we learn to recognize early signs of deteriorating mental health. By increasing our level of insight, we can take action, in fact being less likely to be “unreliable” in a future challenging situation.
Simone Biles isn’t the only Olympian who has taken time to address their well-being. I listened to the backstory of Adam Peaty, a gold-medal winning British swimmer, including in breaststroke at both the 2016 and 2020 Olympics (the ones in 2021!). However, in 2023, he disclosed that he struggled with depression and alcohol use, taking time off from racing to address his mental health (while continuing to train, however.) I smiled with pride as he won the silver medal in the men’s 100 metre breaststroke (shortly before testing positive for COVID!)
There are so many other stories, more than I can share in a blog. Let’s remember not only the incredible performances of our Olympic heroes, but also the actions they have taken to address their mental health. Please watch for the stories of adversity that athletes face and how they effected their recovery. While we may not be world-class athletes, we are high-performing professionals and we, like our Olympics heroes, can take the time and pursue courses of the (mental health) therapy so that we can be at our best.
Loraine