May is Mental Health Awareness Month. May 6–10 was Well-Being in Law week. Like any good lawyer, the author of this took on more than he should have and did not write this in time to publish it that week.

Living in this world is hard. Being a lawyer is hard. Being a lawyer representing people who have been sexually harassed or had their wages stolen from them is hard. It’s easy to let the difficulties of our jobs and our lives take over.

Law school does not teach you how to be a lawyer. It especially does not teach you how to deal with the stress, vicarious trauma, and burnout that comes with being a lawyer.

Dealing with stress may come naturally to you. You might fish on the weekends, vacation to other countries, or do yoga. Dealing with stress may also be as stressful as the stress itself. Yoga gives me anxiety. Vacations give me anxiety. I should give fishing a chance.

Our clients hire lawyers because we are professionals who know how to handle their problems. I have a therapist because I don’t know how to handle my own problems. I take medication because my therapist doesn’t know how to handle all of my problems. And my brain needs the chemicals to function right.

I’ll never tell anyone how to deal with their stress. But I will tell people to take stress seriously. You need to be able to live. You can’t live going to bed stressed and waking up burnt out. And you can’t represent your clients. If you are not working, you should not be working for your clients.

At last year’s Convention, NELA presented a session on compassion fatigue, second-hand trauma, and techniques to ensure you are caring for yourself and your clients. The presentation features Chelsy Castro, CEO and Founder of Castro Jacobs Psychotherapy and Consulting, a firm specializing in lawyer well-being.

At the Convention this year, the panel “Practical Wellness for Burned Out Attorneys” will provide a practical take on how to manage your stress, vicarious trauma, and burnout in a lasting and meaningful way.

You can also learn more about well-being practices through the Institute for Well-Being in Law.