Coming Out of the Dark: Making a Positive Life Change

BE WELL

BY KATHLEEN COBLE

I have been a lawyer for about 17 years and have practiced exclusively family law. For the majority of that time, I handled mostly high-conflict family law litigation— the horrible cases. I was fulfilled by my practice and enjoyed having work about which I was passionate. I pushed myself hard, physically and emotionally. I thought about my cases all day and often in the middle of the night. In 2008 and 2012 I had my children, but I continued to be consumed most of the time by my cases.

Beginning in about 2015, I noticed that I was frequently getting sick and was having a hard time getting out of bed other than to go to work and do the basics of parenting. I was beginning to make up ways to spend time with my children in my bed, such as playing cards and making up games of imagination. I was depressed, severely so. But people like me don’t ask for help; we are the helpers. We don’t need fixing; we are the fixers. I was always last, and everyone else was always first. I continued to take the high-conflict cases because I was always worried about providing for my family, providing for my employees, feeding the “Overhead Monster,” and my reputation in the legal community. I also felt a great deal of responsibility for my clients and their children—as if I needed to help them at any cost. This is an unfortunately common story: As lawyers we make decisions every day that are harmful to us personally because we feel driven by forces that have nothing to do with our own well-being. In addition, in everything we take on, we are also pursuing this dream where we help everyone, make a good living, and go home whistling at the end of the day to enjoy all that “work-life balance” we are supposed to have. If any of you know the unicorn lawyer out there who accomplishes all of this, please let me know because I would like to visit the land of rainbows and lollipops that they inhabit.

In 2017, I hit rock bottom. I was in the dark and couldn’t get out. In one summer, I was handling (trying) separate cases with a hit man, an international abduction of my client’s child, a client who had meth-induced paranoia and then overdosed, and a case where I had to take armed security to the courthouse. I came down with mononucleosis on the first day of the trial involving the hit man (which was also my 41st birthday), after which I was sick for about seven weeks. I finished the three-day trial (sick as a dog) because I felt compelled to finish the trial. Later that summer, I went to visit my client, who had overdosed but survived, in the same ICU where I nearly lost my life after my daughter’s birth, and I hit rock bottom.

That day I acknowledged what I had known for years—I had to make a change. I had sacrificed myself and my family long enough. There was much more at stake than money, my reputation, and my desire to help people. I went immediately to my office and told my staff to turn away and refer out the nightmare cases, including writing off fees I had already billed on a child sex abuse case I had just taken. I had been mediating part-time for years, and I decided to transition to a full-time mediation practice. I don’t know that I have ever felt more peace than I did that day. It was terrifying, but not as terrifying as the horrible alternatives for myself and my family that I had been courting for 14 years.

The transition was long and hard. I dissolved my partnership with two great lawyers/friends. Mediation is a difficult business with financial and emotional challenges. I cut my overhead to the bone, but I still make less money than I did. But, and most importantly, I am healthier mentally and physically and have more to give to myself and my children. I now exercise frequently and have taken up a great new hobby that I enjoy. I take more vacations, and I sleep better. My work is still challenging, but it’s not ruining me. I have finally put me and my family at the top of the priority list.

This article is not about becoming a mediator or exercising or getting a hobby. It’s about coming out of the dark. It’s about making you a priority in your own life. It’s about making changes so you can have the life you want and need. We all chose the law, but the practice of law doesn’t have to break us. It’s not weak or wrong to ask for help or to seek change; it’s brave and a show of strength. But the only person who can make the change is you. If it’s time for you to make a change, don’t wait—it’s not going to get easier; but it will get you on to a better life, which we all deserve. AL

Kathleen Coble is an attorney and mediator with Coble Law and Mediation along with being of counsel to Sheridan Family Law. Kathleen has been licensed to practice law since 2005 and received her J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center in 2005. She received a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998. Kathleen is board certified in family law and is a fellow in the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers and the International Academy of Family Lawyers.