Know Yourself to Help Others:
Wellness and Professionalism Go Hand-in-Hand by Stuart Gilliam
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I closed my practice at the end of January, took down my shingle, and went inactive with the state bar. Soon after, Anina Dalsin asked me to share how, despite challenges I faced along the way, she, at least, thought I had practiced with confidence, grace, and wellbeing. So, either I put on one helluva show over my 35 years of practice, or I managed pretty well. It made me think, what did I learn about these topics in my years of being an active lawyer? And if I did learn something, would my education be useful if I shared it with others? And crucially, how do I share it without relying on the war stories that attorneys are so fond of telling?
defeats, promotions, partnerships, dissolutions, marriages, children, illnesses, deaths, etc. Some of my challenges were typical and some not so. Early in my career, I was empaneled on a Federal Grand Jury for 18 months which delayed my path to partnership. My second child was autistic, necessitating a lot of attention and effort to get an appropriate education for him. In the ‘90s, a 10-year regulatory battle with the Army Corp of Engineers in regard to a family farm ended well, but on one occasion I thought I might leave the land in handcuffs. My wife suffered Stage 4 Lymphoma: a year of terror and treatment, fortunately with a happy ending.
We all experience challenges in law and in life: long hours, successes,
I am not diminishing the challenges others have and will face; it is part of life. The background noise
MAY 2021
(sometimes deafening) affects all careers. It is just that with the law, the intensity of what we do makes the challenges very impactful and also makes us vulnerable to certain fictions:
Fallacy #1: “Everyone else is more skilled than I am.” There is a psychological danger in comparing yourself to other attorneys. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. There are the attorneys who can cite code sections and relevant cases at just the right moment. That’s not you? Don’t worry; no-one is the “complete package.” They are just putting their best foot forward in full view. (Perhaps that is all that they can do.) If you can’t do a particular thing or have a go-to strength don’t assume that you are
