By Joel G. Kosman, Esq., LCSW
Stress in the legal profession is not a hidden problem. Most lawyers know it exists. What is far less common is a thoughtful or effective way of understanding it — or responding to it.
I know this from the inside. I spent twenty years practicing law before becoming a therapist — and in every environment I worked in, the response to stress was some version of the same thing: push through, don’t show it, project confidence.
That response is deeply embedded in legal culture. It is also, as a way of managing stress, not particularly effective.
You Are Not Alone
One of the most consistent things I hear from lawyers who are struggling to manage their stress is that the struggle reflects something lacking in them — a weakness, a deficiency, a failure to be tough enough.
That belief is both widespread and understandable. It is also, in my experience, almost always wrong.
The difficulties lawyers have with stress are not unusual. They are pervasive. The legal profession selects for high-achieving, driven people, puts them under sustained pressure, and then largely fails to give them any meaningful tools for managing that pressure. What gets passed down instead is the cultural expectation that stress should be absorbed quietly and competently, without complaint.
This cultural expectation also seems to feed and intensify something else I’ve noticed about lawyers — the reflex to turn on themselves when things don’t go as they hoped or planned.
“I’m the problem. There’s something wrong with me.”
If you have been struggling and assuming that you are the problem, it is worth pausing on that assumption. It is not well founded.
A Different Way to Think About It
A more useful way to understand stress — and one that actually opens up the possibility of doing something about it — is to think of it as a matter of knowledge, skill, and perspective. Not character. Not constitution. Not toughness.
Consider the analogy from your own professional life. You did not become an effective lawyer simply by being smart or determined. You learned how the legal system works. You developed specific skills. You had the opportunity to practice and refine those skills over time. Without that foundation, intelligence and drive alone would not have been enough.
Managing stress works the same way. If no one has ever taught you how to understand what is happening when you are under sustained pressure — and for most lawyers, no one has — it is not surprising that it would feel difficult to manage. That is not a personal failing. It is a gap in your training.
What This Means in Practice
Reconsidering how you are framing the problem is often the first and most useful step. The idea is to turn away from self-judgment and toward curiosity.
A more workable starting point is a straightforward question: what is happening, and how am I approaching it? From there, it becomes possible to develop a more effective way of responding — one built on understanding rather than willpower.
That is what the remaining posts in this series will explore. If stress has been a persistent presence in your professional life, and if the usual responses have not been working, there is a better way to approach it. It begins with understanding what stress actually is and how it operates — which is where we’ll go next.
For more on how stress develops and affects professional life, visit the Work Stress and Anxiety pages.
If you’re considering whether working together might help, I offer a complimentary 20-minute phone consultation.
Call 914-295-2764 or email [email protected] to arrange a consultation.