The stress test: How to know when anxiety is harming your legal work

By Jessica Stephen The Daily Record Newswire MILWAUKEE, WI - For attorneys, anxiety is more than a matter of mental health. "It affects lawyers in terms of malpractice claims," said Tom Watson, senior vice president of Wisconsin Lawyers Mutual Insurance Co. "Malpractice, and even small errors, don't occur because people are necessarily bad lawyers, but because things fell through the cracks," argued Watson, a former family law attorney who has worked at Wisconsin Lawyers Mutual for about 10 years. "They have too much to do. They don't have a good work-life balance. Things can creep up on a lawyer." Those things often lead to even more stress and anxiety, which can build to the point that they harm a person's performance. "How often is stress or anxiety or being overwhelmed by work? How often do those things play a role in a malpractice claim? I don't have a percentage," Watson said. "But I can tell you for sure that we do see it." Anxiety is the second-most common subject of mental health complaints made by attorneys who get in touch with the State Bar of Wisconsin's Lawyer Assistance Program - trailing just behind depression. And of the 700 contacts the program records each year, about 50 percent are for mental illness; the other 50 percent are usually for substance abuse, said Linda Albert, the program manager. With anxiety being found in about 18 percent of the general population, those numbers indicate an inordinate amount of anxiety, even considering the inherently stressful work found in the legal world. "The situational anxiety with attorneys tends to center on high caseloads, missing deadlines, not being prepared, the adversarial approach," Albert said. "I see a lot of anxiety over competing interests, not really having time for leisure and home life. There's been a lot of anxiety around financial concerns, particularly since 2008 or 2009. But, typically, the lawyers just have too much on their plates." Attorneys usually can tell that they're in trouble when their work begins to suffer. But, Albert said, signs of trouble almost always emerge well before that point. "The common signs are racing thoughts, a pit in the stomach, a sense of dread; they don't really know what they're dreading but they have a bad feeling something is going to happen," said Albert, a psychotherapist who has worked in the mental health field more nearly 35 years. "They have trouble sleeping. They have tension. A lot of times people with anxiety feel like they're vibrating, they're humming, like those of us who feel like they have too much caffeine," explained Albert. The constant worry can lead to increased respiration and heart rates. These are often symptoms of a panic attack, but can be mistaken for those of a heart attack or other ailment. "You actually feel like you're going to die," Albert said. Unfortunately, the same traits that make attorneys particularly well-suited for coping with these types of pressures can also drive them to ignore signs that they have reached their limits. "Attorneys tend to push themselves and be high achievers and perfectionists, so you can see where that might also push the scale in terms of anxiety," Albert said. Watson agreed. "Several attorneys have said their instinct, when they're falling behind or they're overwhelmed, is to work harder. But that becomes a vicious cycle. It's almost like the rat on the wheel; the harder they run, the faster that wheel goes and, pretty soon, it's disaster." Often the effects can be seen in the chemicals the body produces. They will many times appear in increasing levels of stress hormones, such as cortisol, which is tied to the fight-or-flight response. "If someone doesn't intervene at that point, decision-making can be impaired," Albert said. "â?¦ The important thing is it's very treatable, if people take the time - and it's worth taking the time - to learn the techniques to manage anxiety." For some, that might mean changing what they're doing to how they're thinking about it. "If they've piled up a lot of stuff, if they've overbooked, think about, 'What can I do tomorrow? What can wait?' Because, if you think, 'I've got too much to do. I'll never get this done,' that can trigger the cascade." Simple breathing exercises can also help. "I tell attorneys, 'As you're going up the courthouse steps, start focusing on your breathing, clear out your mind. That's where you can have some level of control because the external world is just not going to slow down.'" Others find help in calendar alerts, which can send pre-programmed reminders for attorneys to check in with themselves. "Anything that cues you to pay attention to yourself, not your achievements and your productivity, but your mind and your body, because that's the thing that's going to give you messages about how you're doing." If all that seems a little silly to the average attorney, Albert said, consider this: "People can be more productive when their self-awareness is better. "It's about awareness," Albert added. "It's about checking in with yourself and putting yourself in the question of your life." Published: Fri, Dec 04, 2015