The Language of Asking for Help: Where the Rubber Meets the Road

As chairperson of the State Bar of Georgia Lawyer Assistance Program (“LAP”), I thought I was doing a pretty good job. We were rocking and rolling, utilization numbers were up, all was good. Until I heard that many more lawyers wanted to use their six prepaid counseling sessions, they just didn’t know how or what would happen when they called LAP’s 800 number. In other words, where the rubber meets the road.

Members of the State Bar’s Wellness Committee compiled a web page of bullet points “demystifying” the LAP counseling process. The web page now sits on the LAP website and when I speak about the LAP, I encourage people to go read it. Problem solved.

The broader concept of “demystification,” however, stayed in the back of my mind until one day not too long ago I heard a poignant story related by my guest on the Georgia Bar podcast that I host. A young attorney out on her own now, she had not always been solo. A few years back, she had practiced at a large Atlanta law firm and was doing quite well until her father died very suddenly without warning. His death threw my guest into a depression that lasted for months, and her work product suffered. Her next words made me sit up straight in my chair (or rather on the pillow on my closet floor, which is where I host podcasts for the old school acoustics). My guest said, “I knew I was in trouble, I knew things weren’t right, but I didn’t have the language for it.  So I said nothing, the work I turned out got worse and worse, and I got fired.” She went on to say that if she’d had the language, the trajectory of her career might have been different. She might have gotten help and still be working at that firm, which she liked quite well. 

“I didn’t have the language.” Where the rubber meets the road. As a member of the ABA’s Well-Being Pledge Committee, founder of my firm’s wellness committee, and particularly as a speaker, how many times has my message been, “If you help, go get it?” It’s all I talk about, all I care about. So deep is my commitment to that mandate, I tell anyone who asks me to present on wellness that I will not talk about the duty we owe our clients, the rules of professionalism or ethics or the Bar rules. All are important, but others can talk about them. As far as I’ll go is to say that just because we struggle doesn’t mean we get to be bad at our jobs. I do believe that, but I also believe that getting help trumps everything else. As someone who has checked herself into three psychiatric hospitals and come far too close to suicide for comfort,² my hard-won mental health and stability are non-negotiable, and I want the same for everyone else.

It never occurred to me that I keep giving people a mandate to get help without also giving them the tools to execute it: the language, the understanding of how to use it and real-life examples of the process. At a time when those in my audience who need such tools the most are in possibly the worst shape of their lives.

I have been that person in the audience. I have been that person in the partner’s office putting on my best face to tell him or her that I needed to take time off, when it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other and my eyes could barely focus. I’m lucky. I have been in the crucible and, with help, came out intact and self-aware. My journey of recovery has been a long one, which has given me the opportunity to reflect on, learn from and synthesize my experiences. Out of that process, the following concepts, approaches and ideas have emerged.

1. What is the Story You’re Telling Yourself about Your Situation?

Our currency as lawyers is words, and what we have to sell is the ability to use them precisely and to the advantage of our client. In this case, you are your own client, and the notion that “A lawyer who represents him/herself has a fool for a client”³ has never been more apt. Are you “fooling” yourself about if, how and/or why you are struggling? How would you know? If you’re not sure and you are open to receiving the information, you can ask someone you trust, call your firm or organization’s employee assistance program if they have one, or call your state’s LAP number and find a counselor to talk you through it. If you do ask someone you trust at your office, don’t be surprised if they had no idea anything was wrong (unless you already told them). As trial lawyers, negotiators, counselors, business developers, really in every role, attorneys are trained to wear impenetrable masks, and it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising if no one in your office had a clue about your struggles. At my lowest point, I thought that anyone should have been able to look in my eyes and see how sick I was. No such thing. I wore the mask well and no one at work knew anything was wrong for six months, despite the fact that I had to lie down on the floor multiple times a day just to breathe.

The point is to get very clear on your story, because you won’t know what you need if you are not using the right words to tell your story to yourself. What does that kind of internal clarity look like? Here’s a recent personal example:

Alcohol was never an issue for me before the pandemic. Sometimes I went months without a drink; it wasn’t even on my radar. In April 2020 that changed. Not only did I start drinking, I went from virtually zero to drinking every day of the week without missing a beat. It was my dividing line between the workday and the night and I really looked forward to it (and Wordle). At first it was an infinitesimal amount of liquor with fruit juice. And it was only one drink. Then it was more liquor. Then I started wanting to have a second drink. Then I started wanting a drink earlier in the day. My therapist voiced some concern and my response was always, “oh it’s fine, alcohol is not my issue.” A few months ago I stopped talking to her about it because I didn’t want her to tell me I shouldn’t drink.

I of all people am not ignorant about addiction, so all of this was percolating in the back of my mind, I just wasn’t ready to admit what it all added up to. Then a day came a few weeks ago when I realized that having a drink was very close to not being a choice anymore. It was hard to say no, really hard, even for a day. I knew then that yes, maybe alcohol is not my drug of choice, but it was very close to becoming my drug. So I took a few opportunities to go a day without a drink, then two days, then three, and now I have put enough space between me and the need for a drink that it is no longer hard to say no.

That is internal clarity. I do not need outside help at this time, but if I do, I know what my story is and I can make choices about how to tell it to others from a realistic starting point.

As a side note. there is great significance in the italicized words in my sentence, “If you’re not sure and you are open to receiving the information, you can ask someone [whether your story sounds to them like you need help].” It is too often the case that we don’t know because we don’t want to know, as in my COVID drinking example. Life may be hard the way it is, but it is familiar, and we have routines in place to navigate through the reefs and shoals. Getting help is a step into the unknown and the help when it arrives usually entails a serious commitment and hard work. Many people have to hit bottom before they are open to accepting their own story in the raw and getting help, whatever it takes. If you are reading this and you are not there yet, keep reading and park whatever resonates with you in your hip pocket for when you are.

By the same token, there are those of us who don’t get to choose how and when we tell our story, because the judge in the courtroom where we were trying a case called us into chambers and said that we were clearly impaired⁴ and if we didn’t commit to a treatment plan, we would be reported to the disciplinary arm of our State Bar. I have spoken to a number of judges who have done exactly that, and I have talked to an even great number of lawyers who have said that as addicts, that is the only way they would have ever gotten help, because by that time the disease was driving the bus. That works – as long as a lawyer in distress gets help, how they got there doesn’t matter – but if you have the choice, a few approaches are worth considering.

2. What is the Story You Want to Tell Your Firm/Organization/Clients about Your Situation?

While how we tell our story to ourselves is critical, sadly it often has little to do with choosing how to tell it to others, particularly in the workplace. This is because of (a) the stigma that still pervades our culture on the subjects of mental illness and addiction and (b) old thinking in the legal profession that lawyers must be perfect and never show any sign of weakness, with the corollary that asking for help is weakness. Little do adherents to those beliefs know that anyone who has faced mental illness and/or addiction, walked out of it and followed the road to recovery is among the strongest, bravest people they will ever meet. Fortunately, many recent and current law school graduates understand this and share neither the feeling of stigma nor the need for perfection.  Change is coming, it is just not here yet.

Like most things, everyone, both the requester of help and the listener, falls on a spectrum. In this case, the spectrum is how safe do you feel having this conversation? As the person asking for help, the answer to that question will dictate everything about your next moves:  to whom you choose to speak, what story you want to tell him or her and what words you want to use to tell that story. For me, I feel unusually safe, for reasons likely not shared by most others. My children are grown and I own my home free and clear, so the threat of loss of income is not a pressing concern. I have been counsel since my third year of practice, so loss of prestige and status doesn’t frighten me. I am not embarrassed that I have been mentally ill and addicted and received inpatient treatment for my conditions, so stigma is a non-issue for me. The clients I service all know my story - many have even read my book on the topic⁵ - so causing my firm to lose their business doesn’t worry me. Trumping it all, I will never under any circumstances let my job put me at risk for re-visiting the places I’ve been, physically or emotionally. Given all of the foregoing, my preference, with a high degree of comfort, is to speak directly to the person at the top and to tell them my unvarnished story and what I plan to do to get the help I need. Here’s what I said in 2017 when I met with the head of my department:

“I know myself, and when I found myself shaking and crying on the way to work today, I knew that I was at risk and needed to make a change. I’ve been on XYZ project along with my regular work for a long time and now it’s been too long. I can’t do that anymore. I need to be taken off of XYZ project and I need that to happen now. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”

The partner knew my history and took me off the project that day, no repercussions. Going for me was the fact that I was part of a team working on a large project and other members of the team could take over what remained of my piece. Not every lawyer has that option, and getting help becomes even more problematic without it.  This is truly where the rubber meets the road for very small firms and solo practitioners, and to my knowledge no one has come up with good solutions yet. We’re working on it.

I also have colleagues who have gone in and said, “I am having a serious problem with alcohol, and I have a treatment plan that will require me to be gone for the next 4 weeks. I understand that the firm may want a monitoring system when I get back and that’s okay with me. What do I need to do to make this happen?”

Those people don’t need any guidance in managing their firm or organization’s response to a request for personal time for self-care to address mental health issues and/or addiction. They know their own story intimately and are not concerned about sharing it. For deeply personal reasons which vary from individual to individual, they feel safe.

What if you, like many (or perhaps most) others, don’t feel at all safe about the prospect of a similar request? Feel not least of all that you dread divulging personal information to people with whom you are not close? That this information will give them a kind of power over you that you don’t want them to have? That your job or even your livelihood might be at risk? That people might judge you?

For many of the same reasons, Lisa Smith, former big law attorney and well-known author of recovery memoir Girl Walks out of a Bar,⁶ limited her first attempt at rehab to just five days, because more than that and she would have needed a doctor’s note. There is almost no possibility of meaningful recovery from years of alcoholism and cocaine addiction in five days, but that was all she felt safe asking for. That is real life, that is where the rubber meets the road. Thankfully, Lisa later went for extended help and has now been sober for eighteen years.

Let’s consider, then, what you can do and say to make asking for help feel as safe as possible and to get the help you really need, not the limited help you can get constrained by fears of fallout. I recently interviewed Chief Justice Nahmias of the Georgia Supreme Court as a podcast guest, and he had an interesting answer to my question about how he dealt with impaired lawyers in his office. He said that he never spoke to the attorney alone. He always had another member of the office with him to help him listen and respond. That sounded very reasonable to me, so much so that I propose flipping it on its head and making asking for help a safer experience by not going in alone. It’s like going into a potentially upsetting doctor’s appointment. Your mind is all over the place, but your second is calm and able to take notes and remind you of things you wanted to ask. The presence of your own trusted friend or colleague might moderate the behavior of a potentially unempathetic or ill-equipped listener, or nip a perceived shift in power in the bud and will provide another ear to remember the conversation as well. Only you will know if it’s the right approach and if so who your second should be, but it’s another tool in your toolbox.

What about the actual words to use, the language? The first thing to know is that the words you use are irrelevant if you sabotage them with body language. A colleague at my firm was seriously overloaded with work for months during the pandemic, to the point that she was running on two hours of sleep a night for weeks on end. Her blood pressure became a problem and she had thoughts of self-harm for the first time in her life, but every time she asked for a project to be staffed up or shifted elsewhere, she did it with a wide smile and bright eyes, so she never, ever got any help. It was only when she bravely went public about how bad things had gotten that she was taken seriously.

The next thing to know about language is that different words in the “wellness” space carry different weight and/or stigma and that is precisely where our ability to choose and use words to the advantage of our client (us) comes in. The pandemic inadvertently gave the legal universe the gift of elevating the word “burnout” to almost a badge of courage and certainly nothing to be stigmatized. Lawyers are now proud to say they are burned out and all who lay claim to it are viewed as tough and heroic, having pushed themselves to the limit and beyond in the pursuit of excellence. Is the condition the word is describing any different than the result of extreme and prolonged anxiety? While some clinicians might say yes, I would say no, but does it matter? We’re not looking for diagnoses, we’re looking for ways to feel safe while communicating a condition requiring an absence from work.

“I want to talk to you about the fact that I am burned out and need to take some time. How can I work with the firm/company to make that take place as quickly and easily as possible?”

Besides using the magic word “burnout,” the second sentence of the quoted language establishes you as a partner with the organization in this enterprise. You are no longer an unknown quantity to be feared, you are part of the non-threatening bucket of “people with good intentions who just need a little help.”

If “burned out” doesn’t feel right for some reason, you might consider “overextended,” “under water” and overwhelmed.  For example:

“I have been seriously overextended for way too long and it’s finally showing up as a pretty serious health issue I have to take care of. How can I work with the firm/company to…?”

“Between work and home I’ve been under water for too long and my doctor says if I don’t take some time my health is at risk. How can I work with the firm/company to…?”

“I’m completely overwhelmed, and I need to take some time to recharge. I’ve had too many short deadlines for the past X months and it has all finally caught up with me. How can I work with the firm/company to …?”

Is your firm or organization going to find out rather quickly that you are going to rehab or checking into an inpatient mental health facility? In many situations, yes, because you’ll be applying for FMLA and the documentation will disclose your medical condition and treatment. That’s okay, because you will have gotten past the initial intimidating interview feeling safer than you might have thought possible. When the story that you yourself know to be true is disclosed, you won’t be standing right in front of your boss, partner or colleague looking them in the eye, feeling like you’re standing on a high wire with no net underneath.

One caveat about language. There are times when we ask for help in subtle ways. In 2008 I asked for help by announcing to my family when I picked them up at the airport for my daughter’s high school graduation that “I really shouldn’t be driving this car.”  In my mind, I had said, “I’m saying something really strange, please ask me why so I can have a way to open up a conversation with you about how sick I am.” No one responded, and I was crushed. Many years later, someone pointed out to me that my family easily could have thought I meant that I was suffering from a hangover.

This is not the time to be subtle. Yes, pick your words carefully if your comfort level calls for it, but don’t obfuscate and don’t tell your story the way I told mine to my family. It will not serve you, the same way my colleague’s body language did not serve her when she asked for help with a big smile. Execute your plan by telling your story and asking for whatever you have settled on, thank the person, excuse yourself and leave. Try to organize it so that the listener cannot come back to you immediately and re-engage. This type of conversation can be exhausting, and after it’s over, you will likely need a little while to re-group.

3. How Might the Listener Receive your Request for Help?

It might seem that I am throwing all workplaces in the pile of “to be feared” and “unenlightened” when it comes to addressing the mental and emotional well-being of their people. Not so. There are many firm and organization cultures, particularly those committed to the ABA Well-Being Pledge⁷ or similar principles, that do an excellent job of providing an atmosphere of openness and support for their people. There are many others with pockets of individuals who do the same. HR was feared by one and all when I began practicing law. Now HR Departments house numbers of people with whom well-being resonates on such a personal level that many attorneys and staff feel most comfortable going straight to them with personal issues.

If anything, I have one foot in the old world and one foot in the new. The mere existence of an ABA Well-Being Pledge is proof of the new world, as is widespread genuine concern for mental and emotional well-being and the fact that a firm’s commitment to such concerns plays a big role in recruitment and retention. I also know that the old world is still with us, and in that world sometimes feeling unsafe is legitimate. Sometimes even well-meaning colleagues do not know how to respond to a story of struggle, and even flinch noticeably when he or she hears words like “depression” or “anxiety.” For me, it is game over when that happens unless the person has enough emotional intelligence to recognize what they did, own it, apologize and tell me that they truly want to hear what I have to say and to please start again. I also respect the listener who is aware that this is not his or her strong suit and says, “I am not the best person to hear your story. I want to make sure you get what you need, so is it ok if I call X in to talk with you?”

If your organization is large enough, there will inevitably be some who think you should just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. There will be some clients who will jump ship if they find out that counsel went to rehab or inpatient. We do not live in a perfect world and it behooves you to tell your story judiciously and to your advantage to the extent possible. We’re smart people, and even when we’re down and out we can represent ourselves well, the same way we have represented others. We just need to start talking about how to do it. Where the rubber meets the road.

On a positive note, there are wonderful reports of people receiving requests for help supportively, as in the following response from a partner in my firm:

“I’m so sorry that you’re going through this. We promote people coming forward and telling us about these types of issues and we’re grateful that you did. We’re going to support you through the next step and the rest of the process.”

I couldn’t have crafted a better response if I had tried.

There are corporate law divisions that are committed to the ABA Well-being Pledge, like U.S. Bank, which has launched a pilot with seven of its outside firms to promote principles of wellness in its outside counsel relationships. Ben Carpenter, Deputy General Counsel of U.S. Bank, helped create the pilot and has this to say about how to feel safe in asking for help:

“We need to recognize that we are in this together, that it is an industry problem, and that each of us needs to be part of the solution,” said Carpenter. “Whether that means being more proactive in eliminating the triggers that cause mental health and substance use issues, engaging in a conversation with someone who exhibits signs of distress, or raising our own hand when we feel like our own mental health is impaired, we need to view it as a responsibility that comes with being a part of this profession.”

More and more firms have dedicated wellness officers, or robust wellness initiatives falling under their benefit departments or diversity and inclusion initiatives. One such wellness officer is Lori Pines at Weil, Gotshal and Manges, LLP. She became the firm’s first Chief Wellness Officer on April 1, 2022, a role she fills while still servicing some of her long-time commercial litigation clients. When I asked Lori where she thinks the rubber meets the road in asking for help, she responded, “communicating an issue without creating stigma.” Bingo. 

Based on Lori’s assessment, until the new world is here to stay, maybe it’s best not to say to one’s employer, as I did (approximately) before going inpatient in 2008:

“I have been diagnosed with major clinical depression, generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar I, panic disorder, complex PTSD and binge eating disorder, and my psychiatrist says that if I don’t check into a hospital for the next 10 weeks, I am at risk for self-harm.”

Those words just don’t land like “I’m burned out and need to take some time” or “my doctor says if I don’t take some time my health is at risk,” do they? On a scale of 1 to 10 for communicating an issue without creating stigma, what I said is probably to the south of 1, while in my experience my suggested words are around a 7, maybe higher. You might even call them the “words for wellness.”

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These are just a few ideas on creating a safe environment in which lawyers who have a need can ask for help. It is my fondest hope that some of these ideas will spark conversations about options for real people in hard situations to ask for help in ways that feel safe to both them and the person who is being asked. Until we eradicate stigma altogether, this is how we can show up where the rubber meets the road.