The Reality of Work-Life Balance for Trial Lawyers

Season 6, Episode 4:  The Reality of Work-Life Balance for Trial Lawyers 

What does “work-life balance” actually look like for trial lawyers? In this episode, Karen Koehler, Mo Hamoudi, and Mike Todd get honest about what life looks like in the weeks leading up to trial and in the middle of it.

Karen walks through how she keeps relationships, movement, and creativity in her life even during trial, and why she deliberately cuts out everything else. 

Mo talks about being a grinder, integrating work into life instead of trying to escape it, and why physical movement and creative outlets keep him sharp. 

Mike pushes the conversation toward creativity, compartmentalization, and the mental reset that makes trial work sustainable.

They talk about guilt, especially for women in the law, sacrifice, aging, creativity, and why there is no magic formula. Trial work narrows life. It doesn’t stop it. And the art of law is part of what keeps them going.

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Hosted by Karen Koehler and Mo Hamoudi, trial lawyers at Stritmatter Law, a nationally recognized plaintiff personal injury and civil rights law firm based in Washington State. 

Produced by Mike Todd, Audio & Video Engineer, and Kassie Slugić, Executive Producer. 

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Transcript

Framing Trial-Time Lifestyle

Mo Hamoudi 0:05

All right, so you're in trial.

Karen Koehler 0:08

It's like or getting ready for trial. A couple days out from trial.

Mo Hamoudi 0:12

A couple days or several weeks. Just several weeks.

Karen Koehler 0:15

Or in trial.

Mo Hamoudi 0:16

You're in trial. Knock down, drag out fight. What are you doing in your off time? Or are you like no off time?

Karen Koehler 0:24

So for me, um the best way to to for me to recount it is to look at my phone. Oh my god. And if you look at my phone, you would be very surprised because it goes uninterrupted. I will continue to see my grandkids on any day I'm not in trial. I will be there. I will see my father and my stepmom. I will see my siblings. I will hang out with my friends. I will, no, not as much, right? It's less like the and there's some things that I just won't do at all. But I in general don't stop. Like I will run, go for run. Um now I got my little rowing machine, I could go row.

Mike Todd 1:14

Okay.

Karen Koehler 1:14

I will watch always either I typically will watch some kind of a mindless TV show at least for an hour a day because uh or go to the movies. I will not read a book because my inclination if I start a book and I like it, is to finish it. And so I won't do that. I will not read books for enjoyment during trial. But let me tell you what I don't do.

Mo Hamoudi 1:41

What don't you do?

What Gets Cut And What Stays

Karen Koehler 1:42

Okay, I don't do it in trial and I don't do it at a trial, and that's why I have so much time. I am, even though you might think I'm a high maintenance person, okay, I don't get my nails done. I don't I don't do many, I don't do petty. I have never gone to a skin anesthetician.

Mo Hamoudi 2:03

I anesthesia.

Karen Koehler 2:06

I do not do boto botox.

Mo Hamoudi 2:07

What?

Karen Koehler 2:07

I do not do lasers.

Mo Hamoudi 2:09

Well, who does this during trial? I mean, many petty, but who's doing botox at trial?

Karen Koehler 2:13

Or before. I do not I do not do anything like that. I do not go out excessively to eat dinner. I do not go on vacation.

Mo Hamoudi 2:26

Okay, that's fine.

Karen Koehler 2:27

I do not there's a lot of stuff I don't do to be a trial lawyer, is all I'm saying. Is there's a lot of stuff, like a lot of people do a lot of stuff that you just that for me, I don't do. I maintain my relationships. That's my main focus.

Mike Todd 2:40

That's when you're in trial. Do you in general? You do some of that stuff when you're not in trial. In general. Oh, you I this is this is a general life of a trial lawyer.

Karen Koehler 2:48

General life always. And when it's in trial, it gets smaller. Like I will try to see my bare minimum, which is my kids, my grandkids, my dad and stepmom. Like my siblings, they they're good. They can hang until I'm out of my trial, right? Yeah. But it gets smaller. And when you are a busy trial lawyer, yeah, I always say this, and people don't want to hear it. You sacrifice a lot.

Mo Hamoudi 3:15

Yeah.

Sacrifice And The Grinder Mindset

Karen Koehler 3:16

You do not live a normal life. You could try, but you will not be my type of a trial lawyer. To be my type of a trial lawyer, you you spent a lot of time, you spent a lot of time working.

Mike Todd 3:33

I was well, that's what I was gonna say. You you said all that stuff. Sorry to interrupt. No, no, but please. You said you do all you don't do all that stuff, but you actually have kind of created a way now that you're sort of doing all that stuff all the time, as opposed to buckling down during trial and then going on vacation right afterwards, or you know, when you're when you're not in trial, spending less time in the office or something like that. You've sort of made that your whole lifestyle. And you didn't used to do that.

Karen Koehler 4:00

No, my lifestyle started, my lifestyle changed because of that um the Dex trial and the fact that I became ill afterwards. And so what I do is I realized I take a vacation once every six years. That's not very good. Um, I need to not I need to I need to figure out a way to interrupt the pattern of my life, which is to be at my um computer for 12 or 14 hours a day. Like that can't that's not good. And so that's why I live in different places, but I don't like block off time there hardly ever.

Mike Todd 4:34

Yeah, you're still working all the time.

Karen Koehler 4:36

But it helps because the time zone is different.

Mike Todd 4:38

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 4:39

So you guys don't wait. When I'm in New York, you guys don't wake up until nobody's in the office until like 11 30.

Mike Todd 4:44

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 4:44

Because it's 8 30. And when I'm in in Hawaii, everybody's up, but they're you guys are all done by 2 30, 2 o'clock, and I'm still going. So it interrupts that flow. But you have to make these decisions about as a trial lawyer, what can you do and what can't you do? And I can't be out of town when I'm in trial. Like I'm gonna be, or you know, I'm gonna be here. So the more like Mo, you wouldn't be able to play your basketball games when you wanted to, for example. Like you things just become more narrow and more restricted.

Mike Todd 5:21

What do you do then, Mo?

Rebuilding Life After Burnout

Mo Hamoudi 5:23

I mean, I don't get to go to Hawaii and New York and do any of that stuff. Uh but I gotta tell you, like, I mean, if you ask my wife, she'll tell you, like, I mean, I just work. And to me, work is not work, it's the way of life. And a lot of people and I are have philosophical disagreements about, you know, um work-life balance. But my family and I have an understanding that my my life is my life, and work is a part of it. So I try to integrate as much as I can, kind of what she does, but in the context of you know, coaching my son's basketball team and spending time with him and spending time with my family and working out. But I enjoy it. I believe I had a conversation with a very young lawyer about um there were they were asking me, like, how do you how do you how do I get to where you are professionally? Um, and my response to them was that you it's it's you have to be like inexorable, like unwilling to give in. You gotta just keep going because everybody's working. But if you're outworking, out thinking, and moving at a pace and a rate that's like faster and quicker than others, just by nature, you're gonna become better and you're gonna rise above. But you have to give that.

Karen Koehler 6:55

And you know, I mean Mo calls it Mo Mo describes it as being a grinder.

Mo Hamoudi 7:00

Yeah, just being a grinder.

Karen Koehler 7:01

Now, the now that doesn't mean that so there's a good grinder and there's a bad grinder. A grind a ruminating grinder just grinds over and over and over again. A progressive grinder is grinding forward. I'm a progressive grinder. I am not gonna stay in place and just think about stuff over and over and over again. I am a person of action and as for better or for worse. And sometimes I'll have to change course because of it. But I'm gonna make those decisions and keep going.

Mo Hamoudi 7:29

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 7:30

Um, and and working hard. But I think, I think, Mike, the answer to this question is our lives are probably, our personal lives are probably not as exciting as some people would think that maybe they should be. Because we spend so much time working and loving it. Like people tell me, people, I don't know, sometimes I get offended, and maybe I shouldn't, and some, but sometimes my kids do. I tell them, I don't think I go anywhere publicly where people don't ask me, like, how much longer are you gonna do this? I'm thinking, am I that old? I mean, am I that old at this point that people keep asking me that? Everybody asks me that.

Mike Todd 8:09

Well, that's kind of funny too, because I don't think of you as that old for a time.

Integrating Work, Family, And Place

Karen Koehler 8:12

Everybody asks me now. I am a female, yeah, and maybe that plays something into it. I've been successful, but what does that have to do with anything? I love what I do, I enjoy it tremendously. And does it involve sacrifice? I don't see it that way. Does anybody that's the problem for my family? Yeah, I was gonna say that's you work so much, you don't you could see us more, and I'm like, I could, and I will make every effort to that's time is a commodity for us, right? For me, the biggest thing is my guilt as a parent, my guilt as a grandma. I mean, I want to see my kids and my grandkids as much as possible, and I am not gonna be that grandma that is able to like watch the kids every day after school. I'm not that grandma. I'm not the grandma that even watches them one day a week because I move around. But I am that grandma that just loves them unconditionally and can't wait to see them and will make every single effort to go and see them, at least, at least if I'm in their time zone, as much as I possibly can. But that is that is a reality of yeah, I'm gonna fail. I'm a failure if I'm gonna compare myself to an a grandma who's retired, who can literally, or semi-retired, or just not working as hard as I am, who can do all the daycare for their family. I can't do that, and I don't do that. So for me, it's female. I have a lot of guilt that now always have, especially with my children, because I was like, I've always been like this since I've been a plaintiff trial lawyer. And once I stopped being a part-time parent, because I was a part-time, part-time parent, part-time worker until Noel entered kindergarten, because otherwise they would have not turned out the same way because I would have been absent. So there's this perception that, oh my gosh, you know, you're super successful. You um, you know, you have this trapping or that trapping, and I can't wait to be in that position. And we're like, I don't feel any different. I still feel like I want to help this case. This case or this case, I feel still feel like, man, the odds are so much against us. How are we gonna do this? Or I feel like I feel all the same stuff I ever felt before. Maybe I'm a little cockier, but honestly, I don't think so. I might I might just say it because time has shown that you know I know the difference between a good case and a hard case, but I don't just want to work on easy cases. I want to work on the hard cases, even if we're gonna lose.

Mike Todd 10:58

So getting back on on what you guys do during trial or coming up to trial to try to remove yourself.

Karen Koehler 11:07

Yes.

Mike Todd 11:08

Um You mentioned movies and mindless TV, not reading.

Karen Koehler 11:16

Particular type of movie in particular.

Mike Todd 11:18

What?

Karen Koehler 11:19

Oh, well, any involving a lot of death and violence. Okay. It has to be really I really like it aggressive.

Mike Todd 11:24

You need mindless aggressive violence.

Karen Koehler 11:25

I want it really aggressive because I'm just so amped up. Psych you up for Godzilla I can remember seeing Godzilla movies, like the big one in I Go Down to Cinerama. Um, you know, those kind of movies, yeah. I really like I like them. Yeah, it's a particular type.

Mike Todd 11:45

How about you, Mo? I write poems. Okay. So you stick to your stick to your writing.

Mo Hamoudi 11:50

Yeah. You know, it's like, would anybody ever say to me, hey, when are you gonna stop writing poetry? Are you aren't you getting a little too old for that? I mean, you wouldn't ask a person that. When are you gonna stop painting? When are you gonna when are you gonna stop playing basketball when I physically can't?

Karen Koehler 12:05

Yeah, but you write really fast.

Mo Hamoudi 12:07

I know, but the same with work. Like, when are you gonna stop practicing law? Or are you getting too old? Like, when am I gonna stop writing poetry?

Mike Todd 12:14

I don't think of it that way. What I was gonna say is it's more the action of it. For me, it's that while you're not shutting your mind off, it's a way of shutting your mind off. You're compartmentalizing it. So you go just to your creative side. I go to my creative side. And you're not spending your side spending your time thinking about all the other stuff that you have to think about.

Mo Hamoudi 12:33

Yeah, I mean, for the law, for law, I'm looking for action. I'm looking for the juice. You know, the juice.

Karen Koehler 12:38

And for me, as you know, I do my trial diaries after cornery days.

Mike Todd 12:43

I mean, you're you're you're writing that out.

Karen Koehler 12:46

What are you doing?

Mike Todd 12:47

And that's another way for you know you're writing about the case, but you're shutting your mind off and just writing it out.

Karen Koehler 12:51

It's and it's talking about like my feelings or what I was remembering or what the judge said, or whatever. You know, there was a bird that pooped on a window outside the library when I was sitting there. I mean, you know, but it's just the mundane, it's Jerry Seinfeld kind of stuff. Totally. You know? And and I just find beauty and joy in it.

Purpose Over Balance

Mike Todd 13:07

Well, I think that's why people like reading those so much. I just I know I do.

Karen Koehler 13:10

Well, there you go. And I appreciate that. But I I think that the myth is that there's some special formula for this, or and there's not. Um, but you do modify your life as a trial lawyer, and when you're in trial, it's it becomes more narrow because there's just even less time to deal with. Yeah.

Mike Todd 13:33

Any other tips for people?

Mo Hamoudi 13:35

I mean, the other tip I have is is that um you gotta be physically active. If you if you're sedentary when you're in a trial, I think that's not productive in being sharp in the mind. Yeah. So go for a walk, um, you know, and do something, at least 30 minutes a day. I listen to music uh a lot of the times. Like, I like music. Any particular style that you have to listen to? Yeah, I I like hip hop. Okay. I mean, like, I'm probably listening to Tupac most of the time when I'm like before I'm coming into coming into coming into court and stuff so it's so it's like when they're entering the boxing ring. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, like, yeah. I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with Tupac, you're familiar with it. I mean, he he writes some very personal lyrics, such really good stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Karen Koehler 14:26

So I I can give you an example, like in the Dex trial, okay, it was an outlier because it was so long. My life did not stop. I had a boyfriend at the time. He wanted to go see Cher in Vegas.

Mo Hamoudi 14:39

Oh my god.

Karen Koehler 14:40

In the trial.

Mike Todd 14:42

So Care in Vegas. Chose that after you had gone to trial?

Karen Koehler 14:47

We'd already we'd already selected it and the trial was going on.

Mike Todd 14:50

Okay.

Karen Koehler 14:50

And so uh we went and saw Share, you know, we went and saw Cher. We were there for like two nights um over the week because you don't have trial on Friday, Saturday. Yeah. So I went and saw share. I really love share. And the trial keeps going on like another month or something, and then we're at the end, and I need to come up with a closing argument, right? And when I run, I run with headphones, and I'm well, I'm either talking to someone on the phone, which I to prefer, or I'm listening to music. Or I turn off everything, which is rare, because I typically like a lot of stimulation, and I'm thinking, like, okay, how am I gonna do this closing argument? It's gonna come to me.

Mo Hamoudi 15:28

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 15:29

And I'm sitting there going, I don't own a song. I'm gonna do a song. Well, what song am I gonna do? And you remember my song. My song was a share song because a share, because I saw her during the middle of trial, and it's if we could turn back time, and I and so and so that came to me by just letting because what my process is is like I'm not gonna spaz about it. I know it's gonna happen. Okay, I'm gonna come up with this song. What is the song gonna be? I had a different one earlier, and then it just kind of came to me. Oh, and I can remember coming home. I said, I know what the song is. Alicia was with me, my daughter, and I'm like, I'm gonna rewrite this song, I'm gonna do it. And the closing argument was for the next day.

Mo Hamoudi 16:17

Yeah.

Age, Gender, And Guilt

Karen Koehler 16:19

So I wrote the song, we wrote the song, if you could turn if if it was to if we could turn back time, and I made it specific to the case. It took me like not even 30 minutes because, like Mo, fast. I like the creativity of it. I just mutated it a little bit. Yeah, and then I was gonna sing it. And Alicia said, No, you better not sing it. Your voice, mom, you cannot sing that song.

Mike Todd 16:42

You cannot sing that song.

Karen Koehler 16:43

If she hadn't been there, I would have sung the song. But yeah, she was like doing something. I don't know if she was, I think maybe she was in grad school at the time, but we were both at the kitchen table, and that's how it happened. And it was a it was one of my best closing arguments. It wasn't actually the day before because we decided to turn everything if we could go back in time backwards. Weren't you how didn't you help me do that?

Mike Todd 17:06

Yeah, I think so.

Karen Koehler 17:07

You started, didn't you do the the the movies backwards and all that stuff?

Mike Todd 17:10

Yeah, yeah.

Karen Koehler 17:11

You s so we did everything backwards because we were gonna show, like, if you could turn back time, this would have happened. This would never have happened if they had just figured out that this stupid wheel was gonna come off the bus.

Mike Todd 17:22

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 17:23

Um, but so it took a little bit more time than normal. Like, but you didn't have much time.

Mike Todd 17:28

No.

Karen Koehler 17:29

It's like, oh Mike, can you?

Mike Todd 17:30

No, it was very a couple days.

Karen Koehler 17:32

Yep. And so that's an example of how do you prepare for that if you're just sitting there grinding all day and night? You don't. You have to, you don't have to, but for me and Mo, it's that creative space that we allow our brain to just fill it and give us the answers without just thinking, I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna create the answer. It's gonna be logical, I'm gonna think about it, I'm gonna have a logical linear path to it, and this is what's gonna be. For us, it's just like come down and bless us with what it's gonna be. It's like that's the excitement and beauty of it.

Mo Hamoudi 18:12

Uh it's it's like exhilarating. Oh, I'm sure. When it happens in the moment and you see it, and you're just sort of like I mean, it's part of it but it's hard like it's like art.

Mike Todd 18:24

It is like it's when when everything, when all the pieces fall together. Yeah.

Physical Energy And Courtroom Edge

Karen Koehler 18:29

So you don't want to turn off the art part of your mind during trial. And you want to do as much as you can to keep your mind vibrant and fresh and ready to go. And and maybe you are a little bit more patterned, maybe you are a little bit more stricted. But beyond that, I don't really change. I'm just more intense, more focused, and I have less time.

Mo Hamoudi 18:56

I get moody hammoody. Yeah, he's moody hoodie. I get a little moody.

Karen Koehler 19:00

I mean moody hamoody.

Mo Hamoudi 19:01

Moody hammoody. Well, that was a good one. Thanks.

Mike Todd 19:04

It was okay, thanks.