Mental Health and Burnout in Trial Law

Episode 16: Mental Health and Burnout in Trial Law

This is Part 2 of a three-part series on mental and physical health for trial lawyers.

Trial lawyers are trained to push through. Keep going. Don’t show weakness. So what happens when the pressure starts to build?

In this episode, Karen Koehler, Mo Hamoudi, and Mike Todd take on something most lawyers avoid discussing: burnout is real, and pretending it isn’t can cost you more than your case. 

Mo shares how close he’s come to burning out and why he stopped hiding it, even when it’s been used against him. Karen pushes back on the culture of law itself, calling it egotistical, performative, and disconnected from being human. 

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review telling us how you manage stress when the pressure doesn’t let up.

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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

Burnout And The Fear Of Weakness

Mo Hamoudi 0:06

Okay, so I want to talk about we talked about physical health. I want to talk about mental health and burnout and stress recovery for plaintiff's lawyers. For trial lawyers. Like, is that do trial lawyers burn out?

Karen Koehler 0:19

Why do you want to talk about it?

Mo Hamoudi 0:21

I think it's important because I have I have come close to burning out.

Karen Koehler 0:25

And like I've come close to Don't you think that you shouldn't tell anybody about that?

Mo Hamoudi 0:28

I don't care.

Karen Koehler 0:29

Don't you think that people will judge you if you do?

Mo Hamoudi 0:31

I don't care.

Karen Koehler 0:31

Don't you think that people will take advantage of you of you if you do?

Mo Hamoudi 0:34

Okay.

Karen Koehler 0:34

If that Don't you think that if you show weakness that you are going to be fail a failure as a plaintiff lawyer?

Mo Hamoudi 0:40

I have a poem in response to that.

Karen Koehler 0:41

Don't you think that you shouldn't be talking about this at all?

Mo Hamoudi 0:44

I have a poem in the world.

Karen Koehler 0:45

Don't you think this is a bad reflection on the law firm and the and lawyers in general?

Mo Hamoudi 0:48

I have a poem.

Karen Koehler 0:49

Don't you think that by talking about mental health you are taking all of us down?

Mo Hamoudi 0:53

No. And I have a poem in response to that.

Karen Koehler 0:55

That's why people don't talk about it.

Mo Hamoudi 0:56

Well, yeah, but like I just, you know.

Karen Koehler 0:59

I'm glad that you're talking about it.

Mo Hamoudi 1:01

Good.

Karen Koehler 1:02

Okay, why?

Mo Hamoudi 1:03

Well, I why do I want to talk about it?

Karen Koehler 1:05

Well you said you had a poem. Is this your poem or are you plagiarizing?

Mo Hamoudi 1:08

It's it's a poem I've memorized. It's a Frank O'Hara poem and it's owed to the critic. And he says, I cannot possibly think of you other than you are the assassin of my orchards. Lurking in the shadows, meeting out conversation like Eve's first confusion between sticks and snakes. Oh, be droll, be jolly, but be temperate. Do not frighten me more than you have to. I must live forever. That's what I think of criticism. But yeah, I think all of those are the good reasons to talk about mental health because um because if you don't take care of your mental health, you can't take care of your clients and you can't be a good lawyer.

Law Culture That Rewards Silence

Karen Koehler 1:43

Okay. Why don't we start, however, by talking about the culture that prohibits people or is an incentive for people not to be open about their mental health?

Mo Hamoudi 1:53

Okay.

Karen Koehler 1:53

The culture is that if you talk about specifically lawyers and trial lawyers or people in this profession.

Mo Hamoudi 1:59

It's a mark of weakness, it's a mark of disability. It's like this person is untethered, has exercises poor judgment. You know, if you have mental health challenges, I think that people view that as, you know, a limitation.

Karen Koehler 2:14

I mean, what did people used to say about women? Oh, oh my gosh, women have periods and like, you know, they go crazy during that time of the month. You cannot, you know, that's why a woman should not definitely have any kind of position of power.

Mike Todd 2:25

Yeah, because they can't be serious.

Karen Koehler 2:28

They're not rational and logical.

Mo Hamoudi 2:31

Yeah. You know, but you know, people do that, I think. One, because people are just judgmental, but the other reason is because it makes them feel like they have they have like they're they're powerful. Like, I'm not my mental health is stable. Like, well, I'm all right, you know, but really if you dig in.

Karen Koehler 2:52

I think that I think that a lot of I thought think of the law, a lot of the culture of law and being a lawyer is shallow and egotistical, narcissistic, and um untethered from the human experience. I mean, that's what that's my whole thing. My whole thing has been for most of my career, lawyers are real people too. I mean, I have branded this law firm, I have branded my practice, I have consistently spoke out against why do lawyers only talk about their wins in public? Why don't they talk about their losses? People that their clients lost. Those clients, they still had a righteous cause. Why aren't you talking about it? You know, the the profession itself is sick a little bit, as many other professions are. But you see this microcosm of law and lawyers, and what is an elite lawyer and a trial lawyer, and the bravado that goes along with that has no space for an issue such as mental health. That's my that's my feeling.

Mo Hamoudi 4:01

Yeah, but also because the culture breeds it, it is reinforced by what is celebrated and what is not. Failure is not celebrated. Failure is defined by terms that are, to me, I think, nonsense. Um, and the other thing is that uh, you know, the reality is that the type of work, the caseload and trial work, places an enormous amount of mental pressure on a person to have to perform and meet certain expectations. And uh that's damaging. Well, let's be let's get really personal.

When Openness Gets Used Against You

Karen Koehler 4:34

I mean, Mo, you have shared more about your mental health journey in this podcast than probably the whole bar of the of Washington has ever shared publicly. I mean, and maybe that's a that's a that's an over-exaggeration, but you have done it with such grace, and how much have you suffered for being open?

Mo Hamoudi 5:00

I have suffered because I think that it in some circumstances has been used as a sword against me. Which but that that but by the way, this is not the first place I've been open about my mental health. So it's traditionally been used as a tool, uh, a sword against me. But I I think that a long time ago I made the decision that I'm not gonna pretend that this is not something about me, like that this is a component about me. I mean, I mean, I to be honest, coming into the firm was a challenge. Like, you know, you have to understand I left a discipline which was a craft that was not plaintiff's bar, you know, and I came into this particular uh firm, a firm that is an elite firm that has uh exceptional types of cases that they work on. So there was a huge pressure that was on me to have to perform to do well. And so, and so I am the type of person that meets the demands of the day. I meet them eye to eye. I don't shy away from them, and I and I and I take on a lot. And um I I know that that that process and and what I had to go through to um sort of establish and demonstrate that I can and do this type of work was damaging to my mental health. Yeah, it took a lot of damage to my mental health.

Karen Koehler 6:26

So I think I think you know, this is such a broad topic. We have I have a deposition, so we can't talk about this all day long. Sure. Um, and maybe this is an introduction, but from my perspective, um there's there's different elements of this situation. Number one is the human part for that person, like what is the person experiencing and how do we take care of that, right? That's part number one, and maybe that's what we should limit ourselves to. Number two is can you be an effective trial lawyer and not share your own personal journeys? And the answer is I believe that a that makes you a better trial lawyer. The only trial lawyer that's better than you is the is a is a lawyer that is a better actor than you. Um, because I I still, you know, as you will recall, I believe that true authenticity is not always the best lawyer. There are some lawyers that are just the best actors. Now they are few and far between, but I can name some of them and I won't, that are gonna be better than a person who's not as skilled, who's authentic. Now, as a merit-based person, I believe that the authentic person should always win. But that's just not what I've seen. Sometimes sometimes they do. So you don't have to be, you don't have to give truly of yourself. You can be a faker and still make it in the world in general. Look at our president. Um number number two is is how does mental health impact your ability to do your job and impact your clients, impact those around you, and impact those that you're networking with or working with? How does that fulfill? And number three is is there ever gonna be a scenario where mental health will be treasured and valued and supported versus barely tolerated, vilified, uh, and a source of humiliation, dread, and distress? It's kind of complex. So I don't think we can cover all three of those topics.

Building A Personal Stress Routine

Mo Hamoudi 8:40

What was the first topic?

Karen Koehler 8:42

Personal. So we talked about how do you personally take care of your mental health? And so I think that what that's what we should talk about. Uh, and maybe we can talk about the other things some other time. Yeah. But for this episode, I think we should talk about what you can do to take care of your mental health when you are in a high stress occupation.

Mo Hamoudi 9:01

Uh journal every morning, if you can. I'm not consistent with it, I'll be honest. Is to get thoughts out of your mind into like paper. I mean, I do it on digital, and that way you're just sort of like getting the thoughts out. Um, sleep.

Karen Koehler 9:17

Well, let's stop with the journal. Well, you're saying what do you do? So, so and go around the table. Like some people journal, but that's not for everybody. This is for you personally. This is what you're doing. You ask me like what I do. Yeah, okay.

Mo Hamoudi 9:27

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 9:28

So you journal, number two, you sleep.

Mo Hamoudi 9:30

Sleep is important, like making sure And do you take get great sleep?

Karen Koehler 9:33

Did you get great sleep?

Mo Hamoudi 9:35

Um I'm I'm still sometimes waking up at two and I'm thinking about work.

Karen Koehler 9:38

Okay.

Mo Hamoudi 9:39

And then, but I'm able to go back to sleep better.

Karen Koehler 9:41

So you you are you've made sleep and journaling a priority so far. What else?

Mo Hamoudi 9:46

Um talking to people, yeah, like a smaller group of people. Before it was maybe too broad, and about how I'm feeling. Like, hey, look, I'm really having some challenges, and I want to just get your perspective about am I over over-assessing, underassessing? Is my am I am I on the right track? So having a very small core group of people I can communicate with.

Karen Koehler 10:11

So you'd say a safe group.

Mo Hamoudi 10:13

Safe group, yeah.

Karen Koehler 10:14

So someone safe to talk to.

Mo Hamoudi 10:15

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 10:16

Okay.

Mo Hamoudi 10:17

That's about it. You know, I mean exercise, which is which is an important one. Like that, that, that exercise hit, like when you're lifting weights or playing basketball, or you know, the endorphin hit of like exercise, like really helps my mental health.

Unplugging And Talking It Out

Karen Koehler 10:32

What about you, Mike?

Mike Todd 10:34

Um, uh like you said, exercise is important. Uh I think trying to unplug, like you were saying, how you wake up at 2 a.m. and and then you're able to get back to sleep. Unplugging from it at least a little bit. Like trying to like when I go home after work now, I will put my phone down and go do something else that doesn't involve me interacting with the technology that I do during the daytime so much. So just taking some time to unplug yourself from the digital life that we have right now. Um and like you said, talking. Communication is key to uh keeping your mental health. So whether it's with a therapist or your partner or a friend or a group, talking out your problems as much as you can sooner rather than later is gonna help stuff from festering. What about you, Karen?

The Keep Going Coping Trap

Karen Koehler 11:35

So I tend to ignore the stress and just keep going.

Mo Hamoudi 11:39

Terrible.

Karen Koehler 11:40

Which is supposed to be, I mean, I guess it's pretty terrible.

Mo Hamoudi 11:43

Um but yeah, I mean, uh so I'm sorry, I don't mean to judge you, but like I I mean that comment.

Karen Koehler 11:50

I wanted to say that and I wanted to say that because I think that's what a lot of people do. Yeah. And um so I I get I but I think that's my baseline. Yeah. My baseline is that I am I feel like it's not fair, honestly, because people I love are not like this. But when I wake up, I'm just ready to go and I'm happy. Like my baseline is very positive. My partner, Loris, is a super positive person. And it's so it's just like that, but that's me. Like if I was a dog, I'm I would null. I just wake up and like, let's go, let's go. Uh, in general, I'm I seem, you know, when I'm here at work, people always say I'm really, really intense. And I don't really think about myself being intense, but obviously I'm intense. That doesn't mean I'm not happy. I'm just like focused. Um, but I really love what I do. So I have this overall my baseline is really good. The problem that I have is that I just keep going and I need to, I have learned through counseling or coaching or people complaining to me that I have to back off um and assess and acknowledge. That's my weak spot because I I I I can just keep going and like frame the whole world. Like, how did I go to Discos and and as a person that didn't do drugs, smoke, or drink for years and loved it? Discipline. I mean No, I just blocked out all the stuff I didn't want to see. I see. So this is this is my coping strategy for you know, for trauma. My my my person says that I, you know, I had trauma when I was a young person, probably from my chaotic mother, and I have cop a lot of coping strategies, and that is that is what I do. Now, there comes times when I realize I am not, I where's my happy baseline? I'm not that I'm why am I here at 10 o'clock at night still working? Darn it, I wanted to watch another issue of such and such my, you know. So there has to be something to jar me out of it. And then, but I I can tell you, I do not sleep appropriately at times. Normally, you know, you know I don't. I don't, I know. I s I I don't sleep a lot, and um I try and then I just give up. So, but I sleep all the way through, which so I I you you start to start to know like what you pay attention to it. I'm also not I don't know that I'm embarrassed if I'm if I'm ready to have a meltdown. I typically announce it. I will write a letter to the firm and say, I have had it, I am not gonna keep doing, and I do a proclamation process. Then it creates havoc for everybody, and everyone tries to figure out like how can we keep her going. That's how my mental health works in the in the workplace. And it's an odd thing. But you've seen it happen. I make the declaration, I made it to get you. I cannot keep doing this.

Mo Hamoudi 14:59

She didn't I'm getting a mo.

Karen Koehler 15:01

And and the the can't the can the okay, we got to get a Denny and we gotta get a Mo. Yeah, that was the decisions. Great decisions for the law firm. Yeah, but that's how it happened.

Mo Hamoudi 15:11

Yeah, I you know, I do want to say I've gotten really good advice about like waking up or feeling a moment of stress, is focusing on what your mind is saying to you, because it's really your thoughts are speaking. And if you articulate what your thoughts are speaking, you can just the one tool is to reframe it.

Karen Koehler 15:29

Can't we though also say, because remember, this is we first just talked about taking care of yourself and mental health. Can we all acknowledge that clearly my way is not good? Because obviously I must have felt stress after that trial to end up in the hospital. Yeah.

Mike Todd 15:45

But I'm Yeah, I wasn't gonna bring that up.

Karen Koehler 15:47

But you can bring it up with me because I'm not like I don't think that this is a good like if you're not gonna be able to do it.

Mike Todd 15:51

No, yeah, you're you're shoving everything inside, costing that high blood pressure. People get very mad at me.

Karen Koehler 15:56

Now I will enunciate it. I am very good at talking to people. I'm bad at confronting my own family, but I'm good at confronting everybody else in the whole wide world.

Mo Hamoudi 16:03

You're very good at giving advice.

Karen Koehler 16:05

I'm super good at giving advice. You're very take it.

Mo Hamoudi 16:07

Yeah, but it's hard to take your own.

Karen Koehler 16:09

But I will be the first to tell you that my way is not the good way, and that I respect you, I respect you way more than I respect my way of doing it. But a lot of people do it my way that are loyal.

Mike Todd 16:22

I did it your way for a long time. It's just, you know, I after a while your body starts to fall apart, and you gotta figure something else out.

Karen Koehler 16:29

Yeah. I do.

Mike Todd 16:31

Yeah. And that's when, you know, the the I mean that's the thing, though.

Karen Koehler 16:35

They do go together. They do go together.

Mike Todd 16:38

Trying to trying to, you know, I think there's a time for shoving this stuff inside, for sure.

Karen Koehler 16:44

Yeah.

Mike Todd 16:44

But I don't think it's not a long-term thing.

Karen Koehler 16:47

No, and the and here's a good point for that is we have to shut it inside.

Mike Todd 16:52

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 16:53

And I can so there's a story that I'll never uh it's a story. This happened when I was working with Pat Leplay. I represented uh a father who had raised a child basically in a log cabin that he had built. The child's mother had abandoned them when he was months old, um, had just left. And then the child had grown up, he was 17 years old, coming back like the last month of school, and uh they were riding in the backseat of a truck. Um, I mean the back uh the flatbed. Remember how people used to do that? This is like 25 years ago, and uh there was a crash, they were ejected, he was killed. And there was a dispute, the mother came back and wanted um as much as the father. The father had raised his child by himself. So this is one of the only times in my career where I've had a dispute between parents of a deceased child. So we had to have a full-on arbitration and telling the story of the father and the pictures, like there are pictures of him trapping wood with a child on his backpack, you know, he raised this kid in the woods, basically, um, and was just the most loving. I mean, I could I can get Terry just even thinking about it. And I can remember doing the closing argument and you know, putting this in doing the closing argument, and never can you cry. I was trained, you don't cry as a lawyer, you are professional. And I didn't. And I gave it and I walked out and then I just broke broke down. And that's what you have to do. I mean, I did it all throughout I did that all throughout the Ride the Ducks trial, which was one of the there was one person who came and her whole testimony was basically of her crying, screaming. It was she couldn't say anything articulate. One other person came from Asia in fear, had not ever come back here, came here. We had to stop the trial three times because she was out in the hall. We were trying to console her, we were trying to help her get back in, could barely and coherently testify. You have to suppress it all and get through it, and then you can only then let it out. And even then, I should have probably waited till the end of the I could not. It was so overwhelming. So it sets the stage when that's how you're trained. You can't start weeping in the middle of a trial.

Mo Hamoudi 19:31

No, you can't start weeping in the middle of the trial, but there's nothing wrong with showing some emotion in a trial.

Karen Koehler 19:39

I mean, because you have to intense regulate.

Mike Todd 19:42

If you want to shed a tear, you might be able to do that, but you don't want to lose it.

Mo Hamoudi 19:47

Yeah, I mean you the jury's got to see that you're of an emotional investment in the case and in the in the story. And I think that there's there's see what I did here?

Karen Koehler 19:56

Like, I have like I weld up nothing came out.

Mo Hamoudi 20:00

No, you didn't.

Karen Koehler 20:01

Because that's how I can do that. I can and that they can't complain about her tear her eyes weld up. That's not a crime. Now crying, a judge might get mad at you because you're you know, supposedly display, you know, come uh playing to the sympathies of a jury. But it's that regulation of us, it's an emotional regulation. And I was very and especially a young attorney, a new attorney, a female attorney that was used to if I want to cry, I'm gonna cry. I used to cry, I still I cry, I went and saw the goat, that you know, the movie The Goat, yeah, cartoons. Oh my god, I was bawling. Like I will cry at commercials, I used to cry at everything if it hits my spot. I had to learn how I you cannot do that. So when when you start doing that and that fear takes over, like that's not appropriate. And there's and and you just like at all other circumstances of life where you start regulating yourselves and it's not safe for you, you can't do that. Yeah, so then you get to our age, and you have all of us have heart issues.

Mo Hamoudi 21:01

And everybody's been saying I know, but I have started crying a lot more.

Karen Koehler 21:05

Oh my god, all the time. It comes to my room, I'm like, are you gonna cry again?

Your Stress Alphabet And Final Takeaways

Mo Hamoudi 21:09

I mean, I mean, seriously, I've started crying a lot more, and I'm proud of myself. I gotta tell you, it feels flipping good. Yeah. You know, I mean, it just feels like if it makes you feel better, there's no reason not to do it. Yeah, man. It just feels like I am cleansing the soul, you know. Um so okay, we gotta wrap this one up. Yeah, so uh uh uh so we're all we did is talk about personal, what we do. But we're gonna the next part is we're gonna talk about this the second topic.

Karen Koehler 21:39

So wait, what is our conclusion for people?

Mo Hamoudi 21:41

You gotta find an own personal curated way to manage stress. You gotta have an alphabet. And use it.

Karen Koehler 21:47

Don't be like me.

Mo Hamoudi 21:49

Yeah, no.