Guest Author: Jacqueline Y. Chu
In recent years, there has been a growing recognition of lawyer well-being as an urgent concern in the profession. More firms, institutions, and individual lawyers are talking about burnout, mental health, and the need for change. Yet, many lawyers are still suffering in silence, unsure of what to do or how to get better.
I know this firsthand as a lawyer who struggled with crippling anxiety and depression. On the outside, I was performing well. On the inside, I was anxious, exhausted, and increasingly numb. I told myself to push through, believing that struggling meant I wasn’t cut out for the job. Eventually, I burned out completely.
As I recovered and began practicing psychotherapy, I learned that burnout is not a personal failing. Rather, it’s a signal that we need to develop the inner skills to be able to stay grounded, navigate pressure, and recover from setbacks.
In this article, I’ll share why lawyer well-being requires a different perspective, introduce three essential skills for psychological well-being, and explore a sustainable approach to success rooted in authenticity.
This article is based on the upcoming course I recently developed for the Legal Education Society of Alberta (LESA) and the Law Society of Alberta on building a fulfilling and sustainable legal career: Practice Fundamentals: Cultivating Well-Being.
Why Lawyer Well-Being Requires a Different Lens
Law is not only intellectually demanding but also emotionally taxing. Lawyers work in high-stakes, adversarial environments that reward precision, performance, and perfectionism. We absorb other people’s pain and trauma while trying to maintain a calm, competent front. We are taught to “win,” not to feel. And we are often expected to keep going, no matter the personal cost.
The result is chronic stress that wears us down and eventually leads to burnout if left unaddressed.
Many well-being initiatives focus on important—but short-term—approaches: work-life balance, stress management, and mental health awareness. These are essential, but they often don’t provide lasting change.
To understand what lawyers truly need, it helps to distinguish between two related but distinct concepts of well-being:
- Subjective Well-Being (SWB): how we feel day to day—our mood, happiness, and life satisfaction.
- Psychological Well-Being (PWB): how we function—our sense of meaning, emotional resilience, autonomy, and ability to grow through challenges.
Most well-being programs focus on SWB: helping lawyers feel better, rest more, or reduce stress. Because SWB fluctuates, what lawyers also need is PWB: the ability to handle stress, bounce back from failure, and build careers from the inside out.
In high-pressure environments like law, psychological well-being not only protects mental health but is also essential for sustainable high performance.
Three Essential Skills for Lawyer Well-Being
So, what does psychological well-being look like in practice? In the course, we focus on three essential skills: emotional agility, mind-body awareness, and growth mindset.
#1: Emotional Agility
Many lawyers are taught, either explicitly or implicitly, that emotions get in the way of good judgment. We pride ourselves on being logical, analytical, and composed. Nevertheless, emotions are part of the human experience. Suppressing them doesn’t make us more effective. It only makes us more reactive.
Emotional agility is the skill of recognizing, understanding, and regulating emotions in real time. It allows you to stay grounded under pressure, rather than reacting impulsively or shutting down.
Imagine receiving a heated email from a client who’s frustrated with the outcome of a case. Your first instinct might be anger or defensiveness. Without emotional agility, you might fire off a reply you later regret. Or instead, you might spiral internally and end up having a terrible day. With emotional agility, you pause. You name what you are feeling, take a breath, and choose a thoughtful, values-aligned response instead.
Practice tip: When you notice a strong emotion, ask:
What am I feeling? What matters most right now?
This simple shift helps you stay connected to your values, even under pressure.
#2: Mind-Body Awareness
Lawyers are trained to live in their heads. We rely on logic and language, not intuition or embodiment. But that disconnection comes at a cost.
Mind-body awareness is the ability to notice and interpret the connection between your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. It helps you recognize when stress is building and take action before it tips into burnout.
Stress doesn’t just live in the mind. It lives in the body. You might feel “fine” mentally but still carry tension in your jaw, tightness in your chest, or restlessness in your limbs. These physical cues are early warning signs.
The challenge is that we often don’t notice them until it’s too late.
Mind-body awareness also helps you break the cycle of chronic tension and stress. You may be surprised to learn that relaxation is a skill. And like any skill, it requires practice, especially if chronic stress has conditioned your nervous system to be stuck in fight-flight-freeze mode.
Practice tip: Try 4-6 breathing for relaxation:
Inhale slowly for four seconds, then exhale for six.
This activates your parasympathetic nervous system, calming your body and mind.
Build in regular micro-breaks throughout your day. Even 30 seconds to stretch, breathe, or step outside can reset your nervous system and restore clarity.
#3: Growth Mindset
Perfectionism is rampant in the legal profession. It helps us spot errors and raise our standards, but when combined with self-criticism, it becomes harmful and maladaptive.
Perfectionism is often a symptom of a fixed mindset: the belief that your abilities are set in stone, and any failure is a sign you are not good enough.
A growth mindset is the belief that your skills and intelligence can be developed through effort, learning, and feedback. It reframes failure as a normal and necessary part of growth.
A fixed mindset fuels perfectionism, anxiety, and the tendency to avoid challenges when success feels like the only acceptable outcome. Developing a growth mindset helps break this cycle by shifting the focus from proving yourself to learning and improvement. This perspective supports not only long-term performance but also mental health and well-being.
Practice tip: Next time you make a mistake, instead of criticizing yourself, try asking:
What can I learn from this? What would I do differently next time?
Reimagining Success: Authentic Leadership
A deeper sense of well-being in our careers is rooted in fulfillment rather than better coping skills.
Many lawyers are taught to equate success with reputation: how we are seen, what we’ve achieved, whether we meet the expectations around us. But reputation is shaped by factors we can’t always control. Character, on the other hand, is built from within, through our values, our decisions, and how we choose to show up.
Authenticity means anchoring your career in who you are. It doesn’t require giving up ambition; it asks that your ambition be aligned with your values, your strengths, and your sense of purpose. Over time, this alignment becomes a critical factor for well-being and sustainable success.
In fact, a study of 6,200 lawyers and judges identified authenticity as the strongest predictor of lawyer happiness. The data suggest that authenticity is about 12 times more powerful than income in predicting lawyer well-being (Krieger & Sheldon, 2015).[1]
This finding challenges the belief that success in law is driven primarily by money, status, or prestige. Instead, it underscores the importance of living in alignment with who we are.
That alignment includes embracing not just your strengths but also the parts of yourself you’ve learned to hide—what’s known as the “shadow side” in psychology. Maybe you’ve been told you are too sensitive. Maybe your background or personality doesn’t fit the traditional image of a lawyer. There’s a quiet pressure in the profession to downplay those parts. But what we hide to appear capable or credible often holds the key to deeper connection, originality, and leadership.
When you build a career that reflects who you are—not just what the profession expects—you create the conditions for both integrity and fulfillment, the ingredients for a deeper sense of well-being.
Building Lasting Well-Being
To meaningfully address burnout in law, we need to move beyond short-term fixes and strengthen the psychological skills that support long-term well-being.
This includes developing the ability to self-reflect, regulate emotions, recognize limits, and lead with authenticity, even in the midst of pressure, uncertainty, and high expectations.
Meaningful change doesn’t necessarily require a complete overhaul of your routine. Small, intentional shifts such pausing before reacting, taking a breath when stress builds, or asking a question that invites growth can make a significant difference over time.
To explore these ideas more in depth, the full course—Practice Fundamentals: Cultivating Well-Being—is available through LESA soon.
Personalized training is also available for facilitation within law firms, legal departments, or professional organizations. To explore bringing it to your team, contact the author at jacqueline.chu@jychu.com.
[1] Krieger, Lawrence S, and Kennon M Sheldon. 2015. “What Makes Lawyers Happy? A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success.” The George Washington Law Review 83 (January): 554.
