To my female colleagues who are criminal defense lawyers….
Have you ever found yourself sitting in a doctor’s office, waiting for breast imaging on a suspected tumor, while furiously typing out a stipulation to get it electronically filed under a deadline? Ever found yourself wiping away tears while going into a courtroom to take care of a client’s case hours after learning that your loved one died?
Ever find yourself leaving marathon sessions at the jail or court and realizing you haven’t eaten, drank anything or gone to the bathroom?
How about the nearly indescribable heartbreak of telling a decent human being, who also happens to be a client on a drug case, that their options are limited to a double digit prison term now or a decades long one after trial? And then telling their mother and wife the same thing…
Are you, perhaps, up at 2am trying to calm your brain enough to go to sleep and wondering how anyone manages to maintain a criminal defense practice while not losing their mind, their health or both? If you have experienced anything like this, my blog is for you. I write to honor and support my female criminal defense attorney allies.
Most of my career has been spent in private practice as a solo practitioner. As such, I am most affected by the loneliness that can come from handling everything by yourself. Out of this experience comes the name of my blog (She’s Solo, Esq). But there is loneliness in this profession in many forms. The solo practitioner may often feel it but all of us encounter it at some point in criminal defense law whether we are solo or in a firm. This blog is for us.
It is my labor of love and my way of telling you that while you may be solo, you are not alone. Solo not Alone.
My guess is that the only thing that allows you to currently handle all of these competing demands is that you pull time out of self-care and sleep. You put yourself last. This can lead to all manner of disaster for your well-being and health but, often, these consequences don’t come to bear until many years after we are ingrained into this life.
I have had to face some of these consequences in my own life. I started this blog to share the experiences that I believe are common to many of us female criminal defense and the hacks I have found along the way that have helped me.
I hope to provide some solutions and support that help you save your health and well-being without having to change careers.
DISCLAIMER: Lawyers always like a disclaimer! I write about my experience as a solo practicing female criminal defense attorney because that is what I know. I am writing about my own experiences and those of my similarly suited colleagues in hopes that the hacks that I have found can help others.
I do NOT write to exclude anyone, devalue anything anyone else is doing or make some ill-fated comparison about the rigors of one person’s life over another’s. This is a blog about support and positive energy. If a hack that I have found helps anyone in any circumstance, I am happy.
I know that there are general groups that all have their own experiences, successes and challenges…i.e. all attorneys in general, men and women from the other helping professions (social workers, doctors, psychologists, teachers etc), women and men generally with busy lives etc.).
I am targeting the female solo criminal defense practitioner and female criminal defense attorneys because that is in alignment with my experience and I have a passion to reach out to share what has worked for me in my little corner of the world. I want us to go beyond functional. We are always functional because so many depend on us. We deserve to be optimal.
I want us to have a place where we can be reminded that, while we are solo, we are not alone.
Yours in Solidarity and Peace, Toni