This episode explores what it means to build a sustainable law practice using trauma-informed principles which benefit every lawyer's mental health.
Helgi Maki discusses mental health, sustainability and how the legal profession creates a double life and in doing so, demands that lawyers also maintain impossible appearances which may cost them their mental well-being.
Episode 4: “Trauma-Informed Law and Creating a Sustainable Legal Practice”
Published: June 18, 2020
Episode Description: Helgi Maki discusses mental health, sustainability and how the legal profession creates a double life and in doing so, demands that lawyers also maintain impossible appearances and may cost them their mental well-being.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: I’m Myrna McCallum, Métis-Cree lawyer, and passionate promoter of trauma-informed lawyering. Welcome to my new podcast, the Trauma-Informed Lawyer brought to you in partnership with the Canadian Bar Association.
I believe that law schools and bar courses are missing a critical competency requirement in their curriculum: trauma-informed lawyering. Becoming a trauma-informed lawyer will, among other things, challenging you to critically reflect on your personal behaviours, beliefs, and biases. Call on you to positively transform the way you approach advocacy, guide your practice to avoid doing further harm to others, and ask that you commit to remaining open to learn new and old knowledge you didn’t know you needed before beginning your career. Your education starts right here, right now.
This podcast comes to you from the traditional, unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh [Squamish], səl̓ilwətaɁɬ [Tsleil-Waututh], and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm [Musqueam] people.
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Trauma-Informed Lawyer Podcast. Today, I am sharing an interview with you that I held with a friend of mine, Helgi Maki. Helgi is a former large law firm partner turned legal innovation consultant and coach whose work advocating for trauma-informed lawyering has been published in the Canadian Supreme Court Law Review. She believes that harnessing he courage to face the discomfort of trauma has the power to improve the legal system, including increasing access to justice and well-being for both clients and lawyers in every practice area. Professionally, she saw that no one is exempt from traumatic stress responses from the corporate boardrooms of Bay Street to a court room hearing sex assault cases. Personally, she learned that facing trauma despite discomfort or even stigma has life-changing benefits that defied her expectations. The more she has faced the personal impact of trauma, the healthier and happier she has become personally and professionally. The other choice she tried unsuccessfully was living a double-life to try and hide the impact of trauma. Helgi’s work is inspired by her mother who died by suicide and who never experienced the legal system as a place to receive help instead of harm. She hopes that the profession will stop trying to live in a collective double-life of strength on the surface and suffering underneath. She hopes that one day lawyers will be emboldened to face the uncomfortable truth that many clients hope working with a lawyer will have healing benefits, or at least not result in additional harm. Even if this isn’t part of a lawyer’s job description.
Helgi Maki is a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law with an MA from Carleton University. She joined the bar in 2003 and the New York Bar in 2005. You can find her work on Twitter @traumalaw or traumainformedlaw.org. So, I’m going to get right into it. Helgi and I had a conversation about trauma-informed practice and how it is that lawyers should and could build a sustainable practice for themselves, for their clients, and of course for their colleagues.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Thanks for joining me today. Can you maybe just share with me a little bit about, as a lawyer, what got you interested in the area of trauma and trauma-informed approaches?
HELGI MAKI: Thanks Myrna, I’m really happy to be here, and I’m so happy that you’ve created this podcast. I think what got me interested in trauma-informed law is a few things. I mean, I’m always interested in hearing why people went to law school. For me, this is a longer story, which I can go into some other time maybe, but there was a crime that occurred in my family. So that was kind of in the background. And then when I went to law school, I remember sitting in criminal law class and hearing about the cases, and it was as if the people involved in the case on all sides, it was like their story ended with the case, the decision coming down. And that wasn’t my experience. So I kind of remember thinking, “well, isn’t there more?” I remember looking up the name of a person involved in a case and wondering what happened to them after. And then after I went through my conventional legal career I found that the same kind of questions kept coming up from clients or other lawyers, questions like “why did this happen in my case, it felt like people were being jerks” or I started helping some people pro-bono with sexual assault cases and questions coming up around “why do people see things this way?” or “why am I not believed or even heard” “why do these things keep happening over and over again?” So I kind of started to think about law more like how would we think about it if we were running a hospital? You know, if I were working in a hospital and someone came to me and said “hey, I sent my friend who I love to your hospital, and they were more hurt than they were helped by what they got there” I would really have to reflect on what I was doing there and why.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: You know how doctors have, like the Hippocratic oath, right? Do you feel that lawyers should have the same duty imposed upon them, or professional obligation?
HELGI MAKI: It’s hard for me to answer for all lawyers. I know what I feel inside, and what I feel inside is that I, as a lawyer, as a legal consultant, I want to work in a way where I do not do unnecessary harm. Right? Like, sometimes we do need to argue or assert certain points, or act in a way that escalates something, because that’s in the best interest of our client or their rights. But, there are many instances where I can choose. I can choose my response and I don’t need to do unnecessary harm. I can act in a way that is sensitive to the needs of everyone involved.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: How do you think trauma-informed approaches can benefit the legal system broadly? So not just courts, not just, like a solicitor’s practice, but all participants that you would see within a legal system?
HELGI MAKI: I remember, I think you wrote an article and it was published in one of the legal magazines, I forget which one. You were talking about vicarious trauma. I feel like trauma is a word that people don’t like to hear at first, and it’s difficult to hear. Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer in the US talks about justice, to receive justice we need to do things that are inconvenient and uncomfortable. So, trauma is this kind of hidden gem in an odd way for lawyers, because it’s inconvenient and uncomfortable to hear about at first, that we might actually experience impact even hearing a story about a client’s trauma when we’re not directly involved. But yet when we understand how trauma affects the brain, how it affects us, how it affects our clients, it can really help. It can help give us more options in a case, it can help give us more options in a legal system. Like, for instance back to the hospital analogy, and let’s say that hospital is dealing with sexual assault cases. It can give us options other than 95% of the cases don’t “succeed” in terms of a verdict that reflects what the survivor may have wished to bring forward. I feel like it can give us more options, it can really open up the way we look at the system and it can make practice more sustainable for lawyers, right? A question I often get, and I think we’ve talked about this, is people looking for another way to practice or a way out, and what about sustainable practice? So, I feel like knowing about trauma and knowing about its impact makes practice more sustainable potentially for individual lawyers and also the system as a whole.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Vicarious trauma is not something that lawyers talk about. It doesn’t seem to be within their consciousness, and I’m curious about what you think about why that is and what it is that lawyers and adjudicators can do to change that.
HELGI MAKI: Yeah! It’s a good question! I’m going to mix metaphors here and so, I was thinking about speaking with you today and I was thinking about how lawyers were kind of trained like boxers. Or at least I felt like I was trained as if I were going to be a boxer. And so to put the gloves on and go into the ring and fight and assess the situation and find the different ways to punch. But we are never taught I think in law school to take our gloves off and even to restore or to seek physio when we are punched ourselves, or when we’re side-swiped by something. And so, there is a relentlessness to the nature of our training in terms of how we’re taught to argue, and argue again, and argumentation as the default strategy. So there are many other strategies we can use in our tool kits. If you put those boxers into a hospital, and they’re running the hospital, what kind of patient care or bedside manner or even surgery are you getting are all we have with their gloves on? So sometimes I notice that myself, I notice in a, let’s say a negotiation, the negotiation will be over and I myself will still be in fight-mode and someone would ask me an innocuous question and I may still be in argument-mode. I’ve still got my gloves on. So, I need myself to pause and go oh – okay, argument is done. I can now take my gloves off, here are the other ways I can work and communicate.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Yea, and that’s a really good point. I would say I have seen lawyers stay in fight-mode long after a trial ends and becoming adversarial or even sometimes conflict-seeking then becomes a way of practice. What would you say to lawyers and law firms particularly like, law firms who have a real um, robust articling program? If we begin conversations around vicarious trauma, how to embrace that, and where to begin?
HELGI MAKI: The word that comes to mind as you ask me that question is the word “debriefing.” So, I think most other service professions across the board, whether it’s health care, psychology, or even service industries, there is kind of a debriefing practice, where people get together after and say “how did that go?” or “how did that work for you?” “What did you notice in the clients and how they were responding?” We really haven’t incorporated that meaningfully yet into legal practice. So articling programs, they often have mentorship programs, and then work assignment, monthly meetings, weekly meetings, and so even a simple debriefing over coffee. And the trauma-informed question, the one that is popularized by Dr. Perry is, instead of asking what’s wrong with you, asking what did you experience, how are you doing, how are things going? And asking those questions in a very meaningful way and being open to hearing about, and speaking about their own, lawyer’s own experiences of mental health and trauma-impact. Saying, for instance, oh I found myself in fight-mode even after that ended, or I found myself not sleeping after that case didn’t go as planned. So, I think making that space and making it meaningful, and I’m going to be really real. We have to reward it in some way. Right? Our system, legal system is set up to reward winning, whatever that is perceived to be. So, there needs to be an incentive around it. It can’t be seen as it is now, as a loss where you know, oh – that person was weak, or couldn’t put on their gloves for that extra hour that day. It needs to be rewarded in some way.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: I would say some law firms might say well, you know, we don’t get paid for debriefing, we don’ get paid – we don’t bill the client to take care of our emotional health. Any time we spend debriefing or talking about feelings takes away from our billable hours. What would you say to folks who come from that perspective?
HELGI MAKI: Yeah, I think it’s possible to challenge that from two perspectives. One is, now we have more data that has been gathered and is emerging in terms of looking at law as a series of patterns, as opposed to just case-by-case. So, a debrief is also about what worked here? Right? It doesn’t need to exclude the things that worked here in terms of what allowed us to be compensated. Compensation isn’t off the table, it can be part of it. It can be part of how are we working efficiently, effectively, sustainably. And for some reason I’m reminded – I was talking to someone who had worked at the World Bank, and they had suggested that, you know, looking at reducing trauma impact in the world, particularly among women, among mothers, this actually increases, and I don’t want to look at it this way – it’s not my primary way of looking at it! But economic productivity, right? So, people can’t be productive in the same way in the same time if they’re on the wrong end of the boxing glove. Right? And so, linking those in a more, in a heartfelt way. Not just a numbers way. I think it could help there. And I’m sure there’s data around it if people need to be convinced as lawyers always do.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: What are some little steps that people can take, or organizations can take, and I say little steps because you and I both know – you know, radical transformation: highly unlikely within the legal profession.
HELGI MAKI: Yea, I think the smaller step that I end up speaking to people about, is using that question “what have you experienced?” “What has the client experienced, what happened to them?” And so, you don’t necessarily announce a program. You can just start asking that question yourself. So, I mean, that’s kind of how I started way back when I was in grade 1, embarrassingly, when I started thinking about law school, right? You know, what happened here? What did people experience? If I could change only one thing, and only one phrase, I would change the difficult client conversation that I think ends up being had in the back office or over coffee: “oh wow, that client was difficult.” It’s not even necessary to argue with it, and put on your boxing gloves. The simple change that can be made is “oh, I wonder what they were experiencing?” Right? I wonder what was going on, and just asking that question. I once had a conversation with someone who told me about the fact they had just regained employment after having been in prison. Someone I asked the question, it kind of popped out before I could stop myself, “what did you experience, what happened?” and they said actually all of the men in my family have been to prison. So, what if we had that as a part of our criminal law courses, or part of our debriefing conversations? What did the client experience before the case, what did they experience after? So, a lot of the smallest things that people can do are around these – another one that comes to mind is there is another unstated assumption: trust me because I’m a lawyer. Right? As opposed to knowing that oh, this client doesn’t know me, it’s for me to earn their trust and establish a sense of safety. So, really small things like that. Things that can be summarized in a few words.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: That’s interesting. So, just changing the conversation around the difficult client. I really like that. That, I think, is key because it’s a starting place. It’s changing a conversation and anyone can begin there. Whether your in a law school, working at a law society, in a law firm, you can begin there. About how you approach and perceive difficult clients. The thing that can happen in debriefing is that question can be flipped. Oh, so you had an experience where a client appeared to you to be difficult – what did you experience about that? How did that happen for you? Did things need to be repeated? Did they not answer a question? How did that show up for you? And so, to address the vicarious part too without even using those words. Without even saying trauma or vicarious, right?
MYRNA MCCALLUM: I think that’s really brilliant, so you could begin to introduce those concepts and these ideas without even attaching those words, like “vicarious” or “trauma” to it. Which, those words alone likely carry a ton of stigma or ideas that some folks might be resistant against. So, that’s really interesting. It’s really about reframing your language and reframing your approach.
HELGI MAKI: So, I kind of came up, as a presentation I did around average childhood experiences in San Francisco, I kind of came up with a list of these covert questions we could ask. So, one also that we don’t necessarily ask is what are the client’s strengths? Right? Like, what if we started either a debriefing or a client meeting with, instead of the law school style of ‘the problem’ the ‘issues’ and ‘the likelihood of winning or losing.’ Instead of telling the client immediately what all of the problems are, what are the obstacles are, what about taking a strengths-based approach.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: So for people who are not familiar with that language, a ‘strength-based approach’ how would you describe that?
HELGI MAKI: I would describe that as taking a step back from the case and the client, perceiving them as a client, and looking at the situation from a very human perspective and asking ourselves and our client, what do I offer here? What do I bring? And it could be a very human thing, like the client is taking this case very seriously. It’s important to them. It has meaning to them. That is a strength, and that never comes up on a law school exam, as an issue, or part of the problem. And that can be really motivating for clients.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Yeah. I’m thinking back to sustainability, your comments on sustainability on how incorporating a conversation within the workday about, like, challenging cases or challenging content to include debriefing, etc. What would you say to, let’s say the law student, who decided to go into law school because they are very passionate about justice for children, within the context of a family law practice, let’s say. They know they want to be a family law lawyer, maybe they experienced like, a horrible custody battle when their parents divorced, etc., and they’re like no, there has to be a better way. I’m going to go into family law and I’m going to find a better way. What would you say to that law student in terms of things they ought to turn their mind to, to ensure their own sustainability and their own wellbeing as they get into a practice area that can be quite emotional, quite draining, and quite challenging?
HELGI MAKI: One piece of advice that I would begin with, and again this is [not] something we talk about in law school, and sometimes not in the health system, is I would suggest that they look at what is energizing for them. What gives them energy, what feels motivating, and what feels heavy or like it is not motivating? And so, I think for practice sustainability, I think of the environment as a model, right? Where is your sun and your water and your fertilizer coming from? And really when we look at the model we’re taught, you know lawyers are supposed to be reasonable people, negotiating with reasonable people and we’re supposed to keep punching until somebody wins. And that’s not really how it works. There are all these preconditions of food and sleep and movement and healthy relationship and mental health and some kind of connection, I believe, with mindfulness and introspection, reflection. All of these things are preconditions, and so I would say look at those preconditions as well as what gives you energy and what does not. To track those kinds of patterns. And there are a lot of, um, there is an emerging dialogue around this. There is a pilot project that became an official form of court in Florida called “Zero to Three” it’s the infant court project. Automatically, if a child is under the age of three there is a different process that happens because they know that the attachment bonds and being present with parents at that age is so fundamentally important for brain and emotional development, all levels of development. And so, I would say okay, take an example of something you aspire to, maybe this is one. And compare and contrast it with your current practice. What is happening in that situation that you like, or you find hope in, find meaning in, or it gives you energy, I want to do that, I want to help people with that. Versus you know, what’s happening in your own practice. Maybe in your own practice is, and I certainly experienced this, is you know, feeling like e-mail traffic controller and you know, where every e-mail is a punch. That can feel draining after the thousandth e-mail of the day. Looking for models that you can incorporate into your own practice that provide that energy and meet those inner conditions as well as the outer conditions.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: I have met a few younger lawyers who have told me about doing, like, front-line, social justice kind of work. This really quite challenging, draining, emotionally/spiritually, like on all levels. And some have admittedly taken some time away to restore themselves. Like a year or two away from the practice to do something else to regain what it was that was drained and then come back to it. But what would you recommend for individuals who are really on the frontlines and in the path of traumas of others on a daily basis? What would you say to those folks to empower them and to help them build a sustainable practice? And not just for themselves, but for their colleagues, because of course these front-line people, they don’t do what they do in isolation. They couldn’t do it alone, because if they did, you know, it wouldn’t be long before they would completely be devastated. So, for folks who are working on the front-line, within an organization that does a lot of engagement with traumatized persons, what would you say to them to build a sustainable practice?
HELGI MAKI: My heart goes out to the front-line, especially right now, in the middle of this pandemic, right? We’re talking in the middle of a pandemic. And, um, one thing that comes to mind is to not fight the river. So, I mean, the unfortunate reality of our current world is that we don’t have a magic solution that is, let’s say working in a clinic environment where there is a lot of violence that you’re dealing with, or stories about violence. And so, we often talk about stopping cycles of violence, or even shifting them. So, it’s very difficult to say this, but it’s you know, we’re in a time in our world where it’s not going away. It’s actually present. So, and there are analogies about trauma, like, thinking you’re not going to be affected by it is like thinking you’re going to walk through the river and not get wet. I think as lawyers, we not only want to stay dry while walking in the river, we want to stop the river. We want to divert it. So to be really real about, okay, my job every day is to walk in and out of the river and it may, by my act of doing this, the river may shift over time but to have some real anchors about culture shift, which is what we are trying to do in the justice system I think. Right? I think we’re trying to make violence less prevalent. To do that at the same time as holding the other thought which is I may in my lifetime not shift the river and still my work can be meaningful. So, that’s sort of an overall framework.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: I love that, that in all of your time you may not be able to shift the river but your work can still be meaningful. Yeah. I love that. So, I’m thinking Helgi, as we’re talking about this. I see the theme of our conversation really emerging and that being how do you develop a sustainable practice? We can’t identify individuals by their legal issues. We have to see them as the whole person. And the same applies to ourselves. We’re not just lawyers, we’re whole complex people who show up to do advocacy. What is a piece of advice that you would give to folks, and right now I’m thinking about the young lawyers and the law students, about how they can build a sustainable practice that really incorporates a trauma-informed approach?
HELGI MAKI: I think I would say this is a classic don’t do what I did. Um, I think that the way our training works, we’re encouraged to leave parts of ourselves out and split ourselves to kind of live to lives to secretly catch up on sleep and then to show up at the office pretending to be like oh, the level of hours here doesn’t affect me. So, if I could go back in time myself, I would say to myself don’t split yourself, don’t try to live a double life. Don’t try to pretend like your vocation doesn’t involve elder care or dealing with trauma. I would, of course we need to respect our own sense of privacy and who we feel safe speaking with.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Would you say boundaries are really critical, Helgi? Like, to identify them and to stay true to them.
HELGI MAKI: Yes, and I think I overdid it. So, to have boundaries without overdoing them and having them be iron-clad. So, in terms of creating community, I mean that community can include clients who want to work in a trauma-informed way. Right? So, connecting with clients and saying I remember speaking with one client in particular and talking with them about, even though it wasn’t something we were specifically working on, they asked oh what are you doing on the weekend. And I said I’m writing this thing about trauma, and then you know, have you heard of Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and her six points about the ways to prevent trauma impact. That led to a sense of community with the client and the client connecting with me to someone who wanted to write an article about trauma in the legal system. So long story short, to include that and community with colleagues and also the client community.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Interesting. So, the community that one can create isn’t just, or doesn’t just have to be limited to your office, or to your professional environment. I’m now thinking about like, what if any value do you see in lawyers or firms partnering with, and engaging with mental health professionals. To come into their environment and work together? Do you think there is space for that?
HELGI MAKI: I think there should be space for it, and I wish that there was more space for it to just be a regular normal thing. Not pathologizing mental health. I mean like, come on! Our job is to argue and use our brains all day. Of course, that need to be healthy! To me, if we were back in the hospital analogy, it’s like expecting the surgeons to keep working but without attending to, are all but the tools in the surgery clean and ready to go? Right? If we are constantly using our brains and our eyes to read and comprehend and absorb, you know, this should be just really a regular thing. So, expanding it to not just mental health, because I think when we use the word ‘mental health’ sometimes we think pathology: fixing something. Mental wellbeing, including that meaning-making aspect of things, which for me is part of mental wellbeing. I just, I think we can’t afford the stigma anymore, is the thing. You know, there is still stigma around mental health, and especially when our performance as legal professionals comes through our brains, how does it make any sense at all to leave that off the table? It just makes no sense to me.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: How do you think bringing a trauma-informed practice benefits the client-lawyer relationship?
HELGI MAKI: The usual benefit that I experience when speaking with a client is a sigh of relief. [Laughter] The client often feels more understood, um, they often will say more to you because they feel more in alignment, that you really do have their back. That you genuinely care. I mean, we do have to, with reference to boundaries, we do have to have boundaries with clients. You know, we can’t be taking calls at one in the morning and you know, offering to help people with their personal things that don’t belong as part of the relationship on the weekends. We do need those boundaries. However, you know, sometimes I’ve had a client say wow this went in a different direction – I feel so much better about this because we talked about its impact on me. Or we talk more broadly about it, or we talked about my strengths. So, usually the benefit to the clients and the client relationship is they feel safer, it opens up more options, and there is a closer relationship so you have more material to work with.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Okay, so I see definitely the benefit for the client. Ultimately, how will that improve the way a lawyer interviews a client, or the way they approach the quote-unquote, difficult client? I also recognize Helgi, in fairness to you and everyone who allows me to interview them [laughter] this is really an emerging approach to the practice of law and that we don’t always have the answers. We might have a lot of ideas, but it’s something that is constantly evolving until, you know, until it becomes a best practice type of thing.
HELGI MAKI: So, one thing I did experience, and I like to frame things in terms of my own experiences. I actually think that’s sometimes the most compelling. In this area, you’re right, it’s emerging. So, it’s more difficult to draw on a study. When there is a situation of the difficult client, you know, the client isn’t responding or what might be labelled as difficult. When I am able to take a step back and open up my perspective on not just the client, but the situation, myself, then I’m often able to see something that was obscured by my focus on getting the answer. Right? In law we’re trained, we need, it’s like we’re chasing a ball. Get the answer, win it, and this very sequential and linear way of pursuing something. So, one time I was working on, this is actually about a paper, working on an interview in connection with a paper. And I found myself asking something in a technical way. So, I was able to take a step back and realize there was a stress-based learning going on. Client was learning in a survival mode. There’s actually some work on this, ‘survival-learning.’ Once I took a step back and just re-asked the question very casually, then I was able to get, instead of chasing the ball, I was still not getting the ball but I was a step further ahead. And so was the client. Right? We were getting somewhere, as opposed to constantly being, um, left without the answer. And so, that was a real benefit. It took some time, there was an opening of a conversation that needed to happen over the course of a few days, or I think it turned into a little while longer than that. It ended up going somewhere. Conversations can go somewhere that would otherwise have nowhere to go.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: It sounds to be like what you’re describing is really that there are benefits for lawyers who engage with clients in a way where they adapt the way they engage. They’re flexible in their engagement, versus following maybe a strict script. Very precise, right? So, if you just kind of let go of that a little bit, and be a little bit more of, maybe less formal or less rigid, then what presents might be everything you need.
HELGI MAKI: Absolu – everything you need and then some! I’m reminded of a word Bryan Stevenson uses in terms of how he works with his clients. He talks about proximity. Getting close to the client, he doesn’t mean that by, you know, helping them go to the grocery store, obviously [laughter]. He means that by helping himself to understand their social context, what their experience is, but in a different way then just asking them what happened to them. Really being in alignment with the client’s own mindset or way of thinking about something. So back to the learning point, putting myself in the client’s shoes of, okay, having been in an experience where my rights were violated by the state, I now have to fill out this 50-point questionnaire and interact with the government and the very one that ended up violating my rights. Putting myself in that position, then I can understand much more why there might be, need to be some type of accommodation about learning or responding. And I understand them much better.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: If you were to be making the argument to say this is how trauma-informed practice is going to help you sustain your practice over the long-haul, sustain yourself, sustain your relationships, what would you say?
HELGI MAKI: I would say, I would rent a billboard! [Laughter] I would say rent a billboard for the CBA conference. I would say that lawyer wellbeing that affects practice sustainability is not a mystery. I really don’t think it’s a mystery. It’s difficult to speak about. And I think that trauma plays a huge role in it. Bessel van der Kolk, a trauma expert, talks about trauma as a silent epidemic. We are not exempt from this. So we look at lawyer’s higher suicide rates, higher rates of addiction, including alcoholism, higher rates of mental health challenges. When we’re constantly expected to argue all day, often in isolation, and without any type of downtime. When downtime doesn’t count for anything, without rest, then of course there are going to be these issues. So, I think that, you know, when we work in trauma, we have a much greater chance of succeeding in creating a sustainable approach to legal practice than if we don’t. You know like right now, what if we weren’t talking about COVID-19 and all of the symptoms and issues. Right? Would we expect to resolve it? Or cancer? We don’t expect to resolve the things we don’t talk about. But somehow, when it comes to the practice of sustainability and lawyer wellbeing, we think oh, by talking about the pieces of the iceberg that we can see above the water, we talk about those as sufficient. I don’t think it is. I think we need to look at the seascape and all of the components of the iceberg underneath the sea-level that go on all the time. Right? The fact that, you know, it’s a given in our jobs that we’re expected to constantly argue. Without support. Without speaking about mental health.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Adopting a trauma-informed practice is really going to minimize the mental health risks that we face within this profession.
HELGI MAKI: Yea! And having a source of support.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Yes. Absolutely. Well, this conversation has been really insightful. And I know that folks listening are also going to be inspired by the conversation. Particularly increasing awareness of mental health risks to those of us who work within the legal profession. So, I guess in closing Helgi, if there is anything you want to say to the folks listening to us about how they can build a sustainable practice, what’s the one thing you would encourage them to do right now?
HELGI MAKI: I would encourage them to assess the cost of stigma that they are taking on right now in their lives and their practice. I think if they look at it in terms of anything being unspoken, unaddressed, whether that’s with themselves, with a client, or where they’re working. Really, if they take a look with the question am I willing to bear the cost of this stigma, is the cost of this stigma too high? I think right now in the world the answer is we can’t afford stigma anymore. It is, the cost is too high. We need, as lawyers, to apply our brains and our emotional intelligence on an ongoing basis to help people. Especially with this pandemic, stigma needs to be off the table.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Thank you for that.
HELGI MAKI: Thank you. Thank you for having me! I love that you’re doing this! It is such an important topic!
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Well, thank you, thank you for your support and your encouragement. It’s always unwavering, I really appreciate it! Okay, and thanks so much for taking time out to talk with me today about these really important concepts. These emerging, brilliant, approaches to a different way of practicing law. To encourage sustainability and ultimately safeguard our mental health and the mental health of our colleagues so we can continue to do what we have to do, what we’re called to do, on a regular basis. So, thank you, Helgi. Thank you.
MYRNA MCCALLUM: Okay, well, that was our episode for today. I really hope you enjoyed it. Build a sustainable practice people! Build a sustainable practice! You won’t regret it. If you have any thoughts, ideas, questions, about today’s episode, you can find me on Twitter at @legaltrauma on Twitter, as well as The Trauma Informed Lawyer on Instagram. Of course, you can always find me on LinkedIn, and I would really love to hear from you.
Next time when I’m back, we’re going to have a conversation about Indigenous intergenerational trauma and cultural humility. I think right now when we’re having these conversations about systemic racism, it’s a good time to introduce that subject. So until next time. Take care everyone!