Meet Matt Hrutkay “Practising law to me is as stressful as when I was in combat in Iraq”
“The only other time in my life when I felt such intense stress and imbalance was when I was in the army in combat. In many ways lawyering is just as stressful if not more stressful. Let that sink in… Lawyers’ stress levels are fairly comparable to what a veteran experienced in combat. As lawyers we go into combat every day and the stakes are very important”.
The Institute of Well-being in Law, USA celebrated its first ever annual conference held online, with over 500 participants from all over the world, on the 19-21st January 2022. I was delighted and grateful to be in attendance and spent those 3 days happily scribbling notes from 4.45pm to 11.15pm CET! There was opportunity to interact with the speakers and other participants in the chat boxes and time for Q&A at the end. The experience was validating to me as a Holistic lawyer practising in wellbeing for myself and my clients. It was inspiring and uplifting!
“How to master work-life balance in an imbalanced culture: strategies for lawyers” was jointly delivered by author, speaker and podcaster Dr Donnie Hutchinson, expert on work/ life balance with powerful tools to share and veteran/ lawyer Matt Hrutkay (both from the USA).
In 2007 Matt, after spending a year-long deployment in Iraq, studied law, graduating in 2010. He then spent 9 years working in law firms large and small. In 2019 he became a sole practitioner to “take back some control over my career”. He is now launching ‘Legal Sage’ to support lawyers with issues that affect our well-being and therefore our lives.
Numbers don’t lie!
Matt referred to a 2021 study published by Patrick Krill, citing that almost a third of lawyers self-reported strong indicators of clinical depression, an anxiety disorder, or drinking habits that objectively qualify as ‘problematic’ as compared with 12.5% of the general population. As Matt observed, these figures are shocking and probably higher because these were self-reporting figures and many lawyers are too proud to admit their well-being is suffering. For example, junior lawyers in private law firms are probably experiencing higher numbers.
Matt identified “common elements universal in the legal community which bear down on all of us” and stressed the importance in recognising the things that make it difficult for us to find balance in the first place. “Mindset plays a critical role in finding balance”.
1. The demand for perfection- every mistake we make feels like malpractice
If you make a mistake, do you worry about being fired? It weighs heavily. “The perfection required of us and the serious nature of our work makes any mistake feel like an existential risk even though we know no human is perfect”. As Matt explained, this means that the mindset that we go to work with is one of fear. Put conversely, we believe that the only way we can keep our jobs and support ourselves and our families is to be perfect! The mind then takes us down a rabbit-hole thinking about the many ways we imperfect, all our flaws, making us feel insecure and even more fearful, recognising our imperfection.
2. The requirement to meet billable hour requirements
What happens if you miss your billable hour requirement? Lower bonus? Pay cut? Will this affect partnership prospects? To succeed we have to be ‘on top’! In November and December of every year most lawyers feel the weight of this burden. “Every little incremental thing that is taken from us feels important”.
3. The Type A factor- the competitive nature of the profession
Matt asked if we view our colleagues in our organisation/ law firm as competition? Are you all ‘gunning for partnership’? There is a sense in private practice that its either ‘me or you’ because usually there are limited numbers at the ‘partnership table’. As Matt concludes, “this then, is a disincentive for us to take a break and care for ourselves because we fear ‘falling behind’ from our colleagues. It also makes it difficult to get support from them”.
4. Work hard/ play hard
Working long hours on weekdays, working over the weekend, working with stressful and traumatic cases in overwhelm- that is how I remember my years of litigation practice. We are almost always living at extremes, so it is extremely difficult to balance ‘life’ and our personal life suffers. Matt gave the example of when we work on a major case for weeks late into the night and once finished then crash, or celebrate, “get drunk enough to forget just how miserable you’ve been for the past few weeks!” Then we retake work almost immediately in fear that if work flow is at risk, our job is at risk- and, “We wear this as a badge of honour to show we are worthy of the title ‘lawyer’”. Crucially, we do not then, take the time we need to process the stress to allow it to dissipate and for our minds and bodies to heal.
In conclusion in our minds, in order to feel secure in our jobs we have to engage in high intensity work, which demands perfection for long periods of time, without rest. Because other lawyers around us are doing the same thing, we feel it is the ‘norm’. Moreover, for the most part, “We work in institutions which are highly resistant to change. If we don’t do it ourselves, the firms won’t be doing it for us and the courts aren’t going to do it for us. We need tools to help us find that work/ life balance without risking our careers”; or for that matter, our well-being!
Subscribe to Matt’s Blog ‘The Karma of Law’ today to read his engaging article, “Is Lawyer Wellbeing an Oxymoron?”
https://karmaoflaw.substack.com/?utm_source=discover_search
For Dr Donnie’s podcast episode on ‘What is work/life balance?’ https://donniehutchinson.com/2022/01/episode-92-dr-donnie-hutchinson-what-is-work-life-balance/