If you know an attorney, are one, or if you’re a law student or pre-law student I am 100% confident that you are aware of the burdens that come with pursuing a legal career. Looking back on my own journey into the legal field I often encountered the negatives about the journey more than the positives. The positive conversations usually centered around the amount of money one could make as an attorney or the significant impact of this work on others. But more often than not, those positives were always followed by anecdotes of the horrors of law school and bar prep, or the grueling nature and lack of balance found in an attorney’s lifestyle.

While these conversations might have discouraged others, they lit a fire in me. I became more determined to enjoy my journey to JD and beyond. Yes, I knew and understood that law school and legal work are a challenge but so is training for a marathon, working out, having a family, and pursuing any other dream I may have. Much of what we do in life comes with challenges, and we have the choice to either make it enjoyable or miserable. The last three years were just that for me: a beautiful challenge.

As I close out one chapter of my legal journey, graduating law school, and begin another, the bar exam and firm life, I wanted to provide others with tools to assist in growing a healthy mindset and cultivating healthy rhythms for a sustained balance in the legal profession. My hope is that this article, the tools discussed, and the advice within will be useful to the pre-law student, law student, bar-taker, and attorney.

Again, if you have yet to encounter the “downsides” of pursuing a legal career, I am confident you will sooner or later. This information might take the form of courses like those related to professional identity and ethics, law-fluencers sharing their experiences, or the statistics from the ABA and other institutions that share the staggering mental health and substance abuse that plague the profession. At times this information may be overwhelming, but I believe it is also an opportunity to make a difference. This article will shed some light on how you can create your healthy rhythms with advice from some of my go-to lawyers.

As I spent time talking to friends and mentors in preparing this piece as well as thinking of my own journey, one word sums up how to have healthy rhythms and balance: priorities.

No matter what is on our to-do list, there will always only be 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, and 365 (occasionally 366) days in a year. Time in the legal field is the most valuable commodity we possess outside of our brains. For this reason, it crucial that you know what your priorities are, and to make sure that physical and mental health are part of it.

Your greatest tool will be your calendar. If you talk to anyone in the legal field you will often hear that if something is not on their calendar, then it does not exist. So, figure out what type of calendar person you are. Whether your go-to is an online app like google calendar or a physical planner or both, it is essential that you find a calendaring system that works for you. As I mentioned, time is money, and as a junior attorney and definitely as a first-year law student your time is often not your own. Using your calendar will allow you to carve out precious time for yourself in addition to keeping track of your many responsibilities.

In order to get started, it’s important that you take time to evaluate three areas of your life: work/school, self-care, and relationships. In each of these areas ask:

• What is required of you? Write down what those things are. For example, two hours of reading and briefing cases for class or practicing your client meeting plan.
• What is not required but important for you to maintain in each of these areas? For me, it is important in the area of relationships to have an uninterrupted mother-daughter date night once a week with my mom.
• What are life-giving or rejuvenating activities? Examples include spa days, faith practice, or spending time alone.

WHAT SHOULD GO INTO YOUR CALENDAR?

I love to color code my calendars and have provided an example above (you can also find a blank template here). I always start with things that are required of me and usually outside of my own control: travel time, classes, homework, meetings, court appearances, memo and brief writing, etc. These things are usually all one color, and are categorized as my required responsibilities.

Next, I move onto my life responsibilities or requirements: sleep, faith, 24 hours off. I realized early on that these three requirements were my non-negotiables. I have pulled four all-nighters in my life which have meant two to three days of recovery, so now I do what is needed to get my seven to eight hours of nightly rest. Second, my faith grounds me. I need those quiet moments with God; whether five minutes or an hour, it is always in my schedule. Sometime that means I need to get up earlier to have that time. Third, the 24-hour window might be spread between multiple days, but I always have 24 hours in the week where my life does not revolve around law school. This 24 hour means sacrifice because I might have to spend more time on the other requirements to achieve it.

Once my life and work requirements are out of the way I can see what my flex time looks like. No matter the stage you are in of your legal career, flex time is important. This is the time where you can add the important but not required moments of your day like family dinners, talking to a loved one, watching a show, joining an extracurricular activity, or spending more time on an assignment today so that you have time to deposit into your 24-hour reset period.

Additionally, it is important to figure out what activities give you life and reinvigorate you, like a spa day, a trip, or brunch with friends. While you may not be able to schedule these things daily or even weekly, make sure you know what they are and fit them into your monthly or quarterly schedule as possible. These activities might require a little more planning but as you continue to work out your schedule you’ll also start to see how finding time for these activities can keep you from burning out.

Finally, it’s important that you set out 10-30 minutes a week to review your schedule. This is an important accountability measure. As mentioned there will be many times in life and in your career where your time is not your own and things might need to shift at the last moment. Knowing what your day and week look like can ease anxieties. Additionally, having this check-in time can be beneficial because you might find you have more or less time than you thought and now you need to reevaluate your schedule.

The best advice I was given and can give you is to ask for help and learn how to say no. Especially as female-identifying individuals, asking for help and telling others no can be the most daunting tasks we take on. Both actions take vulnerability and mean investing in ourselves in ways we may be unused to. When asking for help, you might need to enlist a friend that loves to plan to help you set up your calendar and serve as your accountability partner. Asking for help may also mean using tools like an AI-generated calendar app or asking Chat GPT to create a base schedule for you.

Saying no might also be stopping you. If you’re constantly changing your calendar for others you might want to review what your required commitments are. Ask yourself whether these commitments are actually required or whether you have a fear of saying no. If the answer is the latter, then a tool to employ is informing others that you need to check your calendar first before making the commitment. A mentor highlighted that this response allows space to review whether I actually have the capacity to take on something new. Additionally, taking a step back might show you that while you might have flex time in your schedule that time might need to be reserved for a reinvigorating or reset moment.

Finally, as you navigate this journey to JD and beyond, it is important to remember that the journey is a marathon and not a sprint. You will need to be flexible and in tune with the changes you need to make in your life in order to maintain a healthy rhythm. It will be important to also have faith in yourself. Yes, that sounds silly, but it is so easy to constantly question your worth, intelligence, and abilities when you’re in a demanding career. So, remind yourself: you got this, you were made for this, and don’t doubt it.