Navigating burnout — advice for lawyers seeking career renewal
'We don’t want you to leave the law entirely, although we do have some shining examples of creative ways to use your law degree'
Thirteenth Circuit Senior Judge Claudia Isom, a veteran member of the Standing Committee on Professionalism, has some advice for lawyers who may be on the verge of burnout.
“While your legal career may not bring you joy, it should always bring you a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction,” she said. “If it doesn’t meet those criteria, change it.”
Isom shared that wisdom as moderator of the Henry Latimer Center for Professionalism’s latest CLE, “Feeling the Burn, Reignite Your Career: How Lawyers Can Reinvent Themselves Professionally.”
Lawyers don’t have to walk away from their profession to find greater satisfaction, Isom said. The CLE panelists are living proof.
“We don’t want you to leave the law entirely, although we do have some shining examples of creative ways to use your law degree,” she said.
For U.S. Magistrate Judge Shaniek Mills Maynard, nothing was more rewarding than rising above her working-class roots in Fort Peirce by earning a Yale Law degree in 2001.
Landing a job out of law school with a large D.C. firm was everything she imagined — at first.
“My life was set, here I was a small-town girl in the big city, making more money than anybody in my family had ever seen, excited to be an associate in a big law firm.”
Then tragedy struck in 2003 when her brother was killed, and Maynard experienced the judicial system from a victim’s perspective.
“It really caused me to think about what I wanted out of my career as a lawyer,” she said. “I decided that part of what I wanted was to be a lawyer for folks who look like me, who have experienced these types of things.”
In 2007 she left her firm to become a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of Florida, where she fought drug dealers, gun runners, and white-collar criminals in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and eventually, her hometown of Fort Pierce.
Alarmed that youth violence was worse than she remembered growing up, she left the U.S. attorney’s office in 2014 and worked for a non-profit that was credited with a 30% reduction in gang violence. Life intervened again when Maynard’s husband lost his job, and she sought the federal magistrate position she has held since 2017.
“There are so many different ways that we can use our skills as lawyers,” she said. “Every [position] that you are in, make sure that you are honing your skill set. Every place I worked taught me a great deal.”
A Miami native, Janice Haywood learned the value of giving back from her Haitian immigrant parents. She was working for the Department of Children and Families in Ft. Lauderdale as a social worker when the urge to become a lawyer took hold. A surgeon phoned Haywood late one night and asked for permission to operate on a client, a woman with mental health issues. Not sure of the legal ramifications, Haywood said she needed to ask a supervisor.
“The surgeon said, are you going to let this young woman die?”
Haywood went to law school and became an assistant state attorney in Broward County. But she soon realized, after buying a house with her sister, that living in Ft. Lauderdale on a prosecutor’s salary was a financial impossibility. Working at a private firm wasn’t the answer, either.
“It was billable hours,” she said. “I was working all day, Saturday, and Sunday. I said, ‘this is not it.’”
Haywood returned to the Department of Children and Families, where they needed attorneys.
“They said you know you’re going to have a 50% pay cut, we can’t pay you what you’re making,” she said. “I said that was fine.”
After advancing to division chief, Haywood was approached by a regional DCF director who wanted her to help train department investigators.
“I went in house with them, to help develop their training program, and they lost their funding,” she said. “At that time, I was pregnant with my second child.”
Haywood went back to being a DCF line attorney because the division chief job was no longer available. She worked her way up the ladder again.
After 10 years in dependency law, Haywood saw no room for advancement. A friend helped her “rebrand” herself, and she started applying for different positions.
Today, she serves as assistant chief counsel at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where she couldn’t feel more fulfilled.
“I represent the United States government against non-citizens, terrorists, and human rights violators,” she said. “I’ve been there five years and I love the job.”
Panelist Amy Borman also took a circuitous route to a job she cherishes, chief legal officer/chief operating officer for the Palm Beach County Court Clerk & Comptroller.
Graduating from Georgetown Law in 1992 wasn’t the ticket to success Borman had hoped, not at the height of the Great Recession.
She joined a 10-attorney firm in her hometown of West Palm Beach after her first choices, assistant state attorney or assistant public defender, were blocked by hiring freezes.
She left the firm to start a solo practice for a year, until she learned of an opening for an assistant legal advisor with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
There, she joined deputies on raids and sometimes flew in the department helicopter. She loved the excitement.
Borman eventually left the department to stay home and raise children, but never stopped working as a lawyer, covering depositions or filling in wherever she could.
When her husband was laid off, she saw a newspaper listing for a general counsel position with the 15th Judicial Circuit. She worried that her time spent working from home would be seen as a detriment. She went for it anyway.
“The chief judge saw something in me, the panel saw something in me, and I got that job, and I loved it,” she said.
But the stress of working for 54 judges and overseeing law clerks eventually took a toll, Borman said.
Leaving the job didn’t mean leaving the law, Borman said.
She taught at law schools and developed a training program to teach the Rules of General Practice and Judicial Administration. Through her previous connections with the circuit, she was eventually approached by the court clerk.
Borman enjoys the freedom of not having to worry about billable hours. Other lawyers who feel the same way can always explore other options, Borman said.
“If you need that to pay off your loans, do that, and then do something that will make you happy,” she said. “Go into real estate where you charge by transaction…You just have to understand what makes you happy.”
