Every other quarter, work and life take turns being demanding. Q4 is the one where they peak together.

Year-end deadlines, billing pushes, matters that need to close by December 31, and performance conversations all land in the same twelve weeks as Thanksgiving, school concerts,...

Somewhere back in January, you decided to build a habit. A morning routine, weekly business development, leaving at a reasonable hour. You started strong, life got loud, and by March it had dissolved into the pile of things you meant to do.

Instead of guilt, I want to offer a se...

September is a second January in the legal profession. New associates arrive, students start law school, and experienced lawyers step into new roles, new teams, and new firms.

Before founding EsquireWell, I spent years in law school career development and law firm professional d...

Every August and September, a new class of associates walks into law firms across the country carrying two things: a JD they worked years for, and almost no preparation for what the first year of practice actually demands.

Orientation will handle the logistics, covering things l...

This week I’m in Dallas speaking at a law school orientation about aligning your career with your values and strengths. The same week, my daughter Allison starts law school.

A couple of weeks ago our family was in El Salvador, where two other young women are pursuing legal educa...

“I was fine all day. Then I snapped at someone over nothing.”

I hear that from legal professionals constantly, usually with a little embarrassment attached. Right alongside a second version: “I had the whole day blocked to work on the thing that actually matters. I never got to ...

Something important is happening in the way this profession talks about well-being.

I noticed it on the very first day of the Professional Development Consortium Summer Conference in Atlanta last week, sitting in a session where "shared responsibility" came up. I remember thinki...

I turned 50 last week. I almost didn’t celebrate it.

For months, I’d been meaning to plan something meaningful. For months, it kept getting pushed aside. Too busy with client work. Too many presentations. Too much on the calendar.

Then I heard myself say:

The legal profession has a language problem when it comes to emotional intelligence.

For years, EQ has been filed under “soft skills,” a category that in most legal organizations signals “nice to have but not essential.” Partners don’t make equity based on empathy. Associates do...

Most legal professionals I talk to can describe the feeling precisely, even if they can’t explain it. The day wasn’t unmanageable. The work went fine. But by the time they got home, they felt emptied out in a way that a good night’s sleep doesn’t fully fix.

This isn’t a stamina ...

For years, the standard advice on imposter syndrome has been a version of the same message: silence your inner critic, push past self-doubt, "fake it until you make it."

If you've tried this approach, you already know how well it works, which is to say, not very well at all.

Ro...

Somewhere on your team right now, someone knows something that isn't being said. Not because they're withholding, but because they believe that openly raising mistakes, blind spots, and missteps won't be met with support, but with judgment.

It's a dynamic that Amy Edmondson, a r...