I have been a trial lawyer for over 40 years. My entire career has involved nothing but litigation, first as a prosecutor for several years and then as a plaintiff’s lawyer since 1966. I have tried over 180 jury trials to verdict. I learned how to try cases the hard way; through trial and error. I had very little mentoring or teaching about trial techniques. I learned them on my own and through the trial lawyer seminars. These days, there is much more information available to lawyers, yet we still learn the most from other trial lawyers who have been there before us. In that vein, I hope you can benefit from my experience.
6 Keys to Peak Performance
What Holds Us Back?
These should be the goals of every lawyer. Why is it that we can’t always be at our best? What holds us back? The literature is full of good articles and books on the negative effects of stress, yet so many of us seem to ignore the symptoms of overwork and overstress. Instead, we work even harder, get more tired, overstressed and irritable. We act as if the well-known effect of not taking care of ourselves doesn’t apply to us because we have a law degree. We think we can get away with ignoring these symptoms.
The Simple Truth: We Don’t Take Care of Ourselves
The truth is if we don’t take care of ourselves physically, our mental abilities suffer. The same is true of taking care of our emotional selves. Negative emotions can cause a drain in our energy. They make it difficult to concentrate and be at our best. My goal is to share what I have discovered as critical to performing at peak levels.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Gary: What you say is so true. I work out 5x per week doing cardio and weights for about 2 hrs daily. I spend time with my family at night but reduce my sleep to fit it all in. I, too, am a trial attorney and have been practicing 30 years, the first few with Steve Brewer, your partner. Sometimes, it is difficult to de-stress after a long day and I struggle with ways to cope with it. any insights? Thanks.
Hey Steve, Good to hear from you. The sleep issue is a tough one. How can we get our mind off work or any worries so we can get to sleep and fall back again in the middle of the night when we start to “try our case” again? So the way to do this is to put our mind on our body and focus on feeling the mattress, relaxing the muscles around our eyes and mouth.
Every time our mind jumps back to our worries, we just have to bring it back to our breath, our arms, legs etc. There are sleep tapes that help if the problem is serious. I’m not a fan of pills and use them only to avoid jet lag, however some of the new meds are better – I suggest only a short dose of them to use with the body techniques I suggest.
I hope this helps. Stay in touch and Best Wishes, Gary