A Note To My Younger Self

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The NCBA Professional Vitality Committee creates sourced articles centered on reducing inherent stress and enhancing vitality in the lives of legal professionals and offers those resources as a benefit for members of the North Carolina Bar Association.

By Coleman Cowan

Life is a journey. We all learn from our experiences. And if we’re paying attention, we become better people and lawyers not only from our successes but also from our failures. When I first started practicing, I made an effort to soak up as much knowledge and insight as I could from older, more experienced lawyers. Now that I’m one of them, I’ve taken on mentoring roles to help young lawyers just beginning to practice. If I’m honest, more time has passed than I would like to admit, but I still remember what it was like to be young, inexperienced, and fighting for my place at the table.

What appears below is a note to my younger self, with a bit of knowledge and experience I gained since I started practicing law more than 25 years ago. The idea was to help young lawyers – and maybe some not so young – learn from the experience of others, and perhaps come to terms a bit with the stress and pressure of being a new lawyer finding your way in an adversarial profession, whether in a transactional or a litigation practice.

A complete list of guidance would be endless, and there are likely as many good pieces of advice as there are practicing lawyers in the state. What appears below is in part unique to my experience, but also broad enough that others might benefit.

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A Gift

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The NCBA Professional Vitality Committee creates sourced articles centered on reducing inherent stress and enhancing vitality in the lives of legal professionals and offers those resources as a benefit for members of the North Carolina Bar Association.

By Coleman Cowan

I started a trial on Feb. 17, 2020, four weeks before the coronavirus covered the Earth and began to shut down our lives. Before that, there was a week of pre-trial motions. For five weeks – and really even before that – I had long days, followed by late nights and early mornings. I was living week to week, and more often, day to day.

I try not to bring work stress home, but there was no hiding it. My wife Angie could see how worn down I was when I got home from court, knowing I still had several hours of work to get ready for the next day. Every night she would ask, “What can I do to help?” There was nothing she could do, but the thought was helpful in itself.

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‘Murphy’s Law,’ or How an Aphorism Can Sum Up the Legal Mind

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By Erna Womble

In the legal profession, we’re trained to envision and prepare for worst case scenarios. We devote significant time and mental resources to thinking about catastrophic outcomes. But how do we balance this often necessary professional mentality with our daily lives?

I had a mild epiphany the other day when I found myself prefacing an email to a fellow lawyer with the words “unless Murphy’s Law has prevailed…”

Murphy’s Law. The idea that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. (Or, if you’d rather hear Matthew McConaughey’s slightly more optimistic take on it, click here. But I digress.)

It wasn’t intentional on my part, but in acknowledging the prevalence of Murphy’s Law, I realized that I had snagged a common thread that runs through most legal minds. Perhaps many lawyers and judges, regardless of their natural proclivities or personality types, may share a chuckle of recognition at our customary professional pessimism.

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Introducing the NCBA Professional Vitality Committee

By Erna Womble
Welcome to the blog of the newly minted Professional Vitality Committee (PVC) of the NCBA!  I am Erna Womble, and it’s my honor to serve as Chair this year, and my pleasure to say that Holly Morris is serving as our Communities Manager (NCBA staff liaison).

But wait . . . “What the dickens,” many of you might ask, “is the Professional Vitality Committee?  I knew it as the Professional Wellness Committee, with its sub-group the Transitioning Lawyers Commission, as it was last year.”  Well, that’s a timely question and it will be a privilege to be your tour guide on the exciting journey on which this committee is embarking.

From wellness to vitality

But before we set out, a bit about the re-christening of this committee. Referring to the theme of the Annual Meeting, which centered on Professional Wellness, President LeAnn Nease Brown summed it up with characteristic eloquence:

“We are in a profession of helping others but to help others, we must take care of ourselves. Last year, President Grant combined our committees focusing on Professional Wellness. This year, Erna Womble will chair the committee with a focus on the well-being of legal professionals ­–from the beginning of career to winding down, to retired – not only on the stresses of the profession but on the joys of our life experiences: on living while lawyering. We have renamed the committee the Professional Vitality Committee because vitality is the state of being strong and active; it is the power of enduring, the capacity to live and develop. We celebrate the humanity of our profession, not only as lawyers and legal professionals but as parents and grandparents, musicians and rock climbers, hikers and stamp collectors, painters and poets, dreamers and dancers. Vitality is having the strength in ourselves and our community to have full lives as lawyers. Advancing the well-being of our members and our profession gives us wings.”

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