OTLA Trial Lawyer Winter 2021

42 Trial Lawyer • Winter 2021 By Douglas Querin L et me tell you a story. Years ago, as I was preparing to leave my office to head up to the courthouse to start a trial, I suddenly (and I do mean suddenly) couldn’t catch my breath. I began to hyperventilate. It scared the hell out of me. I’d been practicing law for 20 years and had tried my share of cases. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. Two thoughts immediately came to mind. What’s wrong with me? And, of nearly equal concern, was how could I pick a jury or make an opening statement if I couldn’t manage to inhale a full breath of air? My concerned office staff encour- aged me to sit down, try to relax and take some slow, deep breaths. I did as sug- gested and within minutes was just fine. I went on to pick my jury, make my opening statement and try my case with- out incident. We got a nice result. After- ward, I did what I nearly always did following a successful trial. I regaled my wife with amusing anecdotes of my ster- ling courtroom performance. I needn’t revisit here my life story as a practicing lawyer. It has the usual twists and turns that most of us experience in one form or another. The hyperventila- t ion epi sode does , however, bear Douglas Querin mention, because, for me, it serves as something of a cautionary tale. I quickly discarded the entire incident as a fluke, an aberration. Maybe skipping breakfast or a few late nights were responsible. I had far more important matters to attend to. Other clients, other cases and other professional goals. What I didn’t realize then, and would only later come to ap- preciate, was that there was a message here for me, but I wasn’t willing to listen. I can sometimes be a slow learner. From what I’ve observed over many years in active practice, and later as a li- censed professional counselor for the Oregon Attorney Assistance Program (OAAP), there seems to be an unfortu- nate tendency for many in the legal profession (and it was certainly true of me) to ignore, disregard or deny the importance of our own well-being. We often make an unwitting trade-off. We exchange our well-being, or much of it, in order to meet what we see as the demands of our law practice. It’s the lawyer’s version of a Faustian bargain. When we think of the business of law, our own well-being is very often placed pretty low on our list of personal priori- ties. While this is certainly not true for all of us, it is true for enough of us that, as a profession, we rank remarkably high in our rates of alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety, unhealthy stress and suicidal ideation when compared with both the general population and other professions. A v o i d i n g t h e A v o i d a b l e : B U R N O U T A N D C O M P A S S I O N F A T I G U E