Scandal and Reputation

It's a thorny topic.  The lawyers I know who have dealt with it are not eager to talk about it, but it's an open secret among us.  Scandals.  They happen.  They happen frequently.  I don't know about other areas of practice; it seems somehow less likely that say, tax or corporate lawyers end up in the scandal position as often as family law and juvenile law practitioners.

And juvenile and family lawyers might have a different kind of stress.  Secondary trauma is very real, and though lawyers wouldn't seem to be as close to most clients as say, social workers or therapists, in some cases we are.  And it is certainly true that hearing about so much first hand trauma (abuse, addiction, neglect, sexual wrongs, and so many unbelievable traumas that humans endure) can grow into a mental health issue for anyone, lawyers included.

Secondary trauma is its own mental conundrum, and one that is often ignored until an attorney loses his or her ability to make good decisions.  At that point, there is often a scandal, sadly - an attorney might act in ways that worry others, drink too much or take illegal substances, become anxious or depressed, or even consider, attempt or commit suicide.  In any other career, these issues might be the subject of gossip, but in a legal career it becomes a scandal (and possibly a bar standing offense) which almost always affects the attorney's reputation. Usually forever.

I don't want to be one of those "my friend heard of" people so let me just admit that I myself suffered some pretty awful depression and anxiety which caused me to lose friends that I once considered close at least in the legal community.  Now, most of the real friends remain, and most of my legal community friends are still here. I left a job that was causing me a huge amount of stress, and allowed my health a chance to catch up, since in three years I had e coli, c diff, MRSA, prolonged high risk pregnancy bedrest, a hysterectomy, a broken foot, many blood transfusions and infusions, and numerous other infections and health problems.  They seemed too much to bear with a job where things were very - sketchy- and a marriage and new family with its own stresses, and my mind really took a beating.

So, I had something of a mini-scandal in leaving a job within a year of starting, with so many hospitalizations and some trusted people who had their own agendas (not to bag on them too much - some of the agenda was to dump the friend who was sure seeming off with so many hospital and doctor visits). My reputation did suffer, and it has taken and is still taking some time to totally recover. I made some enemies through my erratic absences and others in my tough legal stances (those I don't regret at all!). Every legal community is small, and lawyers with problems, any problems, get known really quickly.

Now, I didn't face bar discipline at all, but I did come to know a few lawyers over the years who did end up somewhere down that road.  A friend I graduated with was disbarred, for conduct before she was even a bar member.  She's out of the legal community (by force), but she isn't out of the $100K student loans and she has not escaped the endless attacks on her personal reputation, even though she is not anywhere near the legal field. She was disbarred several years ago and yet she is still talked about negatively, her reputation sullied so that she could never reapply for the bar in this state.

Another person I knew, not as well, simply went a bit over the edge, knew she was in need of help, tried to get it from her (county) employer and could not do so without resigning her job.  She was not disciplined, but just like me, she was still gossiped about, her reputation bandied about as if she had actually done some disciplinable offense.  In fact, she had been in a position of secondary trauma for fifteen years - with no in house or encouraged or provided therapy or other methods of coping.  She experienced mental health issues which were not outside of the norm for the kind of delicate and stressful work she did with no breaks in career path. She was an ace lead attorney in a highly contested abuse and neglect court, and now she lives from disability and a few here and there jobs.  She got meds and therapy and has a totally healthy life now, but she couldn't get a job anywhere near kids in need ever again - not because of her, but because of her now completely in tatters reputation.

I could go on and on, but it's time for my meditation and my medication, the two ways I am working to stay out of that kind of reputation assault.  My health got better after I left the job that felt weird and wired and worrying - a job where other lawyers also agreed all was not ok, lawyers who could not afford to walk away and whom I am still friends with. I am still happily working contract jobs and looking out for kids.  My reputation damage was limited in part by my true friends who stopped a couple of rumors from spreading about my health, but in the end, what if I had truly had mental health issues?  Why is it so scandlous to need, ask for, and receive mental health treatmnt when we think nothing of getting help for c diff, MRSA, appendicitis, and the like?

And even if the "scandal" is something potentially discplined, why do we have to make it worse with gossip and scandal and reputation besmirching? How does that help the legal profession to be more honorable, how does it help individuals in the system to be better, happier, anything really but just gossips?  Thoughts for the day, but not for meditation.

Please leave your comments - I would love a discussion on this topic!