Kate Bridal: This is really off-topic, but I just remembered this story.

So Hemingway was notoriously kind of… a bit of a dick and a womanizer. He was married already to this woman named Pauline, and he was off doing war correspondence. And he fell in love with another reporter, who he wound up marrying, wound up being his third wife.

While he's off gallivanting with this woman, Pauline hears about it. She's back in Florida. He has this boxing ring set up in their yard that he loved. So she hears that he's having an affair, she rips down his boxing ring, and puts in a pool that cost $20,000, which these days would be upwards of $430,000. It was like, exorbitantly expensive. Used his money.

And when he came back and he found out, he took this penny out of his pocket and threw it at her and was like, “Here you go, Pauline, you've taken the rest, you might as well have my last one!” And so she kept it where it fell when he threw it at her and lacquered it into the side of the pool. Boss bitch.

Josey Hoff: Wow, she is a boss bitch. Damn!

Kate: Now any time any intolerable man brings up Ernest Hemingway, I'm gonna just change the conversation to make it about Pauline.

Josey: As you should.

Introduction

Kate: I'm Kate Bridal, a former attorney who never cared that much for the law.

Josey: And I'm Josey Hoff, a former paralegal who loves it.

Kate: And this is our podcast where we talk about all the stuff that leads to burnout in the legal industry, try to offer some solutions, and maybe occasionally live up to our title. Welcome to The Legal Burnouts.

Episode 13

Kate: Honey, honey.

Josey: Yes, darling?

Kate: Now that we have reached the end of season one, do you still want to do a podcast?

Josey: You know what? I think I'm in it for one more episode.

Kate: (Laughing) One!

Josey: Let's reassess at the end of our last.

Kate: Okay.

Josey: (Laughing) See how we feel.

Kate: I'll ask again at the end. I'll probably forget and conveniently forget to ask you and I'll be like, “You said yes at the beginning!”

Josey: Exactly. Semantics.

Kate: That's all I have. Well, this is crazy. I cannot believe that we're at the end of our first season.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: It has been a whirlwind.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: But good, I think.

Josey: I think so. I think…

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: I mean, it's gone a lot better than I expected at least. (Both laugh.) So. I am the resident-

Kate: Oh, ye of little faith.

Josey: (Laughing) I know, I was just gonna say I am the resident, like, pessimist over here. But it has gone a lot better than I thought, and I think I've enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would as well.

Kate: What's like been your favorite thing about it?

Josey: I think just the people we've gotten to talk to and like the conversations we've gotten to have. And I think that seems like a pretty generic answer for something like this, but it's true because we wouldn't have had the types of conversations we've had as in depth as we've had them with as many people as we've gotten to if we hadn't done this. So.

I think that's been the best part, is just getting to meet so many different people and hear stories from all of them. What about you?

Kate: I agree. That was one of mine too. So it's okay that it's…

Josey: Well.

Kate: But it's true. And I think we got to talk to so many people that we never would have expected would have wanted to talk to us and who who were generous with their time and came on, which was really cool.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: And hopefully get to do more of that next season. But I also… I mean, the feedback that we've gotten has been really rewarding. You know, that's- The goal of this was to help people. And based on some of the messages that we have both gotten I think that we have succeeded in that at least on a couple of occasions.

Josey: A couple, yeah.

Kate: I’ve started saving those messages–

Josey: Me too.

Kate: -- in a folder called “validation” (Josey laughs) that I look at when I (Kate laughs) have days like today where I wake up super anxious. I'm like, let's just call it what it is. I get the feeling that it is being helpful for people.

And then also honestly, just like watching you kind of come into it. And I know that it wasn't necessarily your, uh, your wheelhouse to be (Josey laughs) out there and doing this kind of thing.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: And I just really have infinite appreciation for the fact that you decided to do it with me and that you did say yes, except for that one time you said no, that you didn't want to do a podcast. But you did it anyway.

Josey: I did. I did.

Kate: I mean, I knew- (Josey laughs) I always had faith that you would be great at it, but it's been cool to see you gain confidence in that sphere as well.

Josey: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if public speaking or public image things are ever going to be my thing or super, super comfortable for me…

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: But it has been cool to get more comfortable with it and just... it's funny, I think at the beginning I was so self-conscious about what any one thing could cause anyone to think, you know, and how it could potentially affect just like my professional image.

And I still have that but I think that I've become more balanced with it. I think now working on this with you it has definitely helped me to feel more just empowered, honestly, in like exactly where I am in life and so that's I love that.

Kate: Yay!

Josey: And honestly I have to piggyback off of that because watching you… Like this project I know it was kind of like your creative baby. And it's been this huge outlet for you to get to share with so many people your creativity and how talented you are, and your ability to like build something like this.

And so being a part of that journey for you and also being able to support you in something that truly is, like, in your wheelhouse and is something that comes naturally for you has been… it's just been really cool. Nothing but benefits have come from watching you (laughing) and learning from you while you handle all of this.

Kate: I refuse to cry on this episode of the podcast, (Josey laughs) so don't try and make me.

(Kate laughs)

Josey: No, no, we shan’t be doing that.

Kate: But truly, like, it's… I've talked to other podcasters who have solo shows, and all of them are like, “I wish I had a co-host, I wish I had another person to lean on and talk to about this stuff and bounce ideas off of.” And I'm like, yeah, it's great, I recommend it. I made a good choice.

(Kate laughs)

Josey: Yeah, I mean, I think you did personally, but…

Kate: Obviously.

Josey: I also feel like I got pretty lucky in the co-host department, so… I mean to that end, I think the real question everyone's gonna want to know is how is our relationship now? Because we left that pretty open-ended. So I mean, we just gushed–
Kate: That is true.

Josey: --but how is our relationship really, Kate? You know?

(Both laugh)

Kate: But secretly, hate you.

Josey: Yes.

Kate: Never want to do this again.

Josey: Yeah, women must hate each other.

Kate: Yeah, that's true. That's very true. It's a requirement. Yeah. We can't support one another. That goes against the whole system!

Josey: I know!

Kate: Yeah, because we joked at the beginning that we had never had any real in-depth conversations about our actual personal lives.

Josey: No.

Kate: And we’ve, as a result of just doing this, not only had conversations on the air and during these podcast recordings, but we inevitably afterward will be like, “Oh, let's have a quick FaceTime to talk about the recording.”

Josey: “Quick.”

Kate: And then we will be on FaceTime for like four more hours.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: So we've definitely gotten to know a lot more about each other. And I like that.

Josey: I do too.

Kate: I think it's been great.

Josey: I do too.

Kate: I still like you. I like you better…

Josey: Same.

Kate: … if anything.

Josey: I know. I feel like every episode you would think that the things you and I say would just be totally repetitive and we know all these things about each other. But I think every episode I've learned something new about you.

Kate: Yeah

Josey: You know, whether it's like just small in the way you handle something or if it's, you know, a big detail of kind of your life. We do stay on the phone for too long though. (Kate laughs) And that's…

Kate: I wouldn't have it any other way.

Josey: Neither would I.

Kate: We'll see how we go in between the seasons.

Josey: I know!

Kate: Well, and we say “seasons,” but we might be doing away with the season structure as other podcasts do a little more next season, but we'll find out.

Josey: I think now that we've done it for a little bit, we're feeling a bit more relaxed?

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: A little bit more like we have our groove and like we, you know, are able to kind of make, make more… (Pause) What is the word I'm looking for, Kate? Make more…

Kate: “On the fly” content?

Josey: You gotta finish my sandwich. Yeah, there we go, “on the fly.” I like that. (Both laugh) Finish my sandwich, please!”

Kate: Way to bring it back around. Finish each other's sandwiches. Burnouttake from Episode One.

Josey: Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I knew at some point I was gonna have to use that.

Kate: (Laughing) I like it in the form of begging someone else to do it. “Please finish my sandwich. You have to finish my sandwich! I'm sitting here in silence. You need to finish my sandwich.”

Josey: (Laughing) Yeah, I've taken it. I've taken it and really run with it, you know.

Kate: I really like it.

Josey: As I do.

Kate: We've obviously learned a lot about each other. But has talking to our guests and exploring this topic more sort of brought you more perspective on your own burnout and your experiences with it? And has anything kind of about how you think about your burnout changed since talking to people and doing this project?

Josey: 100%. It's really interesting because when I look back at where we started and kind of the conversations we had about burnout and how detailed we had gotten up to that point about our journeys with burnout… One, I don't think either of us had identified our second burnout at that point…

Kate: We were in it--

Josey: Yeah, we were in it!

Kate: --when we started talking about this project and we didn't realize it, yeah.

Josey: Yeah. And then I think too, with kind of, you know, getting out of that second phase of burnout into, I think it at least took me a while to identify my second experience with burnout as burnout and…

Kate: Mm-hmm.

Josey: … really legitimize it to the level that it was, because I think I'd been so stuck in this like, well, I don't have court deadlines that I'm stressing about. I don't have a terrible partner hanging around me or…

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: Just so many of the things that are very traditional law and what I had identified my burnout to be related to, they weren't there. So I think, not having things I associated with burnout there made it to where I didn't see that experience as a burnout experience. And I've learned through this podcast that it was.

Kate: Yeah, when we started talking more about symptoms and learning more from our guests what their symptoms were and what the really common things were, that I think is when I started processing it a little more. I think that by the time I quit, I recognized that it was burnout, but it looked so different because it was for a different reason that it took me a while.

Josey: Yeah, same. I think it was Matt's episode actually that helped me recognize it. When we recorded Matt's episode and kind of where I was with processing my last burnout situation, it just kind of lined up. The way he discussed the different positions that he had burned out in and the symptoms kind of was that aha moment of, “Oh, shit…” (Kate laughs.) “I've burned out a second time and I didn't know it, so I haven't dealt with it!”

Kate: The source of my burnout was a little more in my face than yours might've been at that job.

Josey: Mmhmm.

Kate: Exactly what you said, you were like, “I don't have court deadlines, I don't have this stuff.” I had that same mentality where I was like, “Oh, the pressure is so much less.”

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: And then, you know, management shifts occurred. (Kate laughs) And then I was like, “Oh… Oh no, I don't feel good again at this job, what's going on?” And it's hard because you're like, “But it's so much less demanding than the job I was just doing in legal.” And so you feel like you almost don't have a right to burn out…

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: … in a position like that?

Josey: Yup.

Kate: One of the things that I really felt like I learned this season and kind of just registered again when I was editing our episode with Rhia:

A, it's okay to jump to something that feels easier. It does not mean you're not a hard worker. And B, that easier thing can still burn you out because you're gonna push yourself, or there might be circumstances outside of your control or somebody toxic in your environment. And you don't have to shame yourself for burnout even if you're in something that is easier than the last thing you burned out in.

Josey: I agree and I think... Part of it for me was taking ownership of my burnout as well, and like the role that I played in it for my second time specifically.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Josey: Because I'd already burned out I knew some of the things that like the hours I was working. I knew that contributed heavily to my burnout. I knew I needed to have a better work-life balance. I knew I needed to have better hours. But I think it's exactly what you said. I went into something where it felt like it was easier and there weren't all these other pressures that caused me to burn out the first time. So I needed to work harder because I was capable of it. I was like, “Oh, this is so much easier. I can do–”

Kate: Yep.

Josey: “-- double the amount of work and still be doing less than I used to.” And that was what I told myself at the beginning. And then before I knew it, I was working the same amount or sometimes more than I was before.

It was so subconsciously done because it was such a like second nature for me. And I hadn't really dealt with that first time before jumping into something new. You repeat. If you don't take some action to help yourself to find out what caused the burnout, or to look for the signs in yourself of when you're trying to overperform because you're… it's just what you're used to or your nature.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: That is individual work that you have to do. I think it was CJ that said something about his, wasn't it yearly? Or was it…?

Kate: I can't remember, but he had a system for his self check-in and being like, “Hey, where am I? What were my goals? Have they changed? Do I still want those things? How am I doing with them?” Yeah, such a great idea.

Josey: Yeah. And I think that that's so important because, yes, there are so many things out of our control that can contribute to burnout as well. And that, you know, aren't our fault. But at the same time, you know, we're in control of our choices and how we choose to advocate for ourselves. So I've started doing kind of some check-ins with myself ever since that episode, and it's helped me start to assess my schedule and then try to put in like healthy boundaries between my work and personal life and this so that I hopefully don't burn out, you know, like I have the last couple of times.

Kate: Yeah, I feel like we almost really cheating the system in a way, because we get to talk to all of these amazing people–

Josey: (Laughing) I know.

Kate: -- who have these insights, and we kind of get free therapy and burnout coaching in our own way.

(Kate laughs.)

Josey: I felt like that after Rhia’s.

Kate: (Simultanously) I was thinking about that with Rhia. Yeah. (Both laugh) That was probably one of my- one of my top episodes anyway, I thought she was so great.

Josey: Oh god, yeah.

Kate: It's hard to choose because, seriously, all of our guests were fantastic, but her episode and CJ's episode were both, they were two of my favorites, I think.

Josey: Yeah, same.

Kate: Yeah, and Tom's because…

Josey: Yeah, Tom.

Kate: Paralegal representation, we can wanna do more of that next season.

Josey: Yeah, we do. It's been cool. I specifically have gotten some feedback from paralegals and that has been really, really cool to see because, for all the reasons we've talked about throughout the season of why it can be more challenging for paralegals to acknowledge their burnout and then advocate for themselves.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: Seeing paralegals feel like they're being talked about, you know, like their experience is being acknowledged and then feeling like they can reach out to us, that's been really cool.

Kate: Yeah, and by the way, if you're listening to this and you've been thinking like, “Oh, I'd love to reach out to Kate or Josie, but I don't know…” like, you know, you're feeling unsure: Please do.

Josey: Please do.

Kate: My Enneagram type three ass loves all the validation anyone's gonna give me, so I will… (Laughs) And we truly did do this to help people.

Josey: Yeah, we're always open to suggestions, comments, conversations, just if you need to vent about your burnout journey too.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: Kate, I will say is much better at responding quickly than I am. (Both laugh) I can sometimes be a little slower, but I do always read them and I do respond eventually.

Kate: You are not obligated to respond immediately. That's just how my brain works. I'm like, “Anxiety until I do this thing!” Which is something I'm working on!

(Josey laughs)

And going back to what you were saying, I do think it's so easy to overwork yourself when you feel like the work is easier because, you know, instead of being like, “Oh, well, the work is easier and I'm going to do less of it,” you're like, “The work is easier, so I'm going to do more of it until I feel like I'm working at the same level that I was at the last job,” which of course is what burned you out.

And thankfully for me, that was not what I did. I was pretty good about boundaries at this job. And overall I was much more capable of drawing those boundaries. And I think that in a way that made me realize even more what the burnout was and what the source of it was. But I didn't realize it initially that I even was burning out. I thought I was just kind of like… I don't know what I thought.

Josey: How are you- When you take like an overview of the two times you've burnt out, what are some of the key differences and kind of, what do you think you wish you would have known when you were burning out that second time so you could have addressed it earlier maybe?

Kate: The differences were, in my first job… I don't want to say I didn't like the work, but the work was obviously stressful. I never felt like I was using myself to the best of my ability as an attorney anyway. So there was that element of it. Or, you know, it doesn't come naturally to me. I'm not saying I wasn't good. I actually did have pretty high success rates.

But the work itself was so hard and so clearly emotionally draining. And it was just so obviously what was taking up my mental space and stressing me out that it was very clear the first time.

And then the second time I liked the work, and I felt like I was doing something I was really good at. And I was like maximizing my abilities, my skills. So that felt really good. I felt like I was in, you know, we've heard a couple of guests say something like “zone of genius.” That's how I felt at that job.

Josey: Mm-hmm.

Kate: But I was being initially enabled in that feeling by someone who was very, very supportive that I was working with. And then that went away. And at first the transition wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be... And then it was.

(Kate laughs)

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: I felt like I was still doing things well, but I was no longer being recognized that I was doing those things at all. I wasn't being given (Laughing) validation, but even recognition of the things that I was doing. And that was hard.

And then also, I was just being pulled in many more directions. So I didn't feel as specialized as when I was first there and specialized in doing the thing that I really liked to do and was good at. I started having all of these other tasks on my plate, that I was like, I don't really know if this… I don't know if I'm the best person for it. Kind of starting to echo those similar feelings that I felt the first time.

How about for you? Once you started thinking it through, what were the differences and similarities that you saw between the two times?

Josey: Yeah, sort of similar honestly. A couple of differences.

The work I was doing before as a paralegal felt very, the stakes were really high.

Kate: I don’t think you can be in the legal industry without high stakes, no matter what you do.

Josey: Exactly. Absolutely. So there's this personal level of high stakes that comes into it that makes it really, really stressful. It’s the court deadlines, man, I can't stress that enough. Being tied to a court schedule and how that affects–

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: -- what you can do with your free time when you have it, it doesn't get talked about enough, I think.

But some similarities… With sales, there's a commission. So you got to put in a certain amount of work to get that commission. With working in a law firm, you have billable hours. So the amount of work that I put into this, the results will be a higher amount of money. Usually, you know, more amount of money.

(Cat meows in the background)

Kate: Hermione is really… She is having a day today, she has been…

Josey: Poor girl.

Kate: … a little bit of a twat all day. (Josey laughs) My cat. She's…

Josey: Yeah, we should really clarify that it's her cat named Hermione and not… Kate doesn't just think Hermione lives in her home.

Kate: Yeah, just flights of fancy. I'm just like, “It's Hermione outside my door!” No, and Nate's here, so I don't know why she's not bugging him anyway. But anyway, so yeah, so it’s similar, commission versus billable hour.

Josey: Yeah, that's a similarity. And then...

Tech can have egos just like law firms can have egos.

Kate: Mmhmm. (Laughing) Mmhmm!

Joey: We haven't talked about that, I don't think, but I don't know if it's talked about it. Tech can have kind of a similar problem with ego issues for executives and people at the top. And I think that can trickle down into the employees just like it can in a firm.

Kate: Especially in a startup environment where it's small.

Josey: Yeah.

I think though what you and I have in common with our kind of, you know, we got out of traditional law and then we get into, the job that we were both at, is management change and that made a huge difference in how I was working and how I felt about working.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Josey: When I started out, I had, and I cannot stress enough, the best manager in so many ways. He's just my favorite manager, I think, in a lot of ways.

Kate: Same. Different people, two different people at this same company.

Josey: Two different people, yeah, but both gems.

And so having a manager like that really, it made me want to work harder. And even when I was working long hours, I felt heard, I felt supported, I felt encouraged.

Kate: He was investing in you.

Josey: Exactly. And that makes a huge difference, especially for people like us where if we can see we’re doing a good job and you’re satisfied with that, I’m gonna work ten times harder.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: And I was excelling because I was also given not only the support, but also the freedom to kind of use the skills that I had to make the job work. But I also had a management change. And when that management change happened, it- like a light bulb moment of realizing, oh, this is similar to what I just got out of.

Kate: Oh, yeah.

Josey: That was the aha moment of, I'm repeating a past situation that wasn't good, and I need to start figuring out, you know, what am I going to do to get ahead of that now that I know what to look for.

Kate: Yeah. Cause I didn't have that point of reference.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: Because my management at the first place where I burned out was amazing. All of the supervisors really were very supportive, very understanding. That was not my problem at that job at all. It was actually part of why it took me so long to leave was I was I was terrified I wasn't going to find that kind of environment again.

And when I first jumped into tech, I was like, “Oh my God, I'm so lucky because I found another supervisor who is amazing and another team that's amazing,” which is true.

Josey: Mmhmm.

Kate: That marketing team was incredible.

And I should clarify that when my supervisor left and I had a change in management, the person who was still immediately supervising me was fantastic. It was another layer up that was the rough part of that.

But I didn't have that experience before. And it was- started really subtly. I had a few red flags early on that I swept under the rug a little bit. And then it just got worse and worse. So when I left, I was like, “Yes, I'm burned out, and this is why.”

But it sucks, because I really liked that place a lot. There were so many fantastic things about it.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: Like I said, I really did love the work. They gave me a lot of freedom to do stuff that I would not have gotten to do. I mean, I wouldn't be doing this with the exposure that I have without having had that job, so I'm really, really grateful for it.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: I was like, “This might be my forever place.”

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: Until it became clear that it just- it couldn't be.

Josey: It was a shift. There was definitely a shift that happened.

Kate: Yeah, there was a culture shift overall, I think.

Josey: Yeah, but I have to like second the positives. I had the opportunity to work with some of the greatest people I've worked with there, you know, people that taught me and, and literally made me a sales person.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: That took time to mentor me, that were so huge in my success. And then just my team, I had really lovely coworkers that were supportive and kind and teamwork was really at the center of how we operated.

Kate: Yes.

Josey: And so those people, those relationships, that team is really what made me, even when it started to become more difficult, I still felt very strongly that I wanted to keep working for that team.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: When that shift happened and then when there were less layers between executives to kind of help, you know, filter things before they got to you or I, it was a big, big shift.

Luckily, because I had that prior experience with management that was difficult, I was able to see those signs right away and that's when I was able to start finding kind of what was next for me.

Kate: I think the key is having those layers, those filters between… Because like you said, there are big egos in law and in tech, and then you're in legal tech and it's both. And you have to have kind of middle management or upper middle management that knows how to filter those egos. And that’s a tough position to put somebody in, and I hate to say that like, you need those people there to manage the egos because no one should have to be dealing with that. But there are people who do it and there are people who do it really, really well.

Josey: For a certain pay scale? Yeah.

Kate: Yeah, you know?

Josey: I think two things is: It can seem like we're just attacking law or we're attacking the, you know, I guess now tech (Kate laughs) calling it out on the toxic things…

Kate: Law and tech can both take it, by the way. I will attack them. 

Josey: Exactly. Agreed. But also it's what we know.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: That is where our experience lies.

Kate: Yes.

Josey: We don't know what the management is like in other fields because we haven't done them. And I think it's true for every company, every firm, whatever it is, there are difficult people.

Kate: Mmhmm. Yeah, and it's hard when you're working for someone difficult, especially when you are somebody who's inclined to take responsibility for your own stuff and to kind of blame yourself, which burnout makes you do anyway…

Josey: Mmhmm.

Kate: It's tough to disconnect from that and not, and convince yourself you're not the problem.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: And thankfully in my case,  all of a sudden it was just in my face that I was not the problem. I was like, “Oh, yeah, no. This is not me and I'm walking away.”

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: But it's hard to not blame yourself and not be like, “Maybe this person would actually give me some recognition if I was doing something worth recognizing. Maybe my work has gone downhill because they've added more and now I can't hack it. Just because they changed up what you were doing a little bit.”

But also that was another thing that contributed to my burnout. I felt like it was just constant change.

Josey: Same.


Kate: And I just felt like I couldn't get my feet under myself after a certain point. And I was like, “I wanna be able to just lean into something and do that thing really, really well.” But it was unclear to me what that was supposed to be after a certain point. And that's really difficult. And that's something we haven't touched on really.

Josey: Yeah, we haven't touched on that, which is interesting because we both experienced it.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: It was good when I was encouraged in the direction where my skill set applied.



Kate: Yeah, I think we each started with someone who was like, “Oh, you, you’re good at this. Let's have you do that.”

Josey: “And let me foster that in you and help you find opportunities for yourself.”

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: So that was key. Especially because we were entering a new profession. You know, we had legal backgrounds and we went into legal tech, but we didn't have marketing or sales backgrounds. So it was really new.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: But when that shift happened, what we felt happened was that there wasn't a clear direction and there weren't clear expectations.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: And a lot of changes on a daily basis, which made it hard to develop a system or a strategy or a schedule. That leads to burnout so quickly, I learned. I didn't realize until I went through that and have since been processing it over the last however many months. It’s just been really interesting to see how quickly a lack of direction and frequent changes, how quickly that will burn employees out.

Kate: And once it's happened to you, once it's changed up on you so many times, you have that expectation where you're like, you're asked to do some big new project out of nowhere and you're like, “Should I even put my full effort into this?”

Josey: Yes.

Kate: “Or is it going to be decided right as I finished this, that this isn't the hot thing anymore and we're just, we're changing tactics and going in a different direction?” You know, why, why put your hundred percent effort into something if you know, it's just going to be kind of tossed out the window?

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: It's not worth your energy.

Josey: It was very impactful. I think that's the thing too, is that I thought once I was out of it, that it would kind of go away more quickly. Because it wasn't five years of a career kind of buildup like my first experience with burnout was.

Kate: Right.

Josey:  but it didn't, it lingered. And so I’m kind of interested, you know, through the podcast and just through this time, since you left your second burnout situation, how do you feel like you processed it?

Kate: I don't know if I… have. (Both laugh). No, I have been that I've thought about it a lot, but I and talked about it.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: Like I said, I left at a point where I was… it was so clear to me that that was what I had to do. I felt like I did not have a choice. Not that it wasn't difficult. It was really difficult. I cried and cried and cried about it because mainly because I felt like I was screwing over my team, who I did love.

I was really upset that I had been driven to this point. But because I had been driven to that point, I had no doubt that I was doing the right thing. It gave me like a weird shot of self-confidence.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: It forced me to recognize my own worth and to walk away from a situation that was not valuing my worth anymore and… to find something that would. And in that case, it has been this podcast and valuing myself.

Josey: Mmhmm.

Kate: I've had you here to help me with that. And obviously getting validation from folks who are writing in or whatever, but it's like when we started this project, we didn't know how it was gonna go. I quit over a month before we launched. And I just had to go in and go for it and say, no, this is the thing that I think is gonna be right for me to do.

So it was empowering. So I don't know if I sat with it in the same way that I sat with my other burnout because my other burnout made me feel so disempowered and so beaten down and so weak. And this one almost had the opposite effect on me once I realized what it was. So I haven't really been wrestling with it in the same way.

But I will say, now that I'm trying to get back into maybe working for someone else again, which… (laughing) now I don't even know if I ever want to work for another person. I don't know what not working for another person looks like for me.

But it's made me so leery of new opportunities. I'm very leery of legal tech companies in general. I'm leery of tech as an industry. So it has affected me in that way that I'm still carrying. I'm much more hesitant about the opportunities that are being presented to me than I think I would have been otherwise. And I think that's a good thing in a way.

Josey: Yeah, I agree.

Kate: It's maybe made me more discerning. But I'm terrified that like whatever I accept, even if it seems really great at first, it's gonna turn.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: How about you?

Josey: I mean, I still feel like I'm processing my burnout in so many ways. I feel like I've only just started to really come out of it. It's interesting because I kind of-

(A ferry blows a long, low note in the background.)

Kate: Oh!

Josey: Oh it’s the…

Kate: The ferry?

Josey: That would be the ferries coming in. (Kate laughs.) You're welcome.

Kate: I have a cat, you have a ferry. It’s fine.

Josey: Crazy sound all of a sudden.

Kate: Ferry, F-E-R-R-Y. Once again, we are not living in flights of fancy. I do not think Hermione Granger lives in my house. Josey does not think there are fairies flying around in her house.

Josey: The burnout hasn't gotten us that (Kate) far in losing our minds, yeah.

Kate: Not that bad just yet.

Josey: So, I think I felt similarly in that when the management change happened, it was very chaotic. And so I felt a certain amount of impact-

(The ferry honks again while Josey speaks.)

Kate: (Singing a note, imitating the ferry) Ooooooo.

(Both laugh)

Josey: I can never take it seriously. And it's funny because I've lived here for two years and every day it startles me a little bit.

Kate: The funniest thing to me is that it's never happened before during a recording.

Josey: They made an appearance for our last episode.

Kate: Sponsored by the Seattle Transit System.

Josey: Okay. So because of the change of management and the expectations not being achievable and changing so frequently, I did feel a certain amount of empowerment when I started looking for a new position. I knew this was not going to work for me and it was out of my control.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: But I still felt like there was something about me that couldn't hack it.

Kate: Mmhmm.

Josey: And I felt like that since, to be honest. It's only, I think, pretty recently that I've started to really separate that feeling from the experience. And it did follow me into my next position in that I was like, man, am I really qualified? Am I, do I have the skills? So I've questioned myself several times.

And then to add on this podcast, I'm going back to my legal experiences, and so I'm reliving a lot of that. I think the two experiences really kind of came together for me. And so my feelings of not being capable of doing something really came to the forefront. So that was really difficult. Those are things that honestly the podcast has not only forced me to process, but also helped me process.

Kate: Yeah, I've had insecurities for a long time, because I've shifted careers and trajectories so many times, about- I'm like, maybe you just don't want to work. Maybe you just don't want to do anything. (Josey laughs) You know? Like, maybe you would just be happy sitting around all day and watching Netflix, which I do think is true to a degree.

But then, you know, I do something like this and I'm putting in long days and long hours and working, essentially, this has been a full-time job and not having a problem with it. And I'm like, oh, no, you're OK with working. It's just your tolerance is lowering bullshit that you're willing to put up with while you're working. And then, of course, my privilege and my ability to say no to those things has also increased. I can be more selective. At least for now.

Josey: I mean, I feel that. Do I want to stay in law or legal tech? I don't know. (Laughing) Neither of those have really worked out for me yet.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: But I think having the two experiences, though similar but very, very different, helped really shift how I approached looking for a job. And it's not so much about everything that they promise you on paper. It's really about, you know, respect and support and understanding for just learning and humanness and growing and all of those things.

If you can find a place that has thought about how to set people up for success long term, and acknowledges the limitations and respects them and then finds ways to support you getting past those limitations in a timeline that is realistic… Those are things that I look for now.

Kate: Yeah, I've also learned to really drill down and be like, just blatantly be like, what are the bad things about this job? Because if no one is willing to say anything negative about the position, that's a red flag in and of itself.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: There's something about every company that's not ideal, and if no one's willing to acknowledge them, it's not good.

Shifting: Is there anything that you didn't get to talk about this season that you wanted to bring up or talk about? If you don't have one, I do.

Josey: Yeah, you go first. Let me think about this.

Kate: Yeah, so this actually didn't occur to me listening to our own podcast. We did an episode of Thinking LSAT with Nathan Fox and Ben Olson, which was really cool. And it was our first guest appearance on another podcast.

Josey: I know!

Kate: It was a lot of fun. They were really great. But I was listening back to what I was talking about there and something came up about how like the losses can really beat you down. I think you were talking about that.

And I was like, you know what I wish I had said this season more, is that I was not beaten down by losses. When I say I'm beating my head against the wall of the system, it wasn't that I was losing repeatedly. It was actually that I was winning, and that was what was so frustrating was the wins felt so temporary and so short-term. I was actually succeeding a vast majority of the time. And that was not enough. And my company, or- my company- my organization was really great at being like, “Small wins are wins.”

But there's only so much of that you can do when you just start realizing that a system is built to screw the people that you're trying to help and you can't do anything about it. It's hard.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: So I wanted to be more clear on that, that it's- you can win and be successful and still burn out because the work is difficult. And I don't want anyone to take that as like, it's bad no matter what, that's not true, but that expectation I think is there, that if you're winning you'll be happier and that's not always true.

Josey: Yeah, I think that's really, really important. And I'm glad that you pointed that out. It's a different type of loss. It's not losing cases. It's losing against the system at large that can be so draining as a legal professional.

Kate: Well, good, I'm glad we addressed that. (Laughing) Do you have something else that you would like to address that you didn't get to address?

Josey: Yeah, I think outside circumstances being relevant to your burnout journey and to what you can realistically handle. I don't think we had really talked about that in the season too much. A lot of it was very much focused on the work itself and kind of the things within the job that contribute. But I wish that that would have come up I think earlier in the season and been addressed a little bit more because I do think it's not talked about or acknowledged.

I think we don't talk about the very, very real and legitimate side to it that is your personal life and the things that you can be dealing with outside of work. We don't give enough space for that. I think we judge ourselves as an employee and our employers can sometimes judge us as an employee based on what we do at work, and that's fair because it's a job.

But when it comes to judging yourself, I think to deny or to downplay the personal side of it that goes on in your life as not being a good enough reason for you to be struggling or for the things that you're experiencing at work to be impacting you as much as they are, is doing ourselves a disservice. There's not a magic way to fix what goes on in your personal life or to make that something that doesn't influence your work and how you're coping.

Kate: Live alone as a hermit with no one else around to screw with your head.

Josey: (Laughing) I've tried that too.

Kate: Yeah, no, it doesn't work either.

Josey: I try, but it dosn’t work either, I know.

Kate: Yeah, it's never, it's always something.

Josey: What you are going through in your personal life is valid, and the impact that it has on you is valid. And you are not weak or incapable or less capable than your peer because you are struggling to manage both. First of all, no one walks in the same shoes. No one experiences the same exact thing the same way. So you cannot compare experiences. Do not compare yourself as apple to apple. It is oranges to apples oftentimes because you aren't the same.

Kate: And they might not be actually dealing either. Think about all the times that you've projected that you're fine when you're not.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: And I think it's also, it's so easy, especially, like we said, law tends to be high stakes. Whatever you're doing in the law, it's probably really high stakes. And in some cases, you're dealing with people who are going through a lot worse shit than you on a daily basis, and it's really easy to minimize and use that to diminish your own experience and how upset you are and how miserable you are.

Don't do that to yourself. Let yourself feel your feelings. If you are feeling upset about something, there's a reason. And it's probably at least remotely valid.

Okay, I'm going to lighten it up a little bit because I feel like we've gone heavy as you and I tend to do.

Josey: Please. Rull heavy. (Kate makes a “whoops” noise and both laugh.) This is the one thing about we've learned about our pairing as we've done this is, we go dark if left to our own devices.

Kate: We go dark real quick.

Josey: We have trouble bringing it back.

Kate: So next season we’re thinking about changing things a little bit, changing the vibe, we're not gonna overly structure. We might dip our toe outside the legal industry once in a while with burnout issues. We're probably gonna do more one-on-one episodes like this. What are you looking forward to?

Josey: Yeah, I'm trying to think of what I'm looking forward to most…

(Pause.)

Kate: Great, moving on.

(Both laugh)

Josey: Yeah, sorry, I don't know what I'm most excited about. I'm really excited about a break at the moment, and that's all I can think about. I'm sorry. (Kate laughs) Not because I don't like this, but because there's just a lot going on. So, yeah, moving on.

Kate: No, despite the fact that you said that we haven't been too repetitive on our- I do feel like you and I both got to a point where we were like, “Oh my God, we don't want to say our same stories, our same information again and again and again.”

Josey: No, I think that it's going to be, we've seen people not in legal that have enjoyed interacting and listening to the podcast. And so I think looking forward to having people that maybe aren't in legal. Now that we have established ourselves, we can kind of reach out a little bit to people we wouldn't have thought to talk to before or that maybe wouldn't have thought to talk to us.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: And that’s- I'm excited for that.

Kate: Yeah.

If we could have any guest, like shooting for the moon, Josey, guarantee that they would say yes. Who would you want? We're going to manifest right now.

Josey: Dead or alive?

Kate: No, not dead.

Josey: Okay, well…

Kate: Like someone who could actually wind up on the podcast.

Josey: I think Bryan Stevenson to be honest, because I've, like, he was a big reason I started getting into law.

Kate: Yes, love. Saw him on Jon Stewart, he’s the reason that I did the death penalty clinic and found, like, prisoner advocacy and my jam that I really enjoyed in law school.

Josey:  Yes.

Kate: Bryan Stevenson, if you're listening, if you ever would want to be on a podcast about burnout and the legal industry, you don't have to have burned out. We'll talk to you about anything you want to talk about. Even if you don't even want to talk about your work, Bryan Stevenson, we'll talk to you about your hobbies.

Josey: (Laughing) Even if you don’t want want to be on we’ll just talk to you in general.

Kate: We're talking to you now, whether or not you like it.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: There's no way he's ever going to hear this.

Josey: Like Sotomayor. I just think she's very, she's kind of been like-

Kate: Ooooo, Supreme Court burnout.

Josey: Yeah, like just a little bit of a dark horse. You know, we had RBG that was really leading in a lot of things, but I think the way she's kind of taken on that role-

Kate: Oh, I love Sotomayor’s opinions.

Josey: I love her.

Kate: She's great. For me, it would be the Obamas. I want to know about both of them. Especially her perspective... I mean, obviously, I would be fascinated to speak to someone who has been a president (Laughing) and be like, “What's that burnout like compared to a practicing attorney?” Like, what were the experiences? This has to be insane.

But also because she was senior to him. She like mentored him when he started practicing. And I would just be fascinated to speak to them.

I also, we have had several people suggest that we should have Snoop Dogg on, which I would love. And he did once love a comment I made on LinkedIn on one of his posts. So…

Josey: Could you imagine?

Kate: We're basically best friends. He's had legal… (laughing) issues.

(Josey laughs.)

Josey: We could talk to him about cannabis regulations and law.

(Kate gasps)
Kate: We totally could! Because he owns his own, I bet he...

Josey: Actually, why haven't we talked about that? I went to a Snoop Dogg concert recently!

Kate: That’s right!

Josey: So, you know, I feel very connected.

Kate: I wasn't even the first one to think of it. Several independent people have said to me, “Get Snoop Dogg on the podcast.” So there's- We should get a petition.

Josey: The problem with this is I could not help you (Kate laughs) on any of these episodes. I would be like sweating and I'd just be like,....

Kate: I think you’d get there. The Obamas I would struggle with. Like Michelle Obama, I'm pretty sure if she looked at me, I would cry. I don't know why. I feel like I would be OK talking to Barack, but there is something about Michelle Obama, like I know for a fact that if I met her, I would cry.

OK. Last, but certainly not least, I want to make sure that we do some shout outs for people who helped us make this happen and people who helped it continue to happen.

First off, shout out to all of our guests for coming on at all. I want to shout out Ashley Herd because she was one of the first people to agree to come on. And she's got such a big platform and the fact that she was willing to come on and talk to us and agree before we were proven was really meaningfu,l and really lovely, and her episode was great.

Josey: Mmhmm. And I mean to that Tom Stephenson was one of the first people to volunteer to be a guest and come on.

Kate: Mm, yes.

Josey: But not only that, Tom was there kind of from the beginning of when we started.

Kate: Yeah.

Josey: And Tom has just been one of our biggest cheerleaders, honestly, from day one. So we love Tom.

Kate: He really has. So supportive. He's the best. Speaking of supportive, Alex Su, (Laughing) recipient of the award for most mentions on a podcast he has not been on. (Both laugh) I think someone brought him up almost every episode.

Josey: Yeah.

Kate: We didn't leave them all in, but I should I should super cut together all of our guests and us saying “Alex Su” every time we've said his name.

Josey: Every time Alex Su is mentioned, yeah.

Kate: But he really, I mean, this wouldn't have happened the way that it did without him. He was so generous with his time and with his connections. He really helped enable this whole thing and got us so many of our guest connections. So.

Josey: Yeah. And, one, we wouldn't have this podcast, nor would we be having a final episode and thanking people without the one and only, Kyle Kelly.

Kate: Yes!

Josey: Who we need to have on, and we plan to have on. Kyle gave us the idea. Kyle was part of the conversation in which it was said that we should start a podcast about burnout. And…

Kate: Kyle was the one who said, “You should start a podcast.

Josey: He is the originator of this and he is also in our top people of supporters for us, just as people in our professions and then the podcast as a whole. We love Kyle.

Kate: He's been fantastic. I also want to shout out, this is someone not in the legal sphere actually at all, but Jupiter Stone is a content creator who I followed for a long time on LinkedIn and I just love the way they show up on LinkedIn, I think I related to them very quickly because they are not into obeying all of the rules and bowing down to the algorithm.

We wound up kind of connecting and started messaging, which was very exciting for me because I was a big fan. And they really generously checked out our social media presence, our Instagram in particular, took a bunch of notes on what we're doing well, what we should keep doing, and where we could maximize stuff a little more, and gave me all of these amazing tips that I've now enacted. And every time I put one into practice on Instagram, I can tell that they're watching, because they'll pop into our DMs and be like, screenshot of whatever it is that I did, like renaming our audio or whatever.

Josey: Oh, I love it.

Kate: So it's just been so lovely to have someone who, you know, is paying attention and supporting you and giving you practical advice. It's very kind and has been very helpful for us.

And then I want to shout out Riverside and Buzzsprout because we record in Riverside and we have now talked to multiple other podcasts, folks who don't have a platform like this to record in and it makes things so much harder. And Riverside is not paying us, we are paying them.
And then Buzzsprout similarly, just made everything feel manageable for distributing and getting stuff out there. So I don't know, Riverside and Buzzsprout, if you want to sponsor us, like let us know, but…

Josey: I mean, to finish it, I'd kind of like to shout you out, to be honest. I mean, we kind of did it at the beginning, but also–

Kate: Stop.

Josey: I think it's good to finish with, you know, like acknowledging and thank yous. So, Kate, as everyone knows, is the face of it and our presence on social media more often than not, because I am, you know, the little gremlin. But none of this would be possible without Kate, because she does every man's job for the entire podcast. (Kate laughs.) So we exist because of all of her hard work. So thank you for being my co-host.

Kate: Thank you for jumping into this, into something that was really outside your comfort zone. I said to you from, I think the first episode, I was like, “Whenever you talk, it's always my favorite part, and I'm having trouble like editing you because I think everything you say is so great.” Because you're so insightful and articulate and you always have a way of bringing up something that I didn't think about. So, I'm very lucky to have you here. I think we suspected we were gonna balance each other well, and that has been the actual case, which is lovely.

Josey: Mm hmm. We really do finish each other's sandwiches.

Kate: (Laughing) That's right. Perfect note to end on.

Josey: (Laughing) I thought so.

Kate: We are coming back sometime after the new year. We are going to have more one-on-one episodes, we're gonna try and do more current event commentary and we are gonna have more amazing guests with different perspectives on burnout.

So, thank you to everyone who has been with us. And we'll see you on the other side. We're gonna take a little break so we don't burn ourselves out on our burnout project.

Josey: Yeah.

Outtro

The Legal Burnouts is produced by me, Kate Bridal. Our music is by Keegan Stotsenberg. Our art is by Growlforce. Thanks for listening.