Mental health issues in our profession are finally being recognized. While mental health issues are not unique to lawyers, the profession and it's client service mantra present unique challenges.

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I struggle with how to carve out time to take care of myself. Email is mostly a glance at a smart phone away. Being profitable/an in demand associate sometimes means taking on as many assignments as possible (or simply being assigned work regardless of capacity). With constant reminders of competing deadlines it's hard for me to prioritize downtime. My desire to turn in quality work is real and, despite high reviews, I am often my own worst critic (which sometimes results in an ongoing negative dialogue with myself). More than once I've found myself paralyzed by responsibility and have forced myself to take a vacation and put the email away. That release has felt better than anything. My problem is that I then treat my tank as empty and will easily let the pressure/burden build up all over. Not healthy for sure but I'm terrible at creating better habits.

Other times I release pressure (deatructivley) on the weekends in the form of heavy drinking (or, more nicely, partying).

Generally I'd like to work on creating a healthier balance and learn to tune out work when I need a break. The goal would be to avoid any heavy weekend release and/or reaching an annual breaking point.

Curious about your collective thoughts? Can a healthy level of work be quantified in monthly hours billed? Is it practice specific? Number of matters worked on simultaneously? Hourswise I aim for anything between 185-210 real billables/month.

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What's your firm's billable hour requirement?

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What about legal work is currently causing your mental health struggles?

Mine’s the hours, which is not normally my issue. I billed 230 for June and July and am already at 145 for August. My ability to focus is getting worse by the day, so I’m working longer to bill the same hours and have had to pull a couple all nighters. I burst into tears this morning when a client changed plans and now wants a major project by end of month, on top of my other deadlines next week... I just want to sleep.

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