Pivots and Profits with Early Adopter Kristin Lis

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This podcast is not a source of legal advice. No two legal cases are the same. Contact an attorney if you require legal assistance.

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Welcome to the Mighty MERP Podcast. I'm here with Kristen Lis, who is a family law attorney, has been practicing about 15 years. And we're going to talk about her journey through the legal practice from when she was a young attorney to how she has shifted and adjusted her career to make sure that she has a successful career and a successful, happy life outside lawyering. Welcome, Kristen.

Thank you so much, Melissa. I'm really excited to be here. I'm excited to talk to you. I know we texted and talked a little bit about having a conversation and I appreciate you taking the time today to join me on the Mighty MERP podcast. I do not know if you'd listen to the Mighty MERP podcast, but I always like to start the first question with my guests say, tell me your origin story. Where did you grow up?

Tell me a little bit about your family and also did you always know you wanted to be a lawyer? That's great. So I grew up in Philadelphia. I am the oldest of three daughters to my parents. My parents are still together. They've been married for 48 years now, which is kind of ironic that I'm a divorced lawyer. my two sisters, they both live a different state than me.

I reside in Florida now, though I am solely a New Jersey divorce attorney. My one sister lives in Connecticut. The other one lives in Jersey. I have one, two nieces. And I grew up in like a Catholic family, went to Catholic school K through 12, then went to a Christian university. Just wanted to be a teacher. I really passionate about teaching, got my degree in elementary and special education and taught for seven years. And I just reached this point where I was like,

can't do this anymore. This is really difficult. Not that I'm like afraid of a challenge. Clearly, I went into law, which is very challenging. I just didn't feel like I was satisfied with the direction my life was taking. I was working really, really hard to be really, really poor. And I wanted to kind of get that cycle. I wanted to get out of the city. And I decided to go to law school and do an entire shift.

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Initially, I thought I would get into education law because I'm not over there and as luck would have it we had an amazing economic downturn in 2008 ish 2009 so I graduated in the worst economy ever So rather than you know people just throwing offers at new graduates from law school with their whole future in their hands law firms and even prosecutors and public defenders offices were laying people off

which was absolutely terrifying when you graduate with six figures of student loan debt and still have your undergrad. So I'm going to interrupt you. I'm going to interrupt you just so I backtrack a little. have about three questions for you. What did you teach when you were teaching? So I taught special ed. I first taught with third and fourth graders and I was like, this is cute. But a couple of my kids were eating glue.

So I was like, let me do something a little different. So I tried middle school and that was good, but the middle school is just, they're very cranky. And you may, any parent that's listening right now will say, I will easily trade the diapers for the cranky tweens. And then I ended up in teaching high school in South Jersey. And I did run into some of my students from there before when I was at the Kempner County prosecutor's office and they would wave to me for their handcuffs. So that was a sad story.

I just didn't really feel like we were doing our students a great justice. We're missing a lot of the mark in our educational system. And by insisting that every student is destined for community college or college, we're losing that opportunity to teach young students how to support themselves, get them involved in a trade, teach them some marketable skill.

something that they can do other than go out and sell drugs, which is really prevalent in South Jersey. Yes, that is all true. So you went from teaching, did someone inspire you to go to law school or did you just decide that was the route? Where'd you go to undergrad? Where'd you go to law school? Because the graduating with the significant loan debt or loan issue.

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possibly dependent as well on the law school that you chose at the time. Probably believing you were going to make more money as a lawyer than as a teacher. Exactly. We were told, you go to the law school, you're going to graduate, you're going to start making $100,000 a year. False. So I went to undergrad at LaSalle University in Philly, and I did get some academic scholarships there, but chose to live on campus despite the fact it was about 15 minutes away from my home growing up.

because I wanted that college experience and LaSalle was one of the best schools. And I believe it's still a very good school for education. So I was happy I went there. And then during, when I was teaching, we had friends of the family who were a lawyer and they kept on saying things like, yeah, you should just go to law school. should just go to the S. Well, during the course of my teaching, there were some legal issues that came up with some of my students and through the course of my.

teaching career and prior to becoming a teacher had some legal circumstances arise. Teachers were mandatory reporters of child abuse, things like that. And I saw that there was a lot of injustice and I thought, I think I'd like to go be a special education lawyer. So that kind of prompted me to get there. But then once I had that degree in hand, things changed a lot. And so I'm not appearing today as a Kristen List special education lawyer. I'm appearing Kristen List divorce lawyer.

There's quite a few there. I'm sorry. Did I miss it? Where did you go to law school? I went to law school at Rutgers University in Camden. Great. And I can, I lived with my parents and tried to cut costs as best as I could. But you know, it's a big investment into your education and then, you know, interest happens. So I see that you clerked for Judge Baker who

I'm sure that you learned a lot and had a lot of fun at the same time with Judge Baker. Was he in family division when you clerked for him? Yes. So in 2008, I interviewed with probably nine or 10 judges. And one of those judges with Judge Baker, I drove to Atlantic City from Camden and had a great conversation with him and his chambers on Back Rock Boulevard in Atlantic City.

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And the next day I got a call and he offered me the position. I, that point, I kind of had my head like heart set on being, a prosecutor, at the Kim, the County prosecutor's office where I had interned and, had some great experiences on my feet there. And I gave them a call and they told me that they had, they were not planning on bringing in a new class of prosecutors that year.

they in fact were faced with the decision to begin slaying people off. Again, going back to the pretty awful economy in 2008, 2009, the housing market crisis, that was devastating to me. And I said, well, thankfully I have this opportunity for a clerkship. I'll do that. And even during my clerkship, I applied with the prosecutor's office. I kept on running into the same thing. Like those doors were not open to me. And now I look back and I'm glad they weren't because this route was really, I think, desperate.

destined for me. Sitting in the courtroom, I looked around and I said, Judge, where are all the young attorneys at? Where are they? And he's like, well, we've got these ones who are going to be retiring a couple of years. And we do have these like three young attorneys, but there just really wasn't interest in family law. And it's a huge need. So as those people have retired or as those people have become judges, there haven't been a great number of family law attorneys.

stepping into those open spots. So we have a very close community of family law attorneys in South Jersey. Right. Well, we're small to begin with as somebody. I grew up in North Jersey. So just moving to this area, just knowing everyone so easily because we're so small was a surprise initially. really, I'm going to go back to what you said is you thought criminal law prosecuting, those doors weren't opening.

I am sure at the time there was frustration or what am I doing wrong and questioning. and then now there's this reality of it was meant to be you you're in the right place. You just didn't know it at the time that you were knocking on the wrong doors. Correct. As my clerkship ended, I thought to myself, what are my marketable skills?

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And I thought, I know how to run child support guidelines. I know how to draft orders for family law. I know how to create parenting plans. And so I took the skills that I learned in my clerkship and decided to put my foot into the realm of family law. 15 years later, it's working out pretty good. did you like family law when she started doing it or when you finished your clerkship, were you still trying to

make the applications to the prosecutor's office. By the time the clerkship was over, I knew that no prosecutor's offices were hiring whatsoever. I needed to leave that dead in the water and start fresh. And those student loans were coming out of forbearance. it was absolute. It wasn't this like, I'm to be in family law. It was like, crap, my bills are due. Let me go make some money because I don't want to be in default on my student loans.

So, wasn't a very romantic, you know, picture at the time. but I do think that looking back, there was this need that needed to be filled. I was there and ready, willing, and able to fill it. And years later, it just, that clerkship pretty much like changed the trajectory of my whole life. If I'm going to say it, I would not have met my husband.

I would have not married. I would not have a step son. Like my entire life changes go honestly, go back to accepting that clerkship. So Max Baker, there you go. I picked a girl out of Philly who had a no role, a law background other than what I picked up at Rutgers and my clerkships and my internships and took a little chance on the Eagles fan.

that showed up in his office that day. Did you go to a large law firm? What law firm did you go to? And again, what were, what was your hours of working? What was your expectation when you started working? I know you said it was about the money initially. I could do this. I could make money. And then I didn't. So I went to a small law firm and it was really just a husband and wife set up.

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And unfortunately, during my early months there, the husband fell ill with cancer and that really shook up the whole family law firm. And not long after I decided to go out on my own as a solo, as a ripe law school graduate. And I took what I had learned from that very short amount of time there and decided I wanted to do things a little bit differently. Like I didn't want to rely on the brick and mortar building.

identified very early on in my law practice that technology was where it was at. And if I was able to meet with clients virtually and back in 2010, that would have been, gosh, what was that Skype? was offering about ask what platform did you use in 2010? was using Skype to conduct a virtual consultations and meetings with clients. And at that time rolled out a Skype.

law clinic with Volunteer Lawyers for Justice up in North Jersey. I helped them get their Skype clinic up and running. What's amazing is I don't think people understand how hard and how, whether it's confidence or belief in oneself to literally hang up a shingle one year out of law school.

or shortly after a clerkship. Do you think that you had the confidence to do that because you were a little seasoned, meaning you didn't go from college to law school, you had a few years of work experience, or do you think that was innate in you? And I say this as someone who opened up my own law practice after practicing 22 years or so, I was a public defender.

I worked with another attorney. I was a partner with another attorney. And even when I opened up my own law firm, I did it begrudgingly. I'm thrilled I did it. I love that I have my own law firm, but I was so married to that paycheck and not creating my own firm, but also own brand, own way of doing business. And I'm so impressed that you're saying in 2010 with

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Two years of experience at most, one year of clerkship, you not only hung your own shingle, as we say, you said, I'm going to do it in a way that really hasn't been done. So my question really is, well, one is kudos to you. And two, what gave you the confidence or that thought, I can definitely do this? You know, when you talk about having kind of this like blueprint lined up,

where you knew what that would look like. I had already identified what I wanted to do out of law school and it wasn't happening. So I wasn't just sitting back and waiting for a prosecutor's office or a law firm to give me the opportunity. Because when you are getting told, we're riffing people or we are not hiring people right now or we'll hold onto your resume when you know what's going on in the trash can anyway.

You went so many people were being laid off. mean, how do you even in every ad and art in the newspaper or the law journal or online would say, I want somebody with three to five years experience. I had three to five months of experience. Nobody was going to hire me. I mean, this was really kind of a matter of I've got to make the best with what I have.

and I can't sit back and wait for somebody to give me a job and give me money for showing up. I'm just going to have to go do it myself. To the point where I was like, well, if this doesn't work out for me, I could go back to teaching. I still have that degree. I have a double degree there. I can always go do this. I could go be a paralegal. All of these things, I can take that background. I can use it. And I decided to put my effort into, let me find one client. Let me work on one case.

So it wasn't like, let me go find a space or put a letterhead. Let me find one client that I can help. And then from that one client, he was happy. So he told his friends and his friends called me and then his friends told their friends and then they called me. And so it went from one to two, from two to four, from four and exponentially grew so much that I can actually look back and think of my, my career almost like a family tree.

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Like there are these three branches from which all of us are clients in the So I can say, but for those like little seeds that were planted in the beginning, those people knew I had like one year of experience as a clerkship, three months of experience as an attorney and gave me that opportunity. And I made them happy. I got them a...

successful result, they felt heard, they felt understood, they felt like they had someone standing with them, fighting for them when they didn't think that that was something that they would be able to do on their own. it's great. really have a great time, like you're giving me so much credit, but like a lot of it is born out of necessity, because I like to have a car and I like to drive.

And I need to pay that car payment and I like to eat. So you didn't have a brick and mortar building at all from the beginning. You were working out of wherever your home. You were working out of work. Work from home employee. I was the original work remote remote first. That was me. I had one laptop. I had one inkjet printer. I had the New Jersey rules of

court book. had my cell phone. That was it. So what's interesting about your analogy of a tree and branches is I also think of my clients and the referrals as branches of a tree. I would turn my computer around so you could see it, but I think it'll like mess up the whole podcast. But to my right,

is literally a painting of a huge tree with leaves that are pink and black. And because I describe when people make referrals and referrals that that's that branch of the tree. had a former colleague who became an administrative law judge and referred me all his cases. And I say that's that judge's branch. When people call me, that's that branch of the tree. So

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I love the analogy. relate to it completely. So my question to you is you built it pretty much one client at a time as the branches began to bloom.

I do know the answer, but it also became bigger or more than you expected it to be or working. much were you working being the complete, the attorney, the secretary, the paralegal, the receptionist, the marketer of your firm? like just because anytime the phone rang, like that was business. I needed to pick it up.

So if it was like Sunday night at five, or if it was Monday morning at, you know, 630 AM, those calls were being taken. And sometimes that would even be like, hi, this is Kristin's secretary calling to confirm her appointment. Like I would just be extra people. Every single call that needed to be made was mine. you know, fortunately, and for anybody who's listening to this, who is a lawyer,

you already know this for people who are not, they don't teach us how to run a business in law school. Not a single- Not only do we not know how to run a business, they don't teach us marketing. They don't teach us anything regarding the tech. I literally say to my staff when the printer stops working, I jokingly say, Tag, you're it. They didn't teach me this in law school. That's fortunately something I picked up.

teacher. I was very good at that. And that's when I say that past experience as a teacher has served me very, very well. I can unjam any record. Well, as a public defender, we did argue and fight and have to learn how to do it. But I just, you know, at times now think I did not learn this in law school. So much that we didn't learn. We learned how to read rules and apply the law and make arguments regarding

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our cases are analogous or distinguishable from cases in front. But that's about it. We understood where like underlining stops on before the punctuation or after the punctuation and a case site and about, you know, cases where there's trains and explosives and none of that applies to family law and none of that applies to, you know, trust accounting.

None of that applies to running invoices. What's billable, what's not billable. And I look back and I made a lot of mistakes, not in the trust accounting part, definitely not that part. But in the what's billable, what's not billable. No one told me like if I'm calling the court and I'm talking to someone, that's a bill, that's something I bill for. But I had to learn it the hard way. I had to learn it the wrong way. And eventually, you know, found a couple of attorneys I could talk to and ask some questions to without judgment.

and without any shame. And I now try to do that for other people. Eventually I did end up getting a part-time paralegal, then brought her in full-time, then had some interns. Those were pretty cool. And then merged my little teeny tiny office with another firm. We had two locations. I unfortunately closed those doors in 2019, fortunately, unfortunately, right before the world changed again.

And, and then went to work for a larger firm out of Philly, brought my book of business there. and then as, as my work history would have it, I burned out horribly in 2023, like hit the wall, hit the wall hard and stopped the big firm 50, 60 hour a week work, stopped working nights, stopped working weekends, started sleeping and eating again.

and having a life again. And now my life looks way different than being a robotic attorney who lives only to, you know, draft pleadings and get people divorced. you say 50 to 60 hours a week. Yes, I think you're low on that. I probably I think running your own business and having clients

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The similar, the similarity between criminal defense and family law is we are seeing clients that are in desperate need of guidance, legal representation. And we also end up being an emotional support system for them, whether we want to or not. There's a lot of handholding. Absolutely. So I, I have finally put a lot of.

hard boundaries on clients calling the office and not my cell phone in the last two years of my six year privately owned business of just law offices of Melissa Rosenblum. But I think when you say 50 to 60, I say, my clients had my cell phone. They called and texted. I always picked up as well. I think it was more than 50 to 60 hours. So

When you say you burnt out and you had to, you, you burnt out. How did you know? Were you in denial about it initially? What was occurring beforehand? in some ways in my mind, I'm thinking, you know, you, you were one of the few people really able to shift, probably not difficult to the pandemic.

You were digital, maybe you had moved to zoom from Skype to zoom already. So it wasn't a huge change. And then you're saying in 2023 is when you hit the wall. And I have so many questions for you. When did you know, did you see the wall coming? Were you trying to make the changes beforehand or did you hit the wall and say, my goodness, I can't continue. And what.

And what does it mean when you say hit the wall? Because I don't think that's a true mental health phrase. think that's not in the DSM five. No, no, not in DSM. But I, I always say that, you know, you can shift gears. You use so many analogies that I use, you can shift gears in your career. There were times when I was young, 26, 27, I was going full throttle.

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Then I had kids, kind of tapped on the brakes, taught at Rowan. Then I came back and I was kind of shifting back into work mode. Then there came a point where I went full throttle again. And I couldn't do it either, but I don't think I ever hit a wall. I think that there was a realization of my kids who had a lot of crisis over the years of their teenage years, knowing that I had to put them first.

and kind of hit the brakes again. tell me the timeline leading up and, and, and sort of what you did and, and the law, know I'm asking a lot of questions, but did you have the support of the legal community, the courts to do it in a way that you didn't have any backlash of your career, any.

violations or ethics issues or anything. There's so many things when people are struggling as an attorney that stop them from seeking help. Okay. So I think the best way to explain this is that, when I started from like the, that the very humble beginnings of like one client at a time and building it from a dining room table and a laptop, there was just this like hunger and this desire to build and grow. And that

being the eldest child, being an overachiever, being a type A perfectionist personality, that runs deep. Like many lawyers. So many. And there's a sense that if we're not busy, then we don't have value. And so much so that when we are not busy, we feel guilty. If we rest, we feel guilty. We feel like we have to deserve rest. And through...

this journey that I've been on to become a better version of me and to become a healthier person and lawyer. I understand now, wish I would known then, and that's why I'll say it for all to hear. Rest is not a reward. Brilliant coach that I hired to help me with my burnout, Kate Donovan, taught me rest is not a reward. Rest is what we need in order to do our most meaningful work.

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I thought I was doing somebody a favor by working on weekends and working nights and waking up early. But what I was doing was actually depriving myself of what I needed to be the very best, healthiest version of me, running on fumes, while telling all of my clients, make sure you take care of yourself during the divorce. Your children need you.

They are looking, you make sure you sleep, make sure you eat, go do your meditation, go do your yoga while I was running on fumes and a can of Coke and a sleeve of Oreos. Like, no. So resting, I didn't feel like I was entitled to rest. Like I had people who were calling me and texting me and if they couldn't get through to me on call or text, then they would start Facebook messaging me. This happened on my wedding day.

So no boundaries. My boundaries were terrible. And then people just felt like, if I can't get her the three prior ways I tried to get her, let me try to get her through Instagram or Pinterest because I still need to talk to my lawyer, regardless of the fact that she's getting married today. But then also to have kind of like this diluted sense of like pride, like I am so important that people need to reach me at all times. No, there are things that can't happen after,

430 in the afternoon, the courthouse is closed people. Right. So that's a hard realization for lawyers, I think, is our clients need us and there's an urgency for them, which creates an urgency for us. But the truth is not everything is a fire that needs to be put out. it took me, I am very clear with my clients that

You can call the law firm after hours. There's an answering service. You can text the law firm after hours. I have a digital texting number for their file now, not my personal cell phone. And if it's an emergency, I will call back. And then I clarify. An emergency is the police are at my door serving a warrant and I don't know what to do. That's an emergency. You know, it's not an emergency.

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I'm not sure what my court date and time is. I had clients call at 10 o'clock at night, four o'clock in the morning, when's my next court date? Or I want to talk about my case. Okay. Call the office, leave a message and we'll get back to you. Setting those boundaries of what emergencies are and what emergencies aren't. But the rest thing also is hitting the nail on

on the head because you can't be effective if you're exhausted. And why do we think that we need to?

deserve that rest or earn it. And I know I'm not the only one. I know I'm not the only one because I picked this up. And I wasn't working at a law firm where I seeing other people pull all nighters. I was on my own. But we see like even on Facebook, good colleagues being like pulled another all nighter. And when I see like my old Facebook memories pop up, I say,

There was there were their little breadcrumbs of burnout back then. Look, look at 2015 that I posted this. Look at 2019 when they said, just another another 18 hour day at the office. Those are the little breadcrumbs they get us there. Sunday, another Sunday or Saturday worked all weekend. Yeah. Or had three court hearings Christmas Eve.

And thank, thank, I'm so thankful for the pandemic because all the things that I like to do virtual now became like everybody doing a virtual, but the driving two hours round trip to have a 15 minute uncontested divorce hearing that ended. And for that, am so grateful. It helped my clients out. helped me out. I was running, I was running myself into the ground, but I was running my cars into the ground. Like I would never be able to lease.

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I was driving thousands of miles a month, like over 10,000 miles a month. I mean, was just crazy. I was driving all over the state. I was eating the majority of my meals in the car, which is horrible. Since the pandemic, I've lost 50 pounds because I am not eating McDonald's between two courthouses to get there for a 130 hearing. I am not stopping at Wawa to get a breakfast burrito on my way to court in the morning. It's not happening. It's a healthier lifestyle.

And so when people are eager to go back, I'm like, but please, I like being able to have my healthy smoothie every morning. I like being able to stop and get a glass of water and have access to a bathroom. And that's not always the case if you're in a physical courthouse. Correct. And what we learned is not everything needs to be in person. I'm going to say there's some value of it sometimes.

for what I do to be able to talk to a prosecutor face to face about the case. Absolutely. municipal court, would say for the same reasons that you're saying, municipal court is mostly virtual. And thank goodness because I represent people in all of South Jersey. I do not need to be driving to three to four courthouses in one day for traffic tickets.

that are, you know, I'm not saying they're not good money coming in, but it's really not worth driving an hour for a traffic ticket. Handling it virtually though is. So I totally agree with you that doing an uncontested divorce, 15 minutes on the record, right. Makes so much more sense. going into court.

when it's necessary and there are necessary times. Absolutely, absolutely. And I have no, and I think I mentioned earlier, like I now reside out of state. I fly out for hearings. If I have a hearing or I've had in-person mediation, I fly out, that's fine. I get to see my family. I get to, you know, wear fancy shoes again. I get to wear a whole suit. I get the best of both worlds.

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Not a single person has ever cried because they find out I live in a different state where, you know, my husband lives. So that's great. but how did you address? So I don't know. I know you said you hit the wall. You realized how much you were working and what did that mean? Hitting the wall. Did you, I guess we'll go back to is, where I said there was those little breadcrumbs that were showing up, right?

Around 2019, I was feeling signs of burnout then. So I was feeling very lethargic. I really started to feel fatigued. I started to recognize like I didn't have as much compassion as I was having earlier. They call that compassion fatigue. I started to feel like maybe the work I was doing was not as relevant. And I started to identify that the job was overtaking my life where

I was waking up earlier, I was going to bed later. And by the time I got to a weekend, all I was doing was recovering from the work week. There was no value to me or to my family on the weekend. I was exhausted. was sleeping. then I was really just kind of going through those motions. And it was at that point where I said, I'm not happy running a law firm anymore. I'm not happy being the boss anymore. I really just, I want to just be a lawyer. I want to...

I want to do the things that spark joy in me, Marie Kondo my life so to speak, and just get back to being a lawyer. that's why I thought going to a firm where somebody else is doing the hiring and firing, someone else is doing the performance plans and making sure 401K gets taken care of. Someone else is, you know, sending out the, you know, insurance renewal premiums. That initially worked wonders to bring me out of that funk.

and to get me back to feeling happy and fulfilled with what I was doing. But it also was a change from being the boss to being an employee. And there is a sense of freedom that comes with being your own boss. But also you have those kind of handcuffs attached to you, like the whole office is relying on you. But nobody's also telling you

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You have to be at a certain location or in a certain room or FaceTime when you're the boss. And, you know, I have a lot of friends, my former partner is a judge, a lot of friends are judges now, and they were in private practice and they say, I can't go get the manicure at nine o'clock and stroll into my office at 10 30 and things like that when you're working for somebody else.

Yeah. And I can tell you that I didn't feel like I was really reaping a lot of the benefits of like owning my own business where I was going for manicures. probably was out of those times in life. I was probably taking care of myself less than I am now. Because again, I guess was in this mindset that I needed to deserve to go do those things. was this like whole mindset, like I needed to earn those things, but really taking care of yourself is not something that you need to.

You really just need to do it to be the best version of yourself and to be mentally and emotionally available and refilled and replenished for the emotional toll that this type of job can take. looking back, I feel like I owe myself an apology for how poorly I treated myself as boss to employee me boss.

But I just didn't feel happy and I was kind of like, I'm just going to try things differently and see if that works. And if I didn't like working at a firm, I'd go work for myself again. I did it once out of a dining room table on a laptop. By gosh, I'll do it again. and then the pandemic hit and things got really crazy. We know attorneys who slowed down and they were, they got to Netflix and show. didn't get to Netflix and show. There was no chilling. It was busier than ever.

And all that time that I loathed, that I spent in the car and it was, know, driving this thing, that was quiet downtime where my brain could, you know, recharge itself. All of that time became back in front of the laptop time. I was doing so many zoom consults and meetings and hearings that I ended up with laryngitis and couldn't talk within the first two months. Yeah. And you probably did not set up buffer times between appointments.

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No. Because I'm assuming that's the case. I have said to my staff, I understand that we do 30 minute appointments, but I mentally need to breathe between them before I end. And so I understand what you're saying. I will say that the only, and I hate to use the word benefit of the pandemic,

because there's so much negative around it. But because the courts were closed for the initial month, I was able to catch up on work. I didn't stop working. had so many briefs, a little different area of law, so many briefs and so many things that I needed to file, that that was the only benefit. I still went into the office. I was still working as much as I was prior.

the emotional toll was back to back. I'm sorry. What I did was set up a home office that was practically identical to what I had because everybody's talking about, well, I was sitting up at the kitchen table or I was doing this and it's. Well, you're of course, you're not going to be able to get things done. You've got, know, your dishwasher running over here and you got the bark dog barking over here and, your, Amazon packages being delivered right now.

The setup that I have in my home office is as fantastic as anyone else's. I've got multiple screens, printers, if you set it up and this is your space and you close that door, I might as well be at my old office in Linwood because my mentality goes right there. This is my workplace. I'm now in my work gear. And when I go out that door, then I'm at home. But right now I'm in the office.

Right. So with the back-to-back meetings and I don't know if this is true, was the divorce rate higher during the pandemic or right after? I believe that, you know, I don't know if we statistically have stuff like that, but I know for myself that was the most new cases for divorce I had ever had in a 365 day span. And what I was seeing also were people who are not married for a very long time at all.

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who them being under the same roof with that person that you married not all that long ago, but you had never spent that many consecutive hours with them, being your entire dating, engaged, married life, those ones were self-combusting fast. That with the crazy housing market that was going on, it was just absolute other chaos. So we had a lot going on there. We had a lot of parents who were withholding children.

because they were getting advice, you know, either from the government or direction from an attorney or their, their other co-parent was sick with COVID. We had so many things going on. And that, again, this led me down that burnout path because I was constantly working. I was constantly accessible. I was, you know, being asked to appear on podcasts to talk about like, how do we get through the holidays with kids in the pandemic and things like that? I kept on saying yes to everything because it was all very...

you exciting and important. And moving down the line, I started to realize I need help. need support. I need a really positive paralegal. I could use maybe like a baby associate to help out because the volume was so high. I think in the year prior to my burnout, I think I originated something like $700,000 in like divorce. That's obscene amount of time for another law firm, right? Yeah. Working for another law firm.

Mm hmm. And then then I build like 600 K on top of it. That was just and that's not what I earned. That's what I made them. But the amount of time I was spending on these, I really needed help. I finally reached that point where I was like, I need to delegate. Like, I'm tired of I'm a type A. I want to do everything myself, but I can't physically and mentally do everything myself. I need to delegate out. But there was no one to delegate to. And so.

hours of my day, I would put on my paralegal hat and do paralegal stuff or my secretarial hat and do secretarial stuff. And then sometimes after five, when I was getting to do the lawyer stuff and it was just, we weren't able, I wasn't able to keep up. I was spinning my wheels every weekend I was working just so that I could potentially not have 12 hour days the next week. And by the end of that year, it was like something like almost 1900 build hours plus I am a

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and matrimonial settlement panelists in five different counties. I do pro bono work through South Jersey Legal Services. Just when I counted up the hours, you're right. It probably was like something like 5,000 hours or something. It was intense. And I thought, what have I done this year other than work?

I would sit down at dinner and I would only have cases going through my head. And then after dinner, I wouldn't remember what I even eat because I was like shoving it in my mouth so I could get back to my office. It just started to take over every aspect of my life. And, you know, the theory that was being kind of pushed out on us as attorneys was we need to be available to our clients at all times. This is a stressful time for them.

I never really got to process what was even going on in our society at that time. We had a global pandemic and it barely made a blip. It didn't change your life in the sense of giving you more perspective on yourself at the time. You were just working.

you know, 365 days of this crazy work running, running on a wheel, work wheel. Well, hamster wheel for sure. Yeah. Then what, what happened and how did you make the shift? So, I want to say mid 2022, I, the words burnout came out of my mouth and I was like, I'm burning out.

I need help, need support, get me the support or I'm, there's not going to be anything left to give. And sure enough, my words were hit the mark by December of that year. I started to feel very weird symptoms. Like I stopped sleeping through the night. I became like a toddler. I would wake up like every two hour increments and then.

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the mind would start going about, you know, these equitable distribution factors and what this is this opposing council said in their nasty snarky letter to me. And it would just so, you know, then I then all of sudden I would forget to eat meals like who forgets to eat. I mean, that's just crazy. I always used to hear about who forgot to eat. And I thought those people are dumb. But I was so sure they're lying. How do you forget to eat? Right. They're just scarfing down food.

I would get to about four o'clock and be like, I have such a headache. And I'd be like, what did I have for breakfast? shit, I had coffee. What did I have for lunch? wait, I had a conference call and a hearing at lunch. I had nothing. I was like, this is super not healthy. So I started, you know, started meeting with a therapist, started calendaring lunch and breakfast. Fast forward to December, I just like randomly started breaking, bursting out into tears when I was in.

my physical office in New Jersey and couldn't stop crying. I was sleeping, I was in eating, I started working with a therapist. They were like, you are under intense stress. You can only operate at that fight or flight type of mentality for so long before you will crash and burn. so they were like, we recommend you not work on weekends. That didn't really work great, because then you end up with a trial or something.

But ultimately I was like, 2023 is my year. I'm going to make those changes. And it got worse and worse. And then I started having memory laps and I started recording all of my meetings and taking detailed notes for every single meeting because about two days later I would forget exactly what happened. It was terrifying. Like my entire career is like built on remembering case law and remembering statutes and remembering facts and you know,

applying those facts to the law. And I thought something is really, really wrong. So again, meeting with the doctors, they just said they wanted to put me out on medical leave. They wanted me to like take a mental health break. I argued with them and told them I had a trial and I couldn't do it. And I negotiated my leave with my doctors. This is, this is crazy. This is crazy. It's, it's a lawyer thing to do. You just said I negotiated my leave.

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Because that person and their trial was more important than my despite the fact that was dropping pounds like like I looked emaciated. I looked like a skeleton. I had dark the darkest circles under my eyes. I no concealer was working whatsoever. I was unhealthy. I look back at those pictures and I think not a single person stopped and said, are you OK?

You don't look okay. And then after the fact, if I show them, go, my God, you look gray. You look sick. But I also was looking at myself every morning and it happened so slowly. hadn't noticed it. When I did take that break, I created those first boundaries there. Now, if something happens at work, you can't call me. I am on a medical leave. You can figure it out. You all, you all are lawyers too. You have one. were on a medical leave.

Aside from having a doctor's note, did you talk to assignment judges or presiding judges? Did you provide them the information or did you, how formal or informal? Because I ask you this, you know, I sit on the wellness committee, the Supreme Court wellness committee, and there is a back and forth on the committee regarding whether there should be what we call a pause program.

How do we address individuals that truly need the medical leave? Or I like to call it the pause. Something is going on personally that you need to deal with. The answer is yes, we absolutely should have one. And here's the thing, if we don't hit pause, our body will hit pause for us. And that's what happened with me in February. My body hit pause. I wanted to push it back longer and longer.

but my body was like, you need to take a break now, you can't go anymore. And we unfortunately are in a career where like, there's a temporary pause, which has me going on a medical leave and there are people who are hitting permanent pause. And those are the circumstances that are most scary because we've honestly like, we've let our colleagues down. The same way I say, you know, if somebody doesn't look right or somebody doesn't sound right, I pick up the phone and I talk to them and I ask, are you okay? Is there anything I can do to support you? Can I help you refine?

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this. But I was very nervous about initially disclosing how much, how much was I going to disclose? How much was I going to say? Because my doctors won't even give me a definite amount of time I'd be out for. So I couldn't definitively say I'm going to be out for 90 days. I was only granted 30 on the first and they said, well, we'll reevaluate after 30 and see where you are. So when I initially took to my,

to my bosses or my leadership at the firm I was at, it was like, well, when will you be back? I like, I don't know. I don't get to make that call. Doctors, I'm gonna work with my doctors to make sure I'm healthy. The way I feel right now is not good. I wanna feel better. I wanna feel healthier. I wanna be in a good condition to be meeting with judges and clients. And fortunately, I didn't do anything that would have been.

a violation of any of our ethical rules. I did not let any cases fall to the wayside. That's because I was working constantly, but I didn't go on leave because I had messed up something. I went on leave because I was afraid to mess up something. So let me ask you this. Do you think the fact that you were with a law firm at the time it was occurring allowed you to go on medical leave because there were people to step in?

Cause that's the second issue that the majority of attorneys in New Jersey are solo practitioners or small law firms. And that seems to be the greatest concern. So you worked at a law firm. if you're on your own, you don't get the luxury, luxury or liberty to say, it's not okay for me to go into court today. And.

Maybe if we did have like a pause program, there could be attorneys who say, can put me on this list. I will be a step in or a support to swoop in if somebody isn't there. Like, I'm not going to take their case to completion, but I'll be there to make sure it doesn't sink during that time. I'll be there to make sure that case information statement is getting done. I'm not bringing their case to trial for them, but.

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There is no way you're prepping for a trial and you're also actively, deeply committed to working on your mental health at the same time. Those are two completely opposite goals. And the reaction I got when I did disclose to one judge, because he was like, I'm bringing you back next week for another hearing. Great, great judge. Can we talk? I'm not going to be here next week or the week after. I'm going to go out and leave.

He was so kind about it. And I was taken aback because I was really nervous to say it. But at that point, another judge reached out and said that they were glad to hear that I was taking care of myself. And I thought, this is the reaction we need. This is the reaction that we all deserve. And the reality is, I find that when you're truthful with judges, whether it's your own personal mental health, or for me, I had a child in crisis for

a little bit of time. And I always like to say when I say that it's about seven years later, my child is thriving in college and doing really well, but had some severe mental health issues as the teen years approached. And I was literally running out of court to go to hospitals. And either I ran out of court and never confided and shared what was going on and looked

possibly irresponsible or lazy or unprepared, or I went up to the bar of the court and I did that with the judges in criminal court that I appeared in front of most and took and said, I am so sorry, but this child, this is what's going on. And all of them said, you need to do what's best for you and your child right now. Amazing. With the mental health. so I

I think people are so scared of the ethics that they're scared to be truthful, especially when it's their own. And I'm so happy. I'm assuming that it is in one of the counties I practice and we practice in the same counties to hear that you were truthful and open with a judge and that they supported that instead. think that if you were vague and just saying, I'm not available that

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they would have pushed back more than being honest with them. And I have a friend who recently, when told that, like the, were picking dates, like a month out, said that, you know, they were going to be out of the office during that time and they were pushed for more details. And I think that we have to assess what we can do to support attorneys in, letting judges that there's a break or a pause that is needed.

And maybe I don't need to give you every intricate detail about what that is, but just trust as a professional that's been in this career that has taken, you know, like an oath and has to abide by certain ethical and moral guidelines that I'm not, I'm not going to Vegas for a month. I'm going to take a little pause and maybe it's therapy or maybe it's meditation or maybe it's a combination of

yoga and sleep or something. If you need a 30-day pause to get your head together, then there shouldn't be an inquisition about it, so long as you're not harming someone. And I also think that there's very few circumstances I can think of off the top of my head where a family law case is going to be so demolished by a postponement of 30 days. We have postponements all the time.

All the time. so, sometimes... sometimes... ...is not going to mess up the judge's calendar all that much. So, I think saying, it's, Your Honor, it's personal, or I will not be available for 30 days. And if they push to say sidebar approach and say it's personal, and I'm not comfortable putting it on the record and not comfortable in front of my clients, I think that the problem is that...

the attorneys that the judges perceive are hardworking attorneys will get that extension without any pushback. But unfortunately, the attorneys where the judges, whether it's a true perception or a personality perception or a bot that don't feel that those lawyers are hardworking or they're going to be denied and the judges will push back. That's why

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it's almost better to have a policy to be able to protect everyone, especially every, not everyone has, has the connections or the relationships to make those calls. So it can't be just because you, you have a good relationship with these judges in this County, or I was a former bar president of Atlantic County. So I'm getting a beneficial courtesy that not every attorney in the County.

Should get and then the state that's really the issue, you know think about this too when you talk about You know who we are and whether these judges recognize family law is a revolving door In most counties in this state of new jersey We have been very fortunate. We have had several of the family law Judges in atlantic county have been on the bench for years now and that is such a benefit because we've

you know, been able to develop that rapport with them. But historically, I mean, I can say off the top of my head, Camden County, they rotate their judges like every two years, just as a matter of their own process and procedure. So despite the fact that I've been in Camden County for 14 years now, I may not know these judges, but I've been in that building longer than they have. The other thing to keep in mind too is that even on things as simple as

you know, my stepson's graduation or your children's, know, you have to go pick them up and move them in and out of college. Like those are things that are on our calendars well ahead of time. And we'll have a judge pick a date and you say, I'm not available judge. Why not? Do you want to move my kid in? You can take the U-Haul. stay here. I will tell you, it's the one thing I, Kristen, I do it. I, when I say I'm not available and if I get any,

I'll say, I'm moving my kids into college when my kids were younger and I was given trial dates or court dates the day after Labor Day or the two days after, even if I didn't have their calendar, I would say I'm not available. And they would say, you're not available. Do you have a planned vacation? And I would say no, but that is either the first or second day of school for my kids and I will be there for them. Halloween.

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No, Your Honor, I know that the parade for my kids' school was that day. I will be attending it. It is one thing that I was very clear on when my kids were younger to set the boundaries, but I don't know if everyone's as forthright as I am. Here's the other thing. Other states have figured this out. We haven't yet. And in Georgia, you can file what's called a notice of unavailability. So if you get your kids' calendar and you know when the parent-teacher conference is,

You log them into a system like our court system. use a JEDS or we use e-courts. In that regard, then the judges don't get frustrated and go, well, now I'm trying to work around this person's schedule and that person's schedule. like, well, we're, we're allowed to say like when we're not available too. It seems like we're expect, and that goes, this is what also feeds into that burnout. The, now the judge called me on the carpet. I need to be available on that date or, you know, or scrambling to fit actually.

multiple things on one day. How many times we've had to be in two places at once. And I will tell you, I'm so sorry, I have two things that I have to interrupt. One is municipal courts, hardest court to get when you have multiple things in Superior Municipal Court, they push back, which is sort of funny. Kristin, I am apologizing. I am just called in by a judge that I have to appear for a virtual hearing on. So I know we're not finished with this.

So I'm gonna send you additional dates so we can do a part two and you can sort of, because I think what's best about your story is how you took care of yourself and now you're thriving even more as an attorney and I think you're happier because I see it. And we want us to do better for ourselves and our colleagues. I want us to treat each other better and I want to talk about how we can be better to each other.

That would be great. Thank you so much for your time. Good luck today. Bye. Thanks. Bye, Tom.