Law is supposed to be about justice. But too often, it ends up costing the lawyers inside it their health, their families, and their joy. That’s why created this podcast. 

Welcome to The Lawyer Burnout Solution, the podcast for women attorneys who want to move from survival mode to a sustainable, fulfilling career. I’m Heather Mills, a former class action litigator turned coach, and each week I share tools and strategies to help you reclaim your energy, confidence, and career.

This week, I want to step back and share my story. Why I’m doing this podcast. Why this matters to me as a lawyer talking to other lawyers. And why I believe so strongly that things can be different for you, and for the culture of law itself.

Here’s where I want to start: law is a noble profession. Despite all the lawyers jokes, most of us went into it because we wanted to serve, to protect rights, to make a difference. Law is supposed to be about justice. About helping people in their hardest moments. About upholding systems that matter.

But somewhere along the way, the profession stopped supporting the people inside it. Lawyers became the expendable resource. The hours and the work produced somehow became more important than the attorneys’ humanity.

But I believe it doesn’t have to be this way.

You don’t have to keep living in survival mode just because that’s what the culture of law has normalized. Women lawyers can practice differently. You can define success in ways that don’t cost your health, your family, or your joy.

And  when women lawyers start making those shifts, even in small ways, it doesn’t just change individual lives. It shifts the profession itself. It lets the next generation of women attorneys that it’s possible to practice law in a way that doesn’t burn us out.

That’s why I started this podcast. To have honest conversations about what it’s really like to practice law, to name the invisible pressures, and to share the tools that help you shift from surviving to something sustainable.

When I started practicing law, I was all in. I was a plaintiffs side class action litigator, and I could outwork just about anyone. On the outside, I looked like everything was going fine. I seemed smart, driven, and successful.

But here’s the truth I didn’t say out loud at the time: I was constantly second-guessing and criticizing myself. Was I prepared enough? Did I miss something? Was everyone else smarter, faster, better? And That put my brain and body into the stress cycle.

Back then, I believed that being the kind of lawyer I was: high stakes, high pressure, always on, wasn’t compatible with being the kind of mom I wanted to be. So when I finally decided to leave law, that belief was front and center.

But that wasn’t the only reason. It was also the exhaustion... that bone-deep tiredness that doesn’t go away with sleep. It was the cynicism. How ineffective I felt, the fear of not actually changing anything the way I’d hoped I would. I no longer liked who I was. My idealism and my empathy felt worn down, almost gone. And I wanted that back.

I didn’t believe I could keep going like that for another thirty years.

Now, I don’t actually believe that being a lawyer and a mom are inherently incompatible. I’ve seen incredible women who are both brilliant lawyers and wonderful mothers. But at the time, all of those things together: the exhaustion, the cynicism, the loss of who I wanted to be, made my decision clear.

By the time I did have kids, I was already coaching. So I don’t know what it’s like to be lawyering all day and then rushing home for dinner or for bedtime. But I do know what it’s like to try to be everything to everyone, to hold a career and a family and the logistics of daily life in one brain that never rests.

And here’s the part I want to highlight for you: I thought I was the only one struggling as a lawyer. Looking back, I know that wasn’t true. I wasn’t alone. So many women lawyers are quietly carrying the same burden.

And I tried all the fixes lawyers are trained to try. Work harder. Plan more. Push through. Be more disciplined. But nothing helped. I didn’t feel better.

What I didn’t understand back then was that the problem was not all of the external things I thought it was: the workload, the deadlines, my boss. It was my reaction to it.  It was the invisible mental battle inside me, the self-doubt, the perfectionism, the self-criticism, the fear that if I ever let up, I’d fall behind.

Realizing that the stress wasn’t just coming from the outside changed everything for me. Seeing that my own thinking from the way I’d been conditioned as a lawyer and as a woman was fueling the stress - changed everything.

So here’s what I eventually figured out: it wasn’t just me. Back then I thought the problem was that I was weak, or lazy, or not cut out for law.

But that wasn’t true. It was that I’d been trained into a system that rewarded me for overriding my own limits. Law school, billable culture, client demands, they all teach lawyers that the only acceptable answer is “yes, I’ll handle it.”

And as women, we get another layer of conditioning on top of that. We’re told our worth is in serving others and sacrificing ourselves for others.. At work, that means being the one who’s always reliable, never dropping the ball. At home, that means carrying the invisible second shift , the logistics, the remembering, the emotional labor,  and then feeling guilty if we miss a beat.

So when you put those two forces together: legal culture on one side, gender conditioning on the other; it creates a perfect storm. You’re praised for over-functioning. You’re penalized if you slow down. And pretty soon, you start to believe that running on fumes is just the normal way to practice law.

And here’s the thing that we don’t realize: burnout isn’t just “a lot of stress.” It’s what happens when your nervous system has been stuck in overdrive for too long.

And it’s not just the deadlines or the billables. For many lawyers, there’s also the weight of larger systems and headlines that feel immovable. That sense of fighting uphill, day after day, adds another layer to the exhaustion.

You can still be hitting deadlines and showing up for settlement negotiations and client meetings and secretly be completely depleted inside. That’s why so many women lawyers tell me, “I don’t even know if this is burnout or just me.”

It’s not just you. It’s the system. And it’s the conditioning we’ve all absorbed.

Yet every time you choose a different way, you chip away at that conditioning. This isn’t just about surviving your own career — each decision to protect your energy, set a boundary, or rest without guilt becomes part of a larger shift in the culture of law

For me, the turning point was realizing that I couldn’t keep fixing this with the same strategies that got me into it.

Law had trained me to push harder, be more disciplined, do more. And every time I doubled down on that approach, I just got more efficient at burning myself out.

What actually changed everything was learning how to look at what was happening inside me — the thoughts, the emotions, the old patterns I had picked up without even realizing it. That’s where coaching came in.

I discovered tools that finally made sense of why I felt stuck and how to actually shift it. And those tools are what I now teach to other women lawyers.

One of them is something I call the TEA Practice. TEA stands for Thought, Emotion, Action. It’s a simple way to pause and notice:

• What am I thinking right now?
  
• What emotion is that thought creating in my body?
  
• And how is that emotion driving my actions?
  

I know it sounds simple. But practicing writing out your thoughts and seeming them on paper helps you see the cycle. And how automatic it is. Then you can actually interrupt the cycle and choose something different.

The other core tool is my Mindset Matrix. It’s a guided process that helps you surface the deeper beliefs that are running the show — the perfectionism, the people-pleasing, the fear of letting others down. These are usually patterns we picked up early in life, and they get reinforced in law. The Matrix gives you a way to see them clearly and then update them, so they stop running you in the background.

These tools aren’t about forcing yourself to think positive or recite affirmations you don’t believe. They’re grounded in neuroscience and emotional mastery. And they work because they meet you where you are, even if you’re running on empty, and give you a way to shift in small, real ways.

For me, that meant going from constantly second-guessing and criticizing myself to being able to give myself a little grace and compassion. And to trust my own judgment again.

For my clients, it’s meant no longer constantly thinking about work in the evenings or on the weekends, saying no without spiraling into guilt, sleeping through the night again, or finally having the energy to be present with their kids and pay attention when thye’re talking to them..

And here’s the bigger point: when even one lawyer learns to practice differently — with presence, compassion, and self-trust — it ripples. Colleagues notice. Teams shift. The culture starts to shift little by little.

That’s why I’m here. Because I know how different it feels when your body is no longer on high alert all the time.. And I want every woman lawyer to know that it’s possible — and that when they change; they become part of bigger change.

Here’s what I want you to know: this isn’t just about you. It’s also about the people around you.

When you set a boundary or choose presence over perfectionism, you’re showing you’re associates, your clients, you kids, that there’s another way to practice law.

And the next generation of women who are just now entering this profession and wondering if it’s possible to have a legal career without burning themselves out.

Law has always been shaped by precedent. And right now, you’re writing a new one.

You may not be able to change the entire system overnight — whether it’s your workplace, the courts, or even the world outside your office. But you can change how you move through it. And those small shifts are what add up to bigger change.

You  are part of the generation that gets to decide whether success in law will keep being defined as self-sacrifice, or whether it can be defined as sustainable success. A version of success that leaves room for health, family, meaning, and joy.

And let me be clear: you’re not broken. The system is. And together, women lawyers are rewriting it.

That’s not selfish. That’s leadership.

And if you’ve ever thought, Who am I to change this? — I’ll tell you: you are exactly who can change this. One decision, one shift, one boundary at a time.

So that’s a little about why I’m doing this podcast.

I know what it feels like to feel like you’re putting on a mask, while underneath that mask, you’re exhausted and your mind won’t stop picking apart your every move. 

I know how easy it is to believe that this is just the way it is when you practice law. And I also know it doesn’t have to stay that way.

This show is here to give you tools, stories, and support so you can move out of survival mode and into a career that actually feels sustainable, and a life that feels like yours again.

You can also book a Confidential Stress Reset Call. It’s a private, lawyer-to-lawyer space to talk honestly about what’s causing  your stress you and your first step toward feeling calmer. It’s not a sales pitch. It’s a reset.

You can book your call at heathermillscoaching.com/call.

And here’s the last thing: this podcast is one way we start changing the story of what it means to be a woman in law. And by listening, you’re already part of that change.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you next week.