I was invited to speak to the Mercer University Law Review’s Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Symposium (“A Course of Action: Shaping the Next Seventy-Five Years”), held in October. They asked me to speak generally on the subject of attorney mental health. I had talked at Mercer Law School numerous times on this topic, and they wanted me to do a deeper dive.

My background is relevant. In 2012, I tried to take my own life and then learned that I had been for, well, a long time, been dealing with undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder. Along the road to my attempt, I did some unethical things, and consequently had some time away from the law. I did the work (therapy and meds and awareness) and came back in 2015. I am med compliant and in therapy through this day, and enjoy a fulsome and rewarding practice.