Episode 33: Navigating Mistakes -- Our Mistakes and Others' Mistakes

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Mistakes—the dreaded, anxiety-inducing, but absolutely inevitable part of being an attorney. Despite what your brain might tell you, every legal professional makes them because behind every suit and legal pad is a human being capable of error.

In this candid exploration of attorney mistakes, I pull back the curtain on the perfectionist culture that plagues our profession and offer a practical four-step framework to handle errors with professionalism and self-compassion. From learning to breathe through the initial panic to developing action plans that address both correction and prevention, this episode provides tangible strategies for moving forward after making a mistake. I share my personal mantra—"I didn't miss a deadline, I didn't commit malpractice, no one died"—that helps put legal errors in perspective when rumination threatens to take over.

But this conversation goes deeper than personal error management. I challenge supervisors and senior attorneys to break the toxic cycle of harsh reactions when team members report mistakes. The legal profession has long operated on a hazing mentality where new attorneys are expected to endure the same difficult treatment their predecessors experienced. What if we chose kindness instead? What if we responded to others' mistakes with the grace we wish we'd received? This paradigm shift doesn't mean lowering standards—it means creating environments where accountability coexists with compassion, ultimately building stronger teams united by trust rather than fear. The path to transforming our profession lies not in perfection, but in how we handle inevitable imperfection. Join me in reimagining a legal culture where making mistakes doesn't define us—how we respond to them does.

Find out more at https://thegraceperiod.substack.com/.