Lawyer leaders can transform cultures that feature chronic stress, overwork, and lawyer impairment into neuro-intelligent cultures that make cognitive well-being a priority, reaping benefit at both the individual and institutional levels. Neuro-intelligent cultures promote brain health and mental strength, and they develop environments rich with cognitive power. Neuroscience and psychology research reveals what a culture of concern and respect can mean to individual lawyers. It also supports moving away from grind culture and toward a healthier and more productive neuro-intelligent culture. The American and International Bar Associations have called for action that improves the well-being of individual lawyers. They have also challenged legal organizations to make the legal profession more sustainable. Transformation of the lawyering culture will involve detoxing from overwork, minimizing burnout, leveraging the energy of both introvert and extrovert lawyers, cultivating neurosignature diversity, facilitating psychological safety, reducing hierarchy, limiting competition, and embracing the Maverick lawyer leader professional identity.

Research indicates that a segment of the lawyer population is impaired by mental illness, such as anxiety, depression, substance misuse, or suicide risk. A much higher number of lawyers likely fall on the languishing end of the mental health spectrum. If you are languishing, you may be at a higher risk of sliding into impairment. Mental health is assessed on a continuum, ranging from languishing to flourishing. Languishing has been described as feeling uninspired, joyless, and lacking the power to function at full capacity. And languishing may increase your risk of mental illness, such as major depressive episode, generalized anxiety, panic attacks, or substance use disorder. Lawyers may suffer from several obstacles to mental strength, including lack of self-awareness, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, social comparisons, trained pessimism, inability to regulate emotions, and inauthenticity from a failure to understand or leverage their temperament and personality strengths. Features of the lawyering culture may augment these obstacles and lead to lawyer languishing.