The Legal Burnouts

This will be our final episode (for now). Between busy schedules and Kate moving in a different career direction, she and Rhia made the difficult decision to let the podcast go. They discuss the decision in detail in the episode, but it wasn't one that was made lightly. We’ve absolutely loved highlighting your stories, speaking with our amazing guests, and helping people feel less alone in the...

We’re ending Season 2 with a bang! In this episode, Kate and Rhia are joined by Reshma Saujani, leading activist and the founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, formerly Marshall Plan for Moms. Reshma has spent more than a decade building movements to fight for women and girls’ economic empowerment, most recently advocating for policies to support moms impacted by the pandemic. She is also the a...

It’s Josey’s last episode as co-host of The Legal Burnouts, so Kate and Rhia bid her a fond farewell and learn more about why she’s leaving and her next steps. Josey opens up about her current burnout, which stems mainly from physical injuries she sustained over a year ago. Josey didn’t address the injuries at the time they happened due to a combination of existing, unaddressed burnout and her imp...

This week, Kate and Rhia are joined by Rhia’s law school classmate Faridat Arogundade, a former Biglaw attorney who has created her own high-quality, plus-sized fashion line, Ìfẹ́mi. Faridat honestly and insightfully discusses her experience as a plus-sized Black woman in Biglaw and society in general. In her 8 years as a Biglaw attorney, Faridat experienced discrimination based on size, race, an...

In Kate and Josey’s final guest interview together, they talk with the man who inspired them to start The Legal Burnouts, Kyle Kelly. Kyle, a former digital forensics professional, worked at tiny companies like Salesforce and Coinbase before deciding to break off and create his own legal technology. He is now the CEO and founder of Zubu, the world’s first native genAI legal holds solution. Kyle op...

This week, Rhia and Kate speak to Megan Senese, cofounder of Stage, a women-owned legal marketing and business development firm that offers- among many other services- a free program to support working parents before and after parental leave. This program, called Courderoy, was partially inspired by Megan’s previous experience hiding her pregnancy from her firm for SIX MONTHS. Though nobody told M...

Content warning: This episode contains discussions of infertility and miscarriage. In honor of National Infertility Awareness Week, Kate and Rhia are joined by fertility activist (and aspiring cyborg) Emily Petrich, who went from suffering through infertility in silence, to speaking out about her experience on social media, to becoming an activist in the infertility community. Infertility is taxin...

This week, in a very special episode, The Newfangled Lawyer (Patrick Patino) crosses over with The Legal Burnouts (Kate Bridal and Rhia Batchelder) to talk baked potatoes, burnout, and how to make the law a kinder profession. Patrick, Kate, and Rhia discuss unleashing themselves on social media, whether it’s possible to practice law in a way that aligns with your values, how to cure-ify (curate an...

Josey and Kate’s dreams come true when they get to nerd out over the Enneagram with none other than Enneagram Ashton! Ashton Whitmoyer-Ober is a community psychologist, certified Enneagram educator, author, and Enneagram Type 2. She walks Kate (Type 3) and Josey (Type 5) through each Enneagram type and how burnout may manifest for them. The Enneagram can be a great tool to get to know yourself, yo...

Kate and Rhia are joined by Paula Liub, an anti-burnout coach specifically for neurodivergent and highly sensitive women. Paula talks about grappling with burnout as a neurodivergent woman, her struggle to get a diagnosis, and how she came to her work promoting neurodivergent wellness. Paula uses a unique blend of science-backed and mindfulness techniques to help prevent, manage, and heal from bur...

Kate and Rhia chat with Neil Handwerker and Kimberly Fine, founders of ex judicata, the only employment site specifically designed to help lawyers find nonlegal jobs. Lawyers are told that their law degrees will open all sorts of doors for them, but they often feel stuck and struggle to find suitable alternative careers. Kim and Neil saw this gap and wanted to help attorneys apply their degrees an...

This episode was originally supposed to be a discussion of recent DEI team layoffs, then a lighthearted career clarity session between Rhia and Kate. But when recording happened… that wasn’t the vibe. Instead of the career clarity portion, Josey, Kate, and Rhia grappled with their feelings around the recent IFV decision in Alabama. In what is maybe our most vulnerable episode yet, you’ll hear tear...

This week, Kate and Rhia are joined by Career Coach and recovering perfectionist, Jordana Confino. Jordana shares her high achiever origin story, from chasing achievement in high school, to law school at Yale, to a series of career choices that kept burning her out. She then shares how she used science-backed, positive psychology to go from debilitating anxiety to thriving in a career where she he...

This episode contains references to genocide, violence, and self-harm. Listener discretion is advised. On their first guest episode together, Kate and Rhia interview Vanessa Joy, champion of equality and communication, Host/Executive Producer of the Transcending Humanity podcast, and former political candidate (who also happens to be transgender).Vanessa talks about her leadership philosophy and t...

We’re baaaaack! In the Season 2 premiere Kate, Josey, and new cohost Rhia Batchelder nerd out about crosswords, logic games, and puzzles. Then they dive into that Jo Koy comment at the Golden Globes, Barbie’s Oscar snubs, and how those events reflect the burnout crisis among women.**At the time of this recording, we hadn’t seen the news about the snubs of The Color Purple. We’ll be addressing that...

We know we said we were done, but we couldn’t end a season with 13 episodes. It’s too spooky. So in honor of Halloween, Kate and Josey got together in Seattle for a special bonus episode. Dressed as best friends Keeley and Rebecca from Ted Lasso, Kate and Josey were quizzed by Kate’s real-life best friend Larkin Harrington (AKA Ted) on how well they know each other after doing a season of the podc...

In the final episode of the first season, Kate and Josey take a deeper dive into their most recent, shared burnout experience, including how constant change is a recipe for quick and severe burnout, and how hopping to something "easier" from the legal field can make you feel unentitled to burn out. They also discuss what they’ve learned this season, address things they wish they'd addressed in ear...

WARNING: This episode contains discussions of, and references to, sexual assault and abortion. Listener discretion is advised. On our final guest episode of the season, we’re joined by Chloe Diaz, who gets real about all the unspoken rules law school and the legal profession are riddled with. Chloe opens up about her difficult experience as a first-gen law student, and how clear it became that the...

This week, Henry Nelson-Case, aka That Corporate Lawyer, discusses his burnout experience on what he calls “the most unhinged podcast I’ve been on.”This episode set the record for longest recording time of any yet at over 2 ½ hours. But because Henry, Kate, and Josey got on too well and couldn’t stop laughing, they only got 45 minutes of serious content. The rest, which contains tales of Henry and...

In the most universally applicable episode yet, anti-burnout coach and former Biglaw attorney Rhia Batchelder joins Kate and Josey to talk about her journey from working in New York firms to building her own business. Rhia gives a ton of actionable tips on how to prevent and recover from burnout, as well as advice for companies on how to build anti-burnout cultures. On top of all that, Rhia, Kate,...

Rilee Harrison, lead attorney and head of marketing at Cain Law, sits down with Josey and Kate to share how he burned out during his first semester of law school. He also discusses how that experience with burnout affected his ability to pass the bar on the first try. Rilee discusses how the entire law school process, from having to get a potentially irrelevant undergrad degree to taking the bar e...

Kyle Robisch, partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, and Marissa Khetan, portfolio manager at Equal Justice Works, join Kate and Josey to talk all things boundaries. (Fun fact: Marissa and Kate also used to work together as attorneys at the same legal aid organization!)This episode is relevant to anyone who is wondering how to set effective boundaries for themselves or for their employees. With...

Trial attorney, entrepreneur, and podcast host Robert Simon sits down with Kate and Josey to talk about how letting go of his ego allowed him to overcome burnout and continue practicing law. Bob discusses the importance of delegation, intentionality, and finding a good mentor, and he and Josey debate the practicality of contingency fees vs the billable hour for attorneys who may be struggling fina...

Good management is key to preventing burnout in the legal field, but most people aren't trained to be managers. Many attorneys who manage others are already overwhelmed by demanding clients and workloads, making learning proper management the furthest thing from their minds. If this applies to you, you're in luck! This week, Ashley Herd, CEO and founder of Manager Method, shares the quick versions...

Matt Margolis, famed TikToker and Head of Community and Legal at Lawtrades, joins Josey and Kate to discuss how burnout followed him through his career in firms, government, and in-house, until he learned to control the external and internal factors that lead to it. With his trademark humor and enthusiasm, Matt compares burnout to ice cream, talks like a pirate, and patiently waits out interruptio...