ADHD Lawyers - Share Your Tips Forum

[butonawednesday]

We're getting some excellent posts here

Practically speaking, isn't all of this so commonplace that we may want to consider it as normal?

[Anonymous User]

[quote=butonawednesday post_id=10539405 time=1673399906 user_id=259495]
We're getting some excellent posts here

Practically speaking, isn't all of this so commonplace that we may want to consider it as normal?
[/quote]

No. it's the unusually shit executive function that kills us. (i.e. procrastination and constant spacing out - which slows us down.) My s/o is also upper t-14 + top of class + upper v10 & is my comparison. We are uniquely fucked. This field isn't for us.

[Anonymous User]

Can any1 speak about tax and ADHD?

Is it better or worse?

[Anonymous User]

This thread is depressing. How about some success stories.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is depressing. How about some success stories.

Reposting mine:

ADD lawyer with substantial experience and a senior-level position here.

Being a little older than most of you guys and gals, ADD and/or ADHD were not well-recognized diagnoses while I was in high school. They caught on by my college years but by then it was too late to help me, and I had managed to figure out my own self-coping skills by and large. Mind you, I almost flunked out of high school. And, I had some less than 1.0 GPA semesters in college, which eliminated my chances of getting into a T20 law school despite a GPA improvement in my last 2 years. I also got no accommodations for the LSAT. (I didn't know to ask. I might not have gotten any if asked).

But fuck all that. I made it anyway and enjoy a very successful career. I'm a well-respected trial lawyer and appellate lawyer in a well-credentialed job that carries a lot of weight. It's just that my brain works differently than most of my lawyer colleagues. I have adapted accordingly. Here are a few ways I work that maybe other lawyers don't:

* As a litigator, I am obsessively maniacal about managing my deadlines and calendaring issues. I'm not saying I yell at staff or treat secretaries rudely. But I do have extremely high standards for them, and I micro-manage their habits, using polite corrections when I notice errors. I am very particular about the way things are calendared, and also insist on calendaring reminder notifications ahead of deadlines.

* I could not be capable of practicing in a boring practice area. The cases need to be fun and interesting. That's why I handle cases involving constitutional law and civil rights, along with various other cool stuff. This point is not consistent with private practice, for the most part. From my perspective, if you are ADHD or ADD and you're therefore in danger of getting easily bored, you need to get the hell out of private practice where you will be expected to negotiate construction contracts, analyze transactions, and other vomit-inducing boring crap. Focus your career on government, law enforcement, become a public defender in criminal law, non-profits, environmental public interest groups, human rights organizations, think tanks, and generally anything that is interesting.

* I tend not to sit down and read through a 250-page deposition transcript like some other lawyers do. Unless I have to, in preparation to cross-examine someone, but that's uncommon in civil practice. I will piece through such a transcript on my own time. I'll skip over parts that are obviously irrelevant. I'll read 15 pages one day, 35 the next, 10 pages a few days later, and so on, while marking up with a highlighter and sticky notes.

* I hate going through medical records for reasons that will be obvious to most of you. Not a problem. Paralegals are pretty good at going through meds too. So are nurse consultants if your case allows you a budget to hire one. And if the case warrants any medical experts, then I have absolutely zero reason to put eyes on every single page. The benefit of my reading 400 pages of medical records is also closer to zero in the long term. If I read them in January, whatever I read will not make any sense to me in July when a deposition is taken, much less 1-2 years later if a trial is going to happen. So what was the point of reading the 400 pages? Further, in our PDF era, using the search function helps tremendously if I know of a particular interesting medical detail that I need to learn about. Do I still need to occasionally go through a huge stack of this crap anyway, where none of these other strategies will work? Sure I do, but rarely. It's doable.

* One of the reasons I've been able to set myself apart from other lawyers is my easy ability to brainstorm creative solutions to legal/litigation problems. I do tend to be much more creative than my colleagues. I seem to have a knack for spotting interesting legal issues that weren't obvious to the naked eye, so to speak. A witness who seems like a disaster to another lawyer can be turned around and presented to the jury as a good witness to me for reasons the other lawyer didn't think of. This happens a lot.

* Trials require a lot of preparation and organization, right? Of course they do. But they are also by their nature an exercise in chaotic madness. Fits perfectly with my personality. Other lawyers seem to freak out and have nervous breakdowns the closer they get to trial. But I'm pretty comfortable with the fact that I cannot control the chaos of the universe every single time, so I just plunge forward and prepare the best I can, and my emotions tend to be very much under control. This has helped me become a very comfortable, relaxed, and happy trial lawyer who really loves this stuff now, which in turn has just made me into an even better trial lawyer than if my brain worked otherwise.

I do not use medication. I did try it briefly in my young associate days, but wasn't seeing huge benefits and got worried about becoming dependent. Good luck to you all.

[Anonymous User]

Can any1 speak about tax and ADHD?

Is it better or worse?

Transactional tax senior associate here likely with undiagnosed ADHD. Depends on what type of tax you do.

I try to get myself staffed on as much M&A as I can (particularly middle market M&A) because there is generally no room for procrastination (i.e., tax comments often need to be turned ASAP, research points are usually very targeted and also need to be turned ASAP, etc.). Funds work, on the other hand, tends to have longer lead times which gets me into trouble on procrastination.

No idea about controversy/litigation work, but I imagine that's no different than general lit with respect to ADHD.

Another potential issue is how you deal with slow times. I've typically found my practice to be much like M&A associates (even when I have a mix of M&A and non-M&A work) where I'm either slammed or dead slow, and I find the slow periods very hard mentally.

[Anonymous User]

A lot of 36,000 foot discussion in this thread that's very helpful. I am hoping that a few people can help with some stuff that's more granular. Do you have any systems, software, methods, etc. to help with the following:

• Billing Time. There are spurts where I am great at keeping time, particularly when I'm being hyper productive. The issue is that I do not always use my work laptop for work, and when I don't, I am not running timers. We also can't block bill, which requires lots of .1s and .2s.

• Task Management. I am on five active cases and usually have long-term projects that I'm aware of for them. I struggle to keep up with small asks that come in here and there, particularly as my inbox gets out of control.

• Document Management. I feel like half the things I'm asked to do just require finding fishing something out of Outlook, iManage, ESI database, etc. and sending it onward. For whatever reason, our iManage folders are organized with the same method that I used to hide porn from my parents on my childhood computer---series of unrelated folders nested into one another, designed so that no one would ever think to look for what they need there.

• Revising Briefs. I procrastinate on substantive writing and am always late on getting them to the partners. I usually end of finishing my briefs and hitting send without any review etc. The content is good but they're invariably sloppy. Any quick fixes to help with this?

To be clear, I am looking for quick fixes. My experience is that I can get some improvement through wholesale lifestyle shifts, but ultimately quick fixes and cheat codes (i.e. hiring a housecleaner or putting three hampers in each room to stop throwing clothes on the ground) make the biggest difference.

[gola20]

This thread is depressing. How about some success stories.

Went inhouse. Best decision of my life.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is depressing. How about some success stories.

Went inhouse. Best decision of my life.

This helps. I was a prior poster in this thread (somewhat to my surprise, I guess late night procrastination posts don't stick in your memory). Since previously posting in this thread, I went inhouse. Inhouse lets the quality of your work count a little more than the quantity of it. At a firm, ultimately, you are what your hours are. The amount you work in house still counts, but consistently putting out top level work product will help you quite a bit.

It doesn't resolve all problems. If I'm not interested in what I'm working in, I'll still procrastinate. I don't get as much done as I could. But, in the end, not having a yearly hourly measurement of how much you productively worked really helps ADHD people.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is depressing. How about some success stories.

Went inhouse. Best decision of my life.

This helps. I was a prior poster in this thread (somewhat to my surprise, I guess late night procrastination posts don't stick in your memory). Since previously posting in this thread, I went inhouse. Inhouse lets the quality of your work count a little more than the quantity of it. At a firm, ultimately, you are what your hours are. The amount you work in house still counts, but consistently putting out top level work product will help you quite a bit.

It doesn't resolve all problems. If I'm not interested in what I'm working in, I'll still procrastinate. I don't get as much done as I could. But, in the end, not having a yearly hourly measurement of how much you productively worked really helps ADHD people.

I have a sort of wild personal success story.

I have severe ADHD. I bombed the shit out of my first semester in law school because of it and my school went P/F for COVID after, so my 1L grades were like bottom 10 people of my class. Didn't get a job for 1L summer and it sucked. I just couldn't get through readings in a reasonable amount of time and only finished like half of all of my exams.

But then my 1L summer I used my hyper fixation tendencies to memorize my school's law review style guide, and made a crazy plan for write on and somehow made law review. I thought maybe I could get a job during 2L OCI if I got good grades because I had LR on my resume. So, I spent the rest of that summer reading every book on efficiency in reading (Reading Like a Lawyer), thinking about legal problems (The Legal Analyst, Case in Point, Reading the Law), and exams (LEEWS system, Getting to Maybe).

Got an A and three A- the next semester, convinced a firm to hire me, and my success only went up from there. My non-1L GPA was over a 3.9, I published a bunch of my work, and even managed to get a federal clerkship. Last week, I got jobs offers from some of the most elite BigLaw firms in NYC. I credit a lot of this to sitting down and timing myself doing every single thing that was relevant to studying, and being very disciplined about using a calendar for task management.

I still use calendaring in my clerkship and find I am very efficient. I also use ear plugs religiously to limit distractions and finally found a good meds dose that works for me.

Tbh writing all of that out, I wonder if people will think this is like a parody answer or something because it sounds so dramatic. But that's my ADHD success story, happy to respond to questions about it if anyone has any.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is depressing. How about some success stories.

Went inhouse. Best decision of my life.

This helps. I was a prior poster in this thread (somewhat to my surprise, I guess late night procrastination posts don't stick in your memory). Since previously posting in this thread, I went inhouse. Inhouse lets the quality of your work count a little more than the quantity of it. At a firm, ultimately, you are what your hours are. The amount you work in house still counts, but consistently putting out top level work product will help you quite a bit.

It doesn't resolve all problems. If I'm not interested in what I'm working in, I'll still procrastinate. I don't get as much done as I could. But, in the end, not having a yearly hourly measurement of how much you productively worked really helps ADHD people.

I have a sort of wild personal success story.

I have severe ADHD. I bombed the shit out of my first semester in law school because of it and my school went P/F for COVID after, so my 1L grades were like bottom 10 people of my class. Didn't get a job for 1L summer and it sucked. I just couldn't get through readings in a reasonable amount of time and only finished like half of all of my exams.

But then my 1L summer I used my hyper fixation tendencies to memorize my school's law review style guide, and made a crazy plan for write on and somehow made law review. I thought maybe I could get a job during 2L OCI if I got good grades because I had LR on my resume. So, I spent the rest of that summer reading every book on efficiency in reading (Reading Like a Lawyer), thinking about legal problems (The Legal Analyst, Case in Point, Reading the Law), and exams (LEEWS system, Getting to Maybe).

Got an A and three A- the next semester, convinced a firm to hire me, and my success only went up from there. My non-1L GPA was over a 3.9, I published a bunch of my work, and even managed to get a federal clerkship. Last week, I got jobs offers from some of the most elite BigLaw firms in NYC. I credit a lot of this to sitting down and timing myself doing every single thing that was relevant to studying, and being very disciplined about using a calendar for task management.

I still use calendaring in my clerkship and find I am very efficient. I also use ear plugs religiously to limit distractions and finally found a good meds dose that works for me.

Tbh writing all of that out, I wonder if people will think this is like a parody answer or something because it sounds so dramatic. But that's my ADHD success story, happy to respond to questions about it if anyone has any.

Thanks for sharing. I’m such a slow reader and could benefit from learning to speed read. Would you still recommend Reading Like a Lawyer for an experienced lawyer? Or any other helpful books for this?

[Anonymous User]

A lot of 36,000 foot discussion in this thread that's very helpful. I am hoping that a few people can help with some stuff that's more granular. Do you have any systems, software, methods, etc. to help with the following:

[snip]

To be clear, I am looking for quick fixes. My experience is that I can get some improvement through wholesale lifestyle shifts, but ultimately quick fixes and cheat codes (i.e. hiring a housecleaner or putting three hampers in each room to stop throwing clothes on the ground) make the biggest difference.

• Billing Time. There are spurts where I am great at keeping time, particularly when I'm being hyper productive. The issue is that I do not always use my work laptop for work, and when I don't, I am not running timers. We also can't block bill, which requires lots of .1s and .2s.

Response: When I was in private practice, I sucked at billing time. I never got better at it, so I got nothing for ya, sorry. I refused to commit fraud (unlike a shocking number of my colleagues btw but I digress), so my billing effectiveness as an associate was basically pegged by the partners as "mediocre." Oh well. Guess that's why I left private practice.

• Task Management. I am on five active cases and usually have long-term projects that I'm aware of for them. I struggle to keep up with small asks that come in here and there, particularly as my inbox gets out of control.

Response: This will just come with experience. Check in on your cases on a semi-regular basis. Some of them (or even just one of them) will keep you busy as hell, which means a few others will drop off your radar. The key is to not let them drop off for longer than 1-2 months at a time. Calendar a time to do a quick review of every case on your list periodically. Once every six weeks is fine. Up to you.

As for email management, figure out which people who have sent you emails can afford to be blown off for a few days, or weeks, and who cannot. Respond to one-day email inquiries when you have to. Everyone else, sorry, there's no constitutional right to get an email response. The other person can ping you again if it was really that important.

• Document Management. I feel like half the things I'm asked to do just require finding fishing something out of Outlook, iManage, ESI database, etc. and sending it onward. For whatever reason, our iManage folders are organized with the same method that I used to hide porn from my parents on my childhood computer---series of unrelated folders nested into one another, designed so that no one would ever think to look for what they need there.

LMAO, this literally had me laughing out loud. I feel your pain and have no solutions for it. Doc management sucks. I've found it way easier, when I want to find a template or go-by of something, to just email my friends within the office, rather than conducting stupid doc searches. "Hey, anyone have a response to a subpoena that they've created within the last year?" That sort of thing.

• Revising Briefs. I procrastinate on substantive writing and am always late on getting them to the partners. I usually end of finishing my briefs and hitting send without any review etc. The content is good but they're invariably sloppy. Any quick fixes to help with this?

Yeah. Stop being stupid. Being ADD does not excuse bad and sloppy writing. When you write fast, you write stupidly. You do need to plan ahead, and write the brief in stages piecemeal as you reach your deadline. You can still do it ADD style, but you cannot cite ADD to yourself in your head as an excuse to not plan for it properly.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is depressing. How about some success stories.

Went inhouse. Best decision of my life.

This helps. I was a prior poster in this thread (somewhat to my surprise, I guess late night procrastination posts don't stick in your memory). Since previously posting in this thread, I went inhouse. Inhouse lets the quality of your work count a little more than the quantity of it. At a firm, ultimately, you are what your hours are. The amount you work in house still counts, but consistently putting out top level work product will help you quite a bit.

It doesn't resolve all problems. If I'm not interested in what I'm working in, I'll still procrastinate. I don't get as much done as I could. But, in the end, not having a yearly hourly measurement of how much you productively worked really helps ADHD people.

I have a sort of wild personal success story.

I have severe ADHD. I bombed the shit out of my first semester in law school because of it and my school went P/F for COVID after, so my 1L grades were like bottom 10 people of my class. Didn't get a job for 1L summer and it sucked. I just couldn't get through readings in a reasonable amount of time and only finished like half of all of my exams.

But then my 1L summer I used my hyper fixation tendencies to memorize my school's law review style guide, and made a crazy plan for write on and somehow made law review. I thought maybe I could get a job during 2L OCI if I got good grades because I had LR on my resume. So, I spent the rest of that summer reading every book on efficiency in reading (Reading Like a Lawyer), thinking about legal problems (The Legal Analyst, Case in Point, Reading the Law), and exams (LEEWS system, Getting to Maybe).

Got an A and three A- the next semester, convinced a firm to hire me, and my success only went up from there. My non-1L GPA was over a 3.9, I published a bunch of my work, and even managed to get a federal clerkship. Last week, I got jobs offers from some of the most elite BigLaw firms in NYC. I credit a lot of this to sitting down and timing myself doing every single thing that was relevant to studying, and being very disciplined about using a calendar for task management.

I still use calendaring in my clerkship and find I am very efficient. I also use ear plugs religiously to limit distractions and finally found a good meds dose that works for me.

Tbh writing all of that out, I wonder if people will think this is like a parody answer or something because it sounds so dramatic. But that's my ADHD success story, happy to respond to questions about it if anyone has any.

Thanks for sharing. I’m such a slow reader and could benefit from learning to speed read. Would you still recommend Reading Like a Lawyer for an experienced lawyer? Or any other helpful books for this?

Yes, I would. Its excellent just to get a sense of timing.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is depressing. How about some success stories.

Went inhouse. Best decision of my life.

This helps. I was a prior poster in this thread (somewhat to my surprise, I guess late night procrastination posts don't stick in your memory). Since previously posting in this thread, I went inhouse. Inhouse lets the quality of your work count a little more than the quantity of it. At a firm, ultimately, you are what your hours are. The amount you work in house still counts, but consistently putting out top level work product will help you quite a bit.

It doesn't resolve all problems. If I'm not interested in what I'm working in, I'll still procrastinate. I don't get as much done as I could. But, in the end, not having a yearly hourly measurement of how much you productively worked really helps ADHD people.

I have a sort of wild personal success story.

I have severe ADHD. I bombed the shit out of my first semester in law school because of it and my school went P/F for COVID after, so my 1L grades were like bottom 10 people of my class. Didn't get a job for 1L summer and it sucked. I just couldn't get through readings in a reasonable amount of time and only finished like half of all of my exams.

But then my 1L summer I used my hyper fixation tendencies to memorize my school's law review style guide, and made a crazy plan for write on and somehow made law review. I thought maybe I could get a job during 2L OCI if I got good grades because I had LR on my resume. So, I spent the rest of that summer reading every book on efficiency in reading (Reading Like a Lawyer), thinking about legal problems (The Legal Analyst, Case in Point, Reading the Law), and exams (LEEWS system, Getting to Maybe).

Got an A and three A- the next semester, convinced a firm to hire me, and my success only went up from there. My non-1L GPA was over a 3.9, I published a bunch of my work, and even managed to get a federal clerkship. Last week, I got jobs offers from some of the most elite BigLaw firms in NYC. I credit a lot of this to sitting down and timing myself doing every single thing that was relevant to studying, and being very disciplined about using a calendar for task management.

I still use calendaring in my clerkship and find I am very efficient. I also use ear plugs religiously to limit distractions and finally found a good meds dose that works for me.

Tbh writing all of that out, I wonder if people will think this is like a parody answer or something because it sounds so dramatic. But that's my ADHD success story, happy to respond to questions about it if anyone has any.

Thanks for sharing. I’m such a slow reader and could benefit from learning to speed read. Would you still recommend Reading Like a Lawyer for an experienced lawyer? Or any other helpful books for this?

Yes, I would. The biggest thing is just having an awareness of timing, which we can do; it just takes more effort. That book gave me a way to approach the problem.

[Anonymous User]

This thread is depressing. How about some success stories.

Went inhouse. Best decision of my life.

This helps. I was a prior poster in this thread (somewhat to my surprise, I guess late night procrastination posts don't stick in your memory). Since previously posting in this thread, I went inhouse. Inhouse lets the quality of your work count a little more than the quantity of it. At a firm, ultimately, you are what your hours are. The amount you work in house still counts, but consistently putting out top level work product will help you quite a bit.

It doesn't resolve all problems. If I'm not interested in what I'm working in, I'll still procrastinate. I don't get as much done as I could. But, in the end, not having a yearly hourly measurement of how much you productively worked really helps ADHD people.

I have a sort of wild personal success story.

I have severe ADHD. I bombed the shit out of my first semester in law school because of it and my school went P/F for COVID after, so my 1L grades were like bottom 10 people of my class. Didn't get a job for 1L summer and it sucked. I just couldn't get through readings in a reasonable amount of time and only finished like half of all of my exams.

But then my 1L summer I used my hyper fixation tendencies to memorize my school's law review style guide, and made a crazy plan for write on and somehow made law review. I thought maybe I could get a job during 2L OCI if I got good grades because I had LR on my resume. So, I spent the rest of that summer reading every book on efficiency in reading (Reading Like a Lawyer), thinking about legal problems (The Legal Analyst, Case in Point, Reading the Law), and exams (LEEWS system, Getting to Maybe).

Got an A and three A- the next semester, convinced a firm to hire me, and my success only went up from there. My non-1L GPA was over a 3.9, I published a bunch of my work, and even managed to get a federal clerkship. Last week, I got jobs offers from some of the most elite BigLaw firms in NYC. I credit a lot of this to sitting down and timing myself doing every single thing that was relevant to studying, and being very disciplined about using a calendar for task management.

I still use calendaring in my clerkship and find I am very efficient. I also use ear plugs religiously to limit distractions and finally found a good meds dose that works for me.

Tbh writing all of that out, I wonder if people will think this is like a parody answer or something because it sounds so dramatic. But that's my ADHD success story, happy to respond to questions about it if anyone has any.

Thanks for sharing. I’m such a slow reader and could benefit from learning to speed read. Would you still recommend Reading Like a Lawyer for an experienced lawyer? Or any other helpful books for this?

[Anonymous User]

I've found that a lot of redundancy and fake early deadlines in google/Outlook calendar (for task management) is helpful.

Also (I work in an esoteric niche of a niche practice area) and routinely claim that the work will be ready in double the time I think it will actually take me. I like beating expectations lol.

[Anonymous User]

Just discovered this thread and relate to is so much. I read the first two pages and then had to jump to the last page to see what people are talking about now lol.

[Anonymous User]

Just got diagnosed, so going back to read this carefully!

ETA: fucking hell, have only read through the first page and already feel like I’m reading posts I could have written.

[Anonymous User]

Entering my fourth-year as an ADHD litigation associate at a boutique-style Biglaw office. Feeling antsy, bored, and anxious, and at somewhat of a crossroads. Thinking I may want to move in-house, but want to see what others here think (to the extent anyone still uses this forum). Some disparate thoughts:

• My performance goes up and down. I can either bill every waking hour or no waking hours--no in betweens. When work slows down, I struggle to stay motivated.

• For big tasks, like drafting large briefs, I struggle to get going, spin my wheels like crazy, frantically revise before even finishing sentences, and generally go time-blind. This has led to me missing a number of important deadlines. These have generally been forgiven because I do good work.

• I also cannot get motivated to do little tasks. I am awful at stuff like generally "pushing discovery forward" through check-ins with the clients, random meet-and-confer responses, moving paper from here to there. I forget a lot of small tasks. I also often avoid starting a task because I'm not sure where to start, it requires finding old emails or files, opening them, looking over and seeing whether or not I need to do something, and then moving onto the next. All of these are little friction points that make it tough for me to foresee what I need to do.

• I do very well when assigned special side projects. So if a random client (outside of our litigation) has a small crisis and needs a strategy memo in 48 hours, I will knock it out of the park. Alternately, if we're contemplating something really aggressive in litigation--like filing a sanctions motion--I will do a great job with that.

• I am well-liked among my coworkers and superiors for soft non-legal stuff. I am easy to bring in front of clients and help with office morale. I am also one of the best recruiters in the firm's history. I have recruited a lot of former classmates and made a small windfall through recruiting bonuses.

• The fear I had when I started is rapidly fading. I no longer am as responsive, checking each email as it goes, staying on top of my task list, and so on. As a first year, I think I was too anxious and as a result too responsive and bad at boundaries. But its been somewhat of a pendulum swing in the opposite direction.

So that's where I am. Does anyone have any advice? I like litigating and I like my office. But I am not thriving as a midlevel in terms of staying on top of everything and pushing stuff forward. ADHD Medication helps, but only to a certain extent. I do not think that I am depressed, if anything, my overall mental health is better than it's been in a while. I think I have just gotten a little bored, ADHD has taken a toll, and I may need to move on to the next.

[Anonymous User]

Entering my fourth-year as an ADHD litigation associate at a boutique-style Biglaw office. Feeling antsy, bored, and anxious, and at somewhat of a crossroads. Thinking I may want to move in-house, but want to see what others here think (to the extent anyone still uses this forum). Some disparate thoughts:

• My performance goes up and down. I can either bill every waking hour or no waking hours--no in betweens. When work slows down, I struggle to stay motivated.

• For big tasks, like drafting large briefs, I struggle to get going, spin my wheels like crazy, frantically revise before even finishing sentences, and generally go time-blind. This has led to me missing a number of important deadlines. These have generally been forgiven because I do good work.

• I also cannot get motivated to do little tasks. I am awful at stuff like generally "pushing discovery forward" through check-ins with the clients, random meet-and-confer responses, moving paper from here to there. I forget a lot of small tasks. I also often avoid starting a task because I'm not sure where to start, it requires finding old emails or files, opening them, looking over and seeing whether or not I need to do something, and then moving onto the next. All of these are little friction points that make it tough for me to foresee what I need to do.

• I do very well when assigned special side projects. So if a random client (outside of our litigation) has a small crisis and needs a strategy memo in 48 hours, I will knock it out of the park. Alternately, if we're contemplating something really aggressive in litigation--like filing a sanctions motion--I will do a great job with that.

• I am well-liked among my coworkers and superiors for soft non-legal stuff. I am easy to bring in front of clients and help with office morale. I am also one of the best recruiters in the firm's history. I have recruited a lot of former classmates and made a small windfall through recruiting bonuses.

• The fear I had when I started is rapidly fading. I no longer am as responsive, checking each email as it goes, staying on top of my task list, and so on. As a first year, I think I was too anxious and as a result too responsive and bad at boundaries. But its been somewhat of a pendulum swing in the opposite direction.

So that's where I am. Does anyone have any advice? I like litigating and I like my office. But I am not thriving as a midlevel in terms of staying on top of everything and pushing stuff forward. ADHD Medication helps, but only to a certain extent. I do not think that I am depressed, if anything, my overall mental health is better than it's been in a while. I think I have just gotten a little bored, ADHD has taken a toll, and I may need to move on to the next.

Are you me? Going through the same thing at the same point in my career. I think before I was scared of everything, and felt like everything was urgent, and so everything got done. But as tasks become more abstract or open ended (manage discovery) or less immediately pressing, its harder to self-motivate. I also find myself in self-destructive spirals—if something has been put off (because initially I was super busy for example), shame and embarrassment about my procrastination makes it hard to start up again.

Long way of saying, I hear you.