
What Doing Your Best Is Costing You as a Lawyer
From The Former Lawyer Podcast by Sarah Cottrell
April 6, 2026 · 7 min · Episode 303
About this episode
This episode discusses the high costs of the 'do your best' mentality for lawyers.
For a lot of lawyers, hearing "just do your best" as a kid didn't feel reassuring. It felt like a requirement to give every ounce of everything they had until there was literally nothing left. That's not incidental. The kind of person who interprets "do your best" that way is often exactly the kind of person who ends up becoming a lawyer. And that standard follows them. In this episode of The Former Lawyer Podcast, Sarah Cottrell talks about what that standard is actually costing lawyers who ...
People in this episode
Host: Sarah Cottrell
Topics covered
- lawyer standards
- self-improvement
- mental health
- career challenges
- work-life balance
Keywords
- lawyers
- best effort
- mental health
- career
- self-improvement
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