Helpers Gonna Help: Ethics lawyer, entrepreneur, and innovator extraordinaire Megan Zavieh

JDHD | A Podcast for Lawyers with ADHD

Megan Zavieh is a lawyer who helps other lawyers. She's a California state bar defense lawyer, an entrepreneur, an innovator and #legaltech nerd, and an omnipresent voice in attorney mental health and well-being.
In today's episode, we talk about lawyers with ADHD, shame, helping self-represented lawyers in attorney discipline proceedings, and how anxiety, depression, and ADHD show up as frequent patterns in Megan's clients.
We also talk about building law firms with margin and space and systems and incremental improvement. Megan's story inspires all of us lawyers with ADHD: we don't need "perfect" systems. We need the curiosity to start building them and the habit of improving them over time.

Learn More about Megan Zavieh

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Instagram
• ZaviehLaw.com
• Megan's podcast, Lawyers Gone Ethical, and the Lawyers Gone Ethical episode we recorded together.
• The State Bar Playbook

Two Quotes

“These people need help. These are the lawyers that I always said back when I was 18 that I want to be their psychiatrist. I don’t want to be their psychiatrist anymore, but I can be their counselor, and I can be their guide through this process.”
"Maybe you don't need medication, maybe you don't need to go to a psychiatrist, but we need to talk about this. And I think that lawyer-to-lawyer is going to be the best network for us to be having those conversations so that in the future you start to find out early on that if you get that feeling, it means you need to do something, not that there's something wrong with you."

ADHD Resources in this Episode

• Acuity Scheduling (*When I recorded this episode with Megan, I wasn't an affiliate. But now I am an Acuity affiliate. If you use my link, I'll get a small commission that helps JDHD stay focused. I use and endorse Acuity without reservation and without influence from my affiliate status.)
• Calendly
• Lawyerist LabCon (f/k/a TBD Law)
• ABA TECHSHOW

JDHD | For Lawyers with ADHD

• You can learn lots more, read the show notes, and much, more by visiting TheJDHD.com/6.
  • Join the JDHD mailing list.
  • Sign up for my totally free 10-Day email course, "An Introduction to ADHD for Lawyers."
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  • Follow JDHD (and Marshall Lichty) on your favorite social channels!
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    • Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Kapitel

1. An update about JDHD, including a mastermind group for lawyers with ADHD (00:01:36)

2. Megan Zavieh’s Mission to Help Lawyers (00:04:58)

3. "It all clicked." (00:11:34)

4. The State Bar Playbook & helping self-represented lawyers in ethics and discipline proceedings. (00:12:50)

5. Location agnosticism and running a California-based law firm from Georgia. (00:14:07)

6. Shame, discipline, secrecy, and ADHD in the ethics system. (00:17:02)

7. Sharing is the secret. (00:18:11)

8. Legal ethics issues are frequently communication issues, and ADHD and anxiety and depression are “shutting down” conditions. (00:20:35)

9. Margin and churn and self-fulfilling prophecy. (00:24:12)

10. Viewing your ADHD with curiosity and as a scientist. (00:26:05)

11. Making space for the part of practicing law that I love. (00:30:38)

12. Using gentle innovation, systematization, and incremental improvement to build the law firm of your dreams (00:33:00)

13. Building an improvement habit and the improvement flywheel (00:38:20)

14. Mental health and the lawyer discipline system (00:44:00)

15. The future for lawyers and mental health is positive if we continue breaking down stigmas. (00:46:42)

16. JDHD is a community for lawyers with ADHD. (00:49:44)