Weekly, one hour, just the two of us.
You bring what’s actually in front of you and we work on that. What follows is the longer answer, because most people who land here are trying to work out whether coaching is a real thing.
What this actually is
I’m a lawyer. I have ADHD. I’m a consultant and a coach, not a clinician, so I don’t diagnose anybody and I don’t manage anybody’s medication. What I do is sit with you every week and help you build a practice that runs on the brain you’ve got.
The work is specific to lawyering, and that turns out to matter more than I expected when I started. General productivity coaching assumes you can move a deadline. You can’t move a statute of limitations. It assumes your inbox is a nuisance rather than an ethics exposure. It assumes that if you drop something the cost is embarrassment, not a malpractice claim. Every strategy has to survive contact with that, or it’s just advice.
What people actually bring
Almost nobody shows up saying “I’d like to improve my executive function.” Here’s what it sounds like instead, drawn from what’s come up across my client roster:
- The hours you don’t bill because you feel guilty about the matter. Real professional work, done, never entered, because entering it means looking at the file. This is one of the most expensive ADHD problems in law and almost nobody names it out loud.
- The file you can’t open because of who’s on the other side. Which blows up every time estimate you make on it, which makes you later, which makes it worse.
- The rescheduled appointment is the one you miss. The habit attaches to the slot, not to the meeting. Move it once and it evaporates.
- Work is the only gauge you’re reading. A day you wouldn’t change still scores as a bad day, because the only instrument you own measures billables.
- Delegation that bounces back. You handed it off, it returned, and you can’t tell whether you asked badly or they heard badly (often nobody actually asked).
- The dread that runs ahead of reality. You brace for the closing to derail. It doesn’t. You’ve spent the anxiety anyway.
If two or three of those landed, you’re in the right place.
How the work goes
We meet weekly, same day and time, by Zoom. I keep the format loose on purpose. Most sessions open with some version of “how are you doing?” or “what’s in front of you right now?” and you lead from there. My job is to notice the patterns you’re too close to see and name them, including the ones you didn’t raise.
Underneath that there’s a structure I’m working from even when you can’t see it. I call it the Seven Foundations, and it’s the set of things that have to be functioning before any productivity system will hold: sleep, exercise, nutrition, medication where it applies, planning, habits, and how you talk to yourself. Newer clients get more of that scaffolding up front. Long-time clients get it as a lens I keep returning to when a system stops working and we’re trying to figure out why.
Between sessions, you’re doing the reps and I’m available. What we build is yours, and it’s built to survive me. The goal isn’t a client who needs me forever.
What we’ll probably work on
It depends on you, but the recurring ones:
- Time, and the fact that you can’t feel it. Time blindness is the single most consequential ADHD symptom for a practicing lawyer. We make time visible and externally enforced rather than estimated.
- Getting started. Task initiation, not motivation. Breaking a brief or a doc review into pieces small enough that your brain will actually pick one up.
- Billing and timekeeping. Capture as it happens instead of reconstructing three weeks later from memory and calendar archaeology.
- Systems that survive week three. You’ve built systems before. The question isn’t whether you can build one, it’s why the last four didn’t hold, and that answer is usually specific to you.
- Emotional regulation, including rejection sensitivity. Opposing counsel is rude, a judge is short with you, a partner gives clipped feedback, and it costs you the rest of the day. There are things that help.
- Delegation, boundaries, and saying no without a two-week hangover about it.
Is this right for you?
Probably yes if you’re a practicing lawyer with ADHD (diagnosed or strongly suspecting), you’ve tried the apps and the systems and watched them slide, and you want someone in your corner every week who understands both halves of the problem.
Probably not if what you need right now is a therapist or a prescriber. Those are different jobs, done by people with different training, and I’ll tell you so on the call rather than take your money. Plenty of my clients work with me and with a clinician. That combination tends to go well.
And if you’d rather do this alongside other lawyers than across from me, look at the JDHD Mastermind. Some people need the room to themselves and some need the company. Neither answer is the better one.
What it costs
Let’s talk about it on the call. It’s a monthly engagement with weekly sessions, no contract, no intake questionnaire, and you can stop whenever it stops being worth it.
Start with a conversation
Thirty minutes, free, by Zoom. There’s no pitch at the end of it. I’ll ask about your ADHD story and your practice, you can ask me anything, and we’ll both come out of it knowing whether this is a fit. If it isn’t, I’ll say so and tell you what I’d do instead.
Read more first, if you’d rather
No pressure at all. ADHD 101, ADHD Diagnosis, and ADHD in Women Lawyers are the three people read most. The podcast has twelve episodes, including one with Dr. Ned Hallowell.