What to do when the Law Triggers You
We’ve all been there: the workday is going great and then something grabs our attention and not in a good way:
A noncompete clause in a new client contract; or
A contract from a large corporation that is over 20 pages long; or
A snippy email from a client who was already making you kind of nervous; or
A post from one of your former clients sharing your methodology with their followers for free without mentioning you.
And then before you know it you’re on Google trying to figure out how to deal with the legal issue that reared its ugly head in your business.
Or maybe you’re writing an email that will give that snippy client a piece of your mind and escalate things (probably unnecessarily).
Or maybe your stress response is less fight mode and more freeze mode. Then maybe you just pretend it’s not happening and hope it self-resolves.
If you’re more of a flight response person, then maybe you just avoid the issue entirely and only deal with it when it is impossible to run away from. Or you just decline the work or end the contract so you don’t have to deal with it because #boundaries.
The truth is that the law triggers us all the time.
And learning how to manage our nervous system when it comes to our business and especially the legal stuff in our business is critical.
Here’s a fun fact about me: in addition to being a lawyer, I also co-founded and used to run a well-being company that helped people manage their stress.
So without further ado, here are my tips on what to do when something legal in your work triggers the sh*t out of you:
Assess. How urgent is the issue? Legal stuff is very rarely “I need a lawyer yesterday” urgent. Even when there’s a lawsuit pending, there are only a few instances in the litigation process where urgent action (in the next 24 to 72 hours) is needed. That tends to happen when you see the word “injunction” in a formal legal document from the court. If you don’t have a court document with the word(s) “injunction” or “temporary injunction” on it, then chances are, the issue is not as urgent as your nervous system thinks it is.
Soothe. Once you determine if the situation is urgent (again, 90% of the time or more, it is not), now you’re in a position to pay attention to what’s happening to you. Your nervous system is telling you that you have an urgent matter on your hands. But the logical part of your brain that has to work really hard to get through to you during a stress response is telling you that you have plenty of time to sort this out. Your goal at this point is to increase your access to that part of your brain (the brain’s executive function is lower during a stress response). To do that, you have to coax your nervous system out of its active stress response. Here are some tools to do that:
Go screen free for an hour. Ditch your phone, laptop, tv, and iPad.
Lay on the floor and stair at the ceiling or go outside and lay or sit on the grass.
Shake your body or dance for a few minutes.
Punch some pillows and/or scream into them.
Take a bath.
Identify. Once you’ve soothed your nervous system back into or closer to a rest/digest state, return to the legal issue. I’d suggest waiting until the next day. If you feel yourself starting to get agitated again, identify what you’re feeling: scared, mad, anxious, etc. and then ask “of what?” Scared of what? Mad at what? Anxious about what? The answer to that question usually involves your brain’s worst-case scenario of what could happen. It’s good to let your brain do what it does and acknowledge it. It’s just trying to protect you, even when it’s not helpful. I suggest journaling about it to get it out. It’s always better to express it so you know it’s there rather than try to push it down and ignore it. #themoreyouknow
Ask. Now that you know the what, you can ask your community aka people who are not actively triggered by your legal issue for help. Ask people who do similar work to you if they’ve ever encountered your situation and how they handled it. Getting feedback helps you get perspective so you can take the appropriate action.
Hire me. Because I can give you clear and practical action steps to take if you’re still not sure what to do or if you’re needing the reassurance that comes with having a lawyer put their eyes on the issue. And most importantly, I can give you tips for how to avoid and/or handle this situation in the future so you can spare yourself the stress spiral.