Sarah Cottrell: Hi, and welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Cottrell. I practiced law for 10 years and now I help unhappy lawyers ditch their soul-sucking jobs. On this show, I share advice and strategies for aspiring former lawyers, and interviews with former lawyers who have left the law behind to find careers and lives that they love.

This week, I asked Lauren Ascher to come back on the podcast to talk about accommodations that you might consider asking for if you're a lawyer with ADHD. You may recall that I have had several episodes where we talked about ADHD, one was with Lauren previously when she shared about her experience deciding to leave the law and go back to school to become a therapist.

Another one is the episode that I did with Annie Little and I will link both of those episodes in the show notes for this episode. But the response to those episodes has been huge. I've heard from lots of listeners that listening to one or both of those episodes made them realize that they had ADHD and they were able to go and get assessed.

This episode is both for people who have ADHD and are wondering what kinds of accommodations they might consider asking for from their workplace, this is also for those of you who are listening who maybe have listened to those ADHD episodes and thought, “Hmm, that might be me but is it worth trying to get assessed?” all the things.

Anyway, Lauren and I specifically talked about what accommodations you might ask for if you have ADHD. I also have really exciting news. If you listen to the episode with Annie Little where we talk about her ADHD diagnosis, she mentions that she used adhdonline.com to get her initial assessment, her initial diagnosis. It's actually also the site that my husband used to get his ADHD diagnosis last year.

Interestingly, obviously, it's come up on the podcast and so many listeners have used their service and referenced hearing about it in the podcast that they reached out to me to give me a coupon code. I don't get anything if you use this code, you just get $20 off the assessment.

If you're someone who's thinking about getting an assessment for ADHD but haven't yet, hopefully, this makes it more accessible to you. The code is very straightforward, it's FormerLawyer20. You get 20% off, and again, the site is adhdonline.com. If you're interested in hearing a little bit more about that, you can go and listen to the episode with Annie. That's all for me for now. Let's get into my conversation with Lauren Ascher about accommodations for ADHD.

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Or if for whatever reason, I think that you would be suited for something else, better or something else could be more helpful, yeah, so if you're interested in The Collab Plus One-on-One Program, check out the website, again, one more time, formerlawyer.com/collab-plus and see if working with me one on one inside of the Collab is right for you.

Hey, Lauren, welcome back to The Former Layer Podcast.

Lauren Ascher: Thank you. I'm so excited to be back.

Sarah Cottrell: I know. I know we've talked about this before but the episodes of the podcast with you and with Annie Little where we've talked about ADHD have been some of the most popular episodes and there are a lot of lawyers who have listened to one or both of those episodes and realized, “Oh, wow, I have ADHD.”

That is one of the many reasons why I wanted to have you back on particularly to talk about something that I think a lot of people have questions about, which is what kinds of accommodations you could think about asking for if you have ADHD. Why don't you really quickly just introduce yourself and a super brief background and then we can jump into that?

Lauren Ascher: Yeah. First of all, I just want to say I love your listenership, your audience. I've had a lot of people reach out to me too for ADHD coaching since our first episode together and they're just all amazing people with so many strengths and so many good things to say and they've been wonderful to work with. You have an awesome following.

I am a former lawyer. I graduated from Columbia Law School in 2011. I was diagnosed with ADHD way after that after I'd already worked worked in the legal field for about 10 years and had already decided that I needed to make a change. Making a change coincided with my diagnosis.

I happened to become an ADHD coach along the way and I'm also getting a master's in mental health counseling. I feel like I finally found my purpose and my niche. But I have a lot of legal experience. I worked in Biglaw in New York, I worked for a non-profit, I clerked for a federal judge. I remember law school very well. I work with a lot of lawyers now and a lot of law students and wanna-be law students.

I feel like it's pretty valuable to have an actual background in law to have worked in these environments and to have gone through law school and to understand ADHD is a unique perspective. There are a lot of ways I've been able to make people's lives easier, which I love, and I always just want to tell people there is hope, there are strategies, there are things you can do. It is not a death sentence, a chronic illness. Things don't have to be so hard. That's always the message that I'm trying to get out.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. I think it's so important for lawyers to hear because we know that statistically speaking, there's a much higher percentage of people who are lawyers who have ADHD than the general population. I think there are lots of potential reasons for why someone who has ADHD might end up in the legal field but regardless, I know that there are lots of people who are listening who either have ADHD or suspect that they have ADHD.

I think one of the questions that people often have either when they've just gotten a diagnosis or when they're thinking about whether they should actually pursue a diagnosis is “What's the point and what can be done, if anything, to help them?” Where do you want to start in terms of talking about accommodations or why don't we first just have you define what accommodations are?

Lauren Ascher: Yeah. Before even defining accommodations, I would just say ADHD is like any neurodivergence or really anybody can benefit from what is most helpful I think for people with ADHD which is that you have to know what you need, you have to know yourself, you have to know what your limits are, what your strengths are, what your challenges are and so many people don't.

Especially people who've struggled with ADHD undiagnosed their whole lives, they've always probably just felt like, “Well, something's just wrong with me,” “I just can't perform that well,” or “It's just going to be unpredictable and I'm never really going to know what to expect from myself.”

I see it all the time with clients, they don't really get to know themselves, and also shame gets in the way of really knowing themselves. The first step to any of this is to figure out what your pain points are and what your needs are and then accommodations would just be a way to help your needs get met in a way that works for everyone.

If it's at work, it would work for the employer and the employee. Coming to a compromise on what is a change that we can do that will be okay for both employer and employee and enable you to do things in an easier way, have it not be so hard, have it work better for your brain, your unique characteristics.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. That makes sense. Well, I think part of what makes asking for accommodations so difficult for lawyers is that in the profession, there are many ways in which our legal workplaces are structured where we're basically trained to think that we shouldn't need anything.

Lauren Ascher: Right. We should be perfect.

Sarah Cottrell: Right. That is not a human way of being.

Lauren Ascher: No. Somehow it is still the prevailing philosophy. I don't understand it.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Okay, if someone is thinking about what types of accommodations might be available or could be an option, what are some things that come to mind for you?

Lauren Ascher: Yeah. A great place to start with all of this, two resources to shout out, the first is the Job Accommodation Network, which is an online resource. It's run through the Department of Labor and it has all sorts of sample accommodations. You can search by disability. You can search by work task.

The second is the podcast that I do with another ADHD coach, Lindsay Binette it's called The Wavy Brain Podcast. We did an episode with JAN. Also, we are putting out a free resource on our podcast website that will help you go through this step-by-step process of figuring out what your pain points are, what would help you, what your needs are, and then what to do about it.

Because the answer is not always straightforward, it really depends on what kind of issue you're having and what you need to fix it. What you need may be something you can just do on your own without disclosing a diagnosis to anybody, it could be something that you could just talk to your direct supervisor about, or it could be something that has to be done more officially by going to HR.

It really depends. The first step is to really pinpoint what it is that you need. A lot of that is going to be linked to your sensory needs and to your processing and learning needs. You've asked before what's the point in getting a diagnosis, well, getting a full neuropsychological report can be so helpful because it really breaks down the way that your brain works, exactly what you might struggle with, exactly what your strengths are, and then it gives you accommodations as part of the report, suggested accommodations.

A lot of people don't read these reports, especially if they got them when they were younger or whatever. Working with a coach and going through that report is a great way to figure out how your brain works. But even if you don't have that report, even if you don't have an official diagnosis, the first step is really just figuring out, “What is difficult for me? What is getting in the way? Am I feeling overstimulated like there's too much noise? Am I feeling like I'm not prioritizing tasks correctly and so I'm turning things in late? Am I misunderstanding instructions?”

Where are you making mistakes and struggling? Then the next step would be to figure out what can be done about it. Like I said before, the Job Accommodation Network website has tons of suggestions and I can also go through suggestions here but hopefully, that breaks down a good starting point.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Why don't we talk through a couple of examples and in particular, I think it would be interesting if there are some examples of something that you might do yourself versus something you might request more formally, wherever you want to start. Let's start there.

Lauren Ascher: Yeah. You could start by thinking about your physical environment. This is linked to sensory needs. What do you need to be able to focus? Do you need quiet? Do you actually need background noise? Do you do better working by yourself or do you do better working around other people?

Depending on the answers to those questions and depending on the place you work, you could do things yourself such as asking for a different office placement, maybe somewhere quieter or somewhere more in the hustle bustle if you need that to stay focused and stimulated.

You could request a solo office or an office with somebody else if you need that body doubling, someone else working nearby you. Or you could just do this on your own. You could switch up your work environment. Maybe you work in an empty conference room for an hour and then you work in your office for an hour. You switch it up to keep yourself focused.

You could wear noise-canceling headphones, use a white noise machine. You could request a standing desk or just buy your own standing desk. Hopefully, you're getting the point that a lot of these things probably people wouldn't bat an eye at if you just did it yourself but of course, it depends on where you work. Another big one is office lighting. Maybe the fluorescent lights make you feel crazy or it's hard for you to read. You could switch out your office lighting, things like that.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. I think those are really helpful because I think some of those are things that people wouldn't, especially people who don't have ADHD, wouldn't necessarily think of as being part of the experience of having ADHD.

Let's talk about some other accommodations. I'm thinking particularly of I know one of the particular struggles for people with ADHD can be being called into an office and someone dumping a ton of information. I know this is something that we talked about before in your episode and I think I talked about it with Annie on her episode where we talked about ADHD as well.

Can you talk about some of those things because I think those in particular are ones that it’s very easy for lawyers to be like, “Oh, there's just something wrong with me that I can't do this thing in this way”?

Lauren Ascher: Right, which is certainly how I felt as a lawyer for many years. Something that I think can be helpful for everybody is to request DEI training at their place of work around this because just educating people on the different ways our brains work and the different ways people communicate with each other and process information can be really helpful because then you spread this awareness that there isn't just one right way to do it and it's okay if you can't do it this one way that your supervisor expects you to.

I think that can be helpful as a first step or one step. Then it again goes back to what you need and how to get it. For example, you're describing somebody going in for instructions. They get called into a partner's office and then suddenly, the partner is speaking quickly and giving all of these verbal instructions, and the person is supposed to just write them down really quickly, remember them, and then execute. No questions asked, the partner doesn't have time for any follow-up, you get one shot at it, that's it.

That can be really hard for a lot of different reasons. Auditory processing, if somebody has trouble processing auditory information like that quickly enough to be able to take notes on it, understand it, and even process it enough to ask questions on the spot, there's so much that's going on in the brain to be able to do that. There are so many different places where someone could struggle with that.

Asking to be able to record a meeting or record instructions, asking for written instructions, I know that's not always possible, people have limited time, you could ask also if you could write the instructions out and send them back and just make sure as a confirmation, “This is what I think you were asking me to do. Can you please confirm?” and then you can write them out.

Note taking, maybe asking for someone else's notes if someone else is in the meeting taking notes and you're not able to take notes as quickly. Is that getting the point across? It really will depend which part of that situation is hard and then there are workarounds.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. That completely makes sense. I also think it's really important for people to hear, especially if you have some auditory processing issue, I think that for many of us, we just have internalized that as “There's something wrong with me” as opposed to just this is something that is, I wouldn't necessarily say easily managed because sometimes it could be easy, sometimes it could not be as easy but there are ways to appropriately manage it and to get you the support that you need. I think the challenge is that so often as lawyers, again, it can be hard to actually feel like you should or can ask for what you need.

Lauren Ascher: Yes, yes. It may be that you have to be strategic about it. There may be certain supervisors you can ask directly and others that you really need to go through HR, through a managing partner, or through somebody else that gets it and then can maybe communicate to others about it on your behalf.

It really depends. There's no one-size-fits-all. Just as there's no answer to “Should I disclose that I have ADHD?” it really depends. It's such a personal decision and it's going to depend so much on the circumstances, the environment, and the people you work with.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, for sure. Are there other examples of accommodations that you've seen or that you know of that someone could use in situations with ADHD?

Lauren Ascher: Yeah. I'll give you two big ones that I see a lot with clients. The first is I see clients struggling, and this is not just lawyers, this is across many professions, but struggling with not having frequent enough check-ins with a supervisor. They're given instructions, then there's sent on their way, and then they're expected to just hand things in at a certain deadline in the future without any checkpoints along the way.

Requesting more frequent check-ins, even a weekly check-in can be really helpful. Again, it will depend on your supervisor's time constraints but it doesn't have to be long. It also doesn't even have to be necessarily in person or on the phone, it could be via email in those check-ins. You can run by your supervisor, what you're thinking in terms of prioritization, “Here are the tasks that I'm prioritizing this week. What do you think? Am I doing this right?” or “Here's what I understand the assignment to be. Is that accurate?”

Then another one that I've seen really help people is having “Do Not Disturb” time. One place I worked with public interest legal services agency would let people put DND (do not disturb) on the office calendar. You could actually see when somebody was in Do Not Disturb mode. It's really helpful for people to be able to just focus on one task without questions flying at them, people stopping by their office without checking their email every five seconds.

Now, again, this depends on where you work and I totally understand that there are some places where you really have to be checking your email constantly and responding constantly and that can be really difficult for people. Your attention is constantly being pulled in different directions when that's the case.

Maybe it's talking to the person you're working for and just letting them know you'll be checking your email every 30 minutes. Even that could be helpful, or every hour, or asking them to put urgent if something is really urgent and you have to stop what you're focusing on. I know I'm saying all of this trying and remembering all the times these things were ignored.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Of course.

Lauren Ascher: But it's still worth it I think to try to push for it if it's something that you need.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. I think, to your point, it also shows how inherently ableist a lot of our legal workplaces are because some of the things that you're describing are like, “Here's a best practice I can think to my time in practice,” and think, “Oh, yeah, the exact opposite.”

I can think of people doing the exact opposite. There is a broader conversation to be had about why are we structuring our legal workplaces in a way that is so inherently ableist.

Lauren Ascher: Yeah. But I really think there's hope and that will change and is already changing as the next generation comes into partnership. We just have so much more knowledge now about mental health and the way our brains work, and people are speaking out more and that's really what it's all about is opening up these conversations, actually talking about it, not being ashamed, and not hiding it because that's the only way it's going to become commonplace to have these accommodations is through those conversations. I do think there's hope.

Sarah Cottrell: Oh, yeah, for sure. I also think that not only are there so many more conversations about it and not only are so many more people either aware that either they have ADHD or some other form of neurodivergence or are in close relationship with people who do but also I think, to your point, your generational point, hopefully, it seems to me that there is a growing understanding of not just like, “Oh, you might have needs if you are someone with ADHD,” but also you are a human and you have needs.

I think that is also something that can be hard to remember sometimes if you are a practicing lawyer but is also a huge part of the conversation. Are there other accommodations or anything else around accommodations that you think people should know about?

Lauren Ascher: Yeah. Executive function is basically like the control center in your brain. That is what people with ADHD most often struggle with and there are different pieces of executive function. The accommodation will depend on what type of executive function skill you're struggling with but I just want to say broadly, the really good news is that executive function skills can be learned at any age at any time in your life.

So many people grow up learning them, picking them up innately and it seems like, “Oh, well, you're either good at being on time or you're bad at being on time and that's just the way it is,” but it's actually not true. You can learn time management even if you're 35 years old working as an attorney already and have never been on time for anything. You can learn that skill.

Asking for an executive function coach or an ADHD coach, some law schools will pay for it or a certain number of sessions, some law firms will pay for it. It is always worth asking. You can do it on your own but it'll be a shortcut way to target whatever executive function skills you are lacking.

That's a huge accommodation that could be really helpful for people. But then you can think about executive function skills, in general, to think about other accommodations that might work. One of them is task initiation, getting started on things, that can be really difficult for somebody with ADHD. You may need certain accommodations to help you with that.

Like I said, the more frequent check-ins, if you have trouble getting started on a task that's not due for two weeks but you are meeting with your supervisor every week, that can help you get started sooner if you have to show them a first draft, an outline, or talk to them about what you're working on. That's one example. There are so many, I don't want to ramble on and give a million but it can be helpful to think about it in terms of executive function skills like that.

Sarah Cottrell: I think that's really helpful and in particular, I think the point that one, that there are a lot of different ways to approach executive function challenges but also that it may seem like, “Oh, this is just innate. You either have it or you don't,” but that there is an element of skill building that is available if you know to access it.

Lauren Ascher: Right. There are strategies and tools. The problem is it's not one size fits all so I can't say to somebody, “Oh, you have ADHD, use this planner and everything will be fixed.” It could be that you need a planner but it could be that that's really not going to get you very far and you've already tried that a million times. That's why coaching can be so valuable because it's so personalized, we can dig into really what's underneath it and try out strategies.

It's all an experiment. If you're doing it on your own, just think of it as collecting data. You try something, if it works, great, if it doesn't, you try the next thing. It doesn't mean you're doomed to failure or it doesn't mean anything, it's just data and you can find tools, strategies, ways to learn these skills that will work for you.

Sarah Cottrell: I love that. Lauren, are there other things that you think people should know about accommodations for ADHD?

Lauren Ascher: I think there are a lot of them that really don't require much disclosure and that are really, like you said, just best practices in general. I would encourage people to just do their own research and Google executive function, take a self-assessment, you can use my resource, think through what you're good at, what you struggle with, are you always struggling with writing something, writing your first draft, or writing an outline?

Maybe you need to talk it out. Maybe you need more verbal processing to get started. Maybe you need to work with other people more collaboratively rather than on your own. There are so many things that you can do if you know yourself that don't require officially going through HR or anything like that. I would just encourage people to look and see what they can find themselves and to think about their needs.

Sarah Cottrell: I love that. Did you say where people can find your resource?

Lauren Ascher: Yes. The podcast that I do with Lindsay is called The Wavy Brain Podcast. If you go to thewavybrainpodcast.com and you join our email list, you'll be first to know about any resource we put out there, any new programming we do, and our new season is coming out soon, you'll be first to know about that.

But also, we plan to release this free resource sometime in October so hopefully, it'll be out by the time this episode comes out. But it will basically walk people through what I just described.

First of all, thinking through their needs, “Am I a morning person? Am I a night person? Do I need frequent breaks? Do I do better if I'm working alone or working around other people? Do I need quiet or noise?” all these questions like that to help you figure out what your learning style is, what your sensory needs are, how your brain works, and then it'll have a lot of different examples of accommodations and suggestions for ways to make life at work easier for yourself.

Sarah Cottrell: I love it. That's amazing. Lauren, thank you so much for coming on today and for sharing all of the knowledge that you have. It's so important to me. There are so many reasons that people who are working as lawyers, particularly people who are working as lawyers and think they might not want to be a lawyer, there are so many ways that we can get tangled up and feel like it's because there's something wrong with us as opposed to because we are human. I just think this is a really important area. I really appreciate you sharing your expertise with us today.

Lauren Ascher: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Sarah Cottrell: Thanks so much for listening. I absolutely love getting to share this podcast with you. If you haven't yet, I invite you to download my free guide: First Steps to Leaving the Law at formerlawyer.com/first. Until next time, have a great week.