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.

Today, I have Annie Little back on the podcast to talk more about ADHD and lawyering.

So if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that she has been here several times before talking about various things. But one of those things is ADHD, because we have an extremely high rate of ADHD in the legal profession, and there is an extremely high rate of ADHD in lawyers who I work with.

I think that there are lots of reasons this is important, but one of the most important is that the whole process of figuring out what it is that you want to do that is not practicing law requires you to know yourself and to accept yourself for who you are. If you're a lawyer with ADHD, there's a pretty good chance that this profession has made you feel like there's something wrong with you, and there isn't anything wrong with you.

So Annie is on today to talk about some of her experience working with lawyers who have ADHD with a recent certification program she went through for ADHD coaching and some of the ways to think about executive function and other things that are affected by ADHD, both if you're a lawyer who has ADHD or if you're just a lawyer in general, because you certainly work with people who have ADHD. That's it from me. Let's get into the conversation with Annie all about ADHD.

Annie Little, welcome back to The Former Lawyer Podcast.

Annie Little: Hello. So glad to be back.

Sarah Cottrell: So for people who listen to the podcast, I'm sure you've heard Annie before. She can introduce herself briefly, but she has been on to talk about all sorts of things. But one of the main things that Annie and I have talked about on the podcast multiple times, and that I hear about a lot from lawyers who listen, is ADHD.

So Annie, do you want to just give a brief background and also sort of like where we're hoping to take this conversation today?

Annie Little: Sure. So I'm Annie Little, and my company is JD Nation. I founded it in 2012, back when I was still a lawyer. I did real estate transaction work, and since then, I've been doing career coaching exclusively for lawyers.

I have also, over the past few years since receiving my ADHD diagnosis, started doing some ADHD coaching for lawyers. Because if you go back and listen to The Former Lawyer episodes on ADHD, you'll know why. Because lawyers, we have like three times the rate of ADHD in the profession. We are drawn to the legal profession for so many reasons.

So part of ADHD is following your interests and not being bored by doing the same thing. So after 10 to 12 years of doing career coaching, adding ADHD coaching has been really one of the brightest spots of my, I guess, coaching career, you could say, for so many reasons. And not the least of which being working with lawyers with ADHD and helping them to recognize how their ADHD manifests, accepting it, validating it, and learning how to work with it.

And along the way, reducing, getting rid of, addressing any sort of internalized shame or ableism, which we all have. So that's what I hope to talk about today. Let's kind of unpack that a little bit for anyone who may or knows they have ADHD out there.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Part of why I asked Annie to come back on the podcast is one, I knew that she recently went through a program to get certified as an ADHD coach, but also, as I said before, I hear from people all the time who have listened to one of our past episodes and realized, "Oh, I have ADHD."

I was just telling Annie before we started recording that I did five consults for one-on-one work last week. Four of the five people that I did consults with have been diagnosed with ADHD. So it is so pervasive in our profession.

I think our profession really is, with the way that performance is moralized in our profession, it just can sort of ratchet up the shame that many high achievers who have ADHD, but maybe didn't know that they have ADHD, or maybe do know, have experienced. It takes sort of what they already experienced and just cranks up the volume.

Annie Little: Oh, big time. The stigma too. You don’t have very many people who are open about their diagnosis who are practicing lawyers. For me, it’s easy. I’m like, “Hey, I got diagnosed, cool.”

When I shared that with people back in, what was it, 2021, people that I had been working with as clients for some of them years, they then shared their diagnosis with me. So there’s some shame, there’s some fear, and I think the real fear is of not being understood because of a lot of the misconceptions out there.

So it’s really this “take your pick from this poo poo platter of horrible feelings and options” when it comes to having ADHD and wanting to practice law.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, I think it would be helpful to talk a little bit about some of the ways that can manifest for people. Even knowing that you have ADHD is a challenge.

We know, especially if you are a woman, that there is a much higher likelihood that you were not diagnosed because you didn’t fit the “typical mold.” But on top of that, even if you are aware and you do have that diagnosis, I think there’s still—it feels to me, and granted, I have a very neuro spicy household, so we think about neurodivergence a lot—but it feels to me like people are constantly talking about neurodivergence, autism, ADHD, and other forms of neurodiversity.

And yet, there are these really basic misunderstandings about ADHD in particular that just seem to pervade. I can imagine if you’re a professional who has ADHD that part of why you might not disclose is that you’re just like, “I just can’t deal with the rampant ignorance.”

Annie Little: Yes.

Sarah Cottrell: Basically. Which, at a certain level, feels intentional because the information is readily available.

Annie Little: Right. And you know, to be fair, there are pockets within the legal profession, bar associations, Biglaw firms, legal departments in Fortune 500, Fortune 100 companies, who have affinity groups for neurodiversity. They reach out to ADHD practitioners like me, not just me, but they seek us out to present CLEs or other sorts of training on that.

That’s just like a little glimmer of hope there. So there are places where people are open about their diagnoses and are in leadership roles. That’s the key. And just PS: ADHD affects partners and general counsel as well.

Most of my clients are partners. They are very, very successful. They’re very good lawyers. Having ADHD actually makes you really good at practicing law in a lot of ways. So that’s another kind of push.

I’m actually working with the ABA right now and Accenture on putting something together. They wanted people to volunteer to share their stories. They were like, “We got no people. We got like two people who wanted to speak on camera.”

I was like, “I know, I told you because of stigma.” Then I was like, “You’re the ABA. Please go talk to partners one-on-one that you do things with, because that’s what’s really going to help.” So they went back and they did, and now we’re putting something together real nice.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, well, so many things came to mind as you were talking. One is that I know we did a previous episode where you and I talked about the leadership piece, particularly because of the fact that there is so often this approach of, “Oh, you have ADHD? You, junior person, should fix yourself,” basically, as opposed to recognizing that the way ADHD functions requires accommodations that necessarily have to be top down.

Well, anyway, I think the role of leadership is so important. It is somewhat heartening to see that there seems to be more awareness about that, even in the legal profession.

Annie Little: I’m just like, “The day that I know we’ve made serious progress is when there’s a high-up judge, a federal judge or a state supreme court judge, who’s like, ‘I have ADHD.’” Because I cannot give you even one famous lawyer who has ADHD. The odds of a judge having ADHD are very, very, very high.

Sarah Cottrell: I was going to say, even though statistically, it’s extremely likely that there are very many. Yeah. Okay, so where would you like to go next? Do you want to talk a little bit more about some of the things that you’ve seen being helpful for clients? Do you want to have a conversation about your decision to go for the certification? Or do you want to go somewhere else first?

Annie Little: Yeah, let’s talk about certification, because I think that will lead into why I decided to do it, because I’m very oppositional.

And that will go into—because I’m like, “I don’t want a certification”—that’ll lead into kind of the framework that I’ve been working with people to get this broader understanding of ADHD for not just people who have it, but all lawyers, because we all work together.

So with certification, once I realized that at least half of my clientele had ADHD and I didn’t know, I was like, “Okay, well, I want to at least take some ADHD coaching courses to make sure I’m not doing harm and see where that goes.”

So the coaching school that I got my ICF certification through actually has the only approved ADHD certification from the governing ADHD coaching body called PAAC. I don’t know what it stands for. So I didn’t have to find a new school or anything. It was pretty easy.

The trainers are great, and so it was only a few more courses that I needed to take. And I was like, “You know what? This is actually really cool.” I learned I’ve actually been doing ADHD coaching without realizing it, and not in a harmful way. So I was buoyed by that. I was like, “Oh, it must be because I have it.”

You know, there’s probably something to that and drawing from the empathy that we do when we coach. I know all about kids and ADHD, which is helpful because I have one. I was like, “You know what? Everyone knows that online, there are all kinds of discussions about ADHD, all kinds of misinformation, and whatever.”

I’m the first to say that going onto social media, like TikTok or Instagram or whatever, and following neurospicy content creators is fantastic for feeling a sense of community, a sense of validation.

Like when I first got diagnosed, it was really cool to go on there and see people sharing their experiences and me being like, “Oh my—what? That? That’s an ADHD thing? Oh my, that’s why I’m so exhausted after I shower. Okay. Cool. All right.”

So I’m all for that. But at the same time, it is really important that if you decide to pursue a diagnosis, treatment, all that kind of stuff, you really want to be going to a professional, whether it’s a psychiatrist or whatever.

But even my therapist, she’s telling me, “You have taught me so much about ADHD.” I’ve just sent her resources. But she’s like, “I’m seeing it so often.” So it’s something that’s very widely misunderstood, even in the most benign sense.

And I’ve even experienced it a little bit when I’ve been asked to participate in neurodiversity initiatives that other people who have certifications, not in a rude way, but they kind of don’t see me as being at the same level as them.

I get it, because there is so much garbage out there with respect to ADHD “education.” So I was like, “You know what, let’s just make this easy.” Lawyers are all about certifications. They’ll see more letters after my name and be like, “Cool, she knows.” So I’m like, “I can do that,” especially because I’m interested in it.

It’s actually been kind of fun. Because I’m already kind of certified to the hilt with the other stuff, it was fine. So I will be taking my final exam in two weeks. Boom, done.

So in line with that, having that certification also makes it easier for me to be approved for education initiatives internally with big companies, which I already am. But there are some where you have to be on the approved list. Sounds familiar, lawyers getting on a client list or whatever.

But in the meantime, I’ve been doing lots of both paid and pro bono CLEs. And I have found that when I talk about ADHD in terms of its primary effects being on the executive functions of the brain, from the cognitive perspective, we hear about executive function, executive functioning, we’ll get into that in a minute, as I’ve been talking in that framework, I get follow-up requests for more, like more detailed, more in-depth.

Like, “Ooh, can you do a presentation? Can you do a CLE on executive function in the workplace, like in the lawyer workplace?” There’s one law firm that I’ve been working with for over a year now, and they have an associate training program and a non-equity partner council training program. And they both make requests.

But the non-equity partners are like, “How do we support?” They’ve asked me to do one that I’m going to do later this year, like, “How do we support executive function for the people that we manage?” And I’m like, “Oh yes. Yes.”

So I'm really hopeful that talking in terms of executive function—which we can talk about a little bit here—it's so boring, right, like executive function, but it really seems to be resonating with the legal crowd. And getting us from that "me paradigm" of everyone else who doesn't understand ADHD being like, "Well, you're using it as an excuse," or "It's just an excuse," getting us from that into, "It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation." An explanation is not an excuse. It's an understanding of why something is happening.

It's only from there that we can then come up with a solution. It's not an excuse. We're moving towards a solution. So that's sort of the background. Would you like to steer the executive function conversation? Steer me.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, well, and I was just going to say briefly, like on the certification piece, I think it's really helpful to hear you talk about your process because—and I know we've talked about this before—but no surprise, often when I'm working with lawyers who are wanting to do something else, one of the first things they are asking is, "Do I need to go get some sort of certification or go back to school or whatever?"

And I am very much of the mindset that you do not go back to school and do not get a certification unless you know that that is what you need to further your goals. So you talking about the experience of being diagnosed with ADHD and realizing that so many of your clients have ADHD, and then doing some work around it and ultimately deciding to go with the certification, to me, is a perfect illustration of how you might think through whether to go get a credential.

Because I think as lawyers, especially if you’re still practicing and you’re thinking about leaving but you haven’t left yet, our profession is so credential prestige, degree focused that it can sometimes feel like, certification or something like that can feel like this safe option to choose because “How could you go wrong?”

This is not me saying, “You’d definitely be going wrong if you did that.” But I’m saying that I think it is really important to actually engage in a process where you actually decide whether it is truly something you want and need.

Annie Little: Yes. Yeah. I'm of the same mind as you. One analogy, or kind of, I guess, that I like to think of and share with people when they're talking about, "Should I get a certification?" Because also I see people who do go get a certification and then they're really disappointed when that doesn't turn into lots of interviews.

But I'll say, a lot of people go to get their MBAs and don't finish. They don't leave with that degree because the goal of going to business school, whether you get the credential or not, is to meet the people who are going to help you succeed in business. That's the most important thing.

I went to an undergrad that has the number one graduate business school. So I mingled with those people, and I don't know, a lot of them—I would say probably 50/50—they were just like, "You know what, this is lame. I know what I'm doing. I'm off."

So is anyone going to debate that people in business are not doing well because they didn't get their MBA? No, definitely not.

Then also, I think part of it, in addition to all the reasons you mentioned about prestige and all that kind of stuff, lawyering is one of these sort of, I think it's unique in that you get the certification before you ever practice in a meaningful way.

Like even teachers teach before they get certified. They're student teachers, they do a whole bunch of other things. Coaching, you and I know, in order to get certified, you have to have at least a hundred hours of coaching, like at least.

So it's kind of like, it goes with, I know your process and mine, our frameworks overlap a little bit. It's like, it's helping you to make sure that this certification is going to be worth it and supportive of your goals, not the reason for your goals. If that makes sense.

Because for me, it was like, "I don't want a certification." And PS, I started in 2012 with my ICF certification. I finished in 2022. I had plenty of hours and I had been taking courses, but the details, the final requirements, I was like, and then I was like, "Okay, I'll do it."

And same with ADHD, I was just like, "Oh," you know, it's kind of like stumbling into it and being like, "Okay, I see some value to spend." Plus, there's money. It's not only, is it worth my time and effort, but man, I have to drop a few, another $1,500 or whatever. Is that going to be worth it?

In this case, yes, absolutely. But yeah, I like that sort of discussion when people bring up certifications, where it's hard to think of any other profession that you get the certification first, then you go try it.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, and I think it conditions us as lawyers—especially if you are someone with a personality like mine, where I just want to follow all of the rules all the time—it can start to function as, "This is what gives you permission to do the thing you're interested in doing."

So I think the whole idea that you could have enough knowledge and experience to start doing a thing before you get whatever letters behind your name, too many lawyers is like, "I'm sorry, what?"

Annie Little: "Unauthorized practice of law."

Sarah Cottrell: Three words. So yeah, I just think for anyone who's listening and is thinking about any certification, those are some things to keep in mind. But I also am really interested to hear from you about executive function. Of course, it's talked about much more now than maybe 10 or 20 years ago in the general zeitgeist.

I know you mentioned that framing things that way and talking about that in some of the presentations and coaching that you’ve been doing has been really helpful. Can you explain for people what you mean by that?

Annie Little: Because guess what? My majors, which everyone thought were so useless, are coming into play. I was a cognitive psychology major next to my other one, which we won't talk about. I literally studied attention. It did not make sense to me. I wonder why.

But so cognitive psych is basically, if you're interested in neuroscience but don't want to go to med school and be a bio major, that's kind of how it was at my college. I just liked the professors, so that's kind of what I always do. Anyway, so it's one of those unexpected gifts that I have where it's like, most people would consider neuroscience a very complicated, boring sort of thing, but I find it very interesting and I like to find ways to explain it.

That's an ADHD strength. That's why I'm saying that, not to pat myself on the back. So I have made GIFs of my own GIFs that I put in my presentations and stuff to help people understand, like, this is actually—we can break it down into a relatively simplistic concept.

So when we talk about executive function, and there's so much garbage out there on executive function. "Think of it as the CEO of your brain." I'm like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not helpful. That's not a thing." So I think of it in terms of execution, right?

So there are like two, I'm going to break our brain into just two parts. There's the front part of the brain and the back part. The back part of the brain is the most, I would say, primal. It developed first. Our brains developed from the brainstem forward. So the most sophisticated, complicated tasks, functions, everything we have are in the very front of our brain.

You've probably heard the prefrontal cortex. That's where the executive function stuff happens. But you can't just do stuff with the front part of your brain. The back part of the brain, that's what executes on your directives.

So the front part of the brain, knowing what to do, knowing what you want to do, and then the back part of the brain being the doing part of the brain. I'm stealing that dichotomy from Dr. Russell Barkley. He's my favorite researcher. There are several, but he's really great.

So we've got the knowing part of the brain, the doing part of the brain. So here's a classic example that drives me nuts still, even knowing I have ADHD. It's like, all right, I know that I need to do my bookkeeping, okay?

I actually want to do my bookkeeping because I want to get my stuff to the accountant for taxes. I don't enjoy doing it, that's why I get behind on it, but that's okay. But I want to do it now, and I can't.

Like, I'm sitting on my computer, I've got the stuff open. "Oh my God, please, just do the P&L. Please just do the profit and loss." So this is where you can see the sort of negative self-talk can come in, the shame, or whatever.

So what's actually happening in the brain is the front part of my brain is saying, "Yo, we got some stuff to do." I'm going to summon my carrier pigeons, aka dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter, just a fancy name for a hormone.

So I think of dopamine as carrier pigeons because dopamine carries messages from the front part of our brain to the back part, from the knowing part to the doing part. So we can know, know, know all the things.

It's very lawyer-y if you think about it, right? Because I know you and I, in the work we do, lawyers have all these ideas, "I'm thinking about doing this, I'm thinking about doing that," but actually doing it is a totally different ball game. It's the same in the brain.

And we need those dopamine carrier pigeons to carry that message from knowing brain down to the doing brain. There's no other way for them to communicate. So in ADHD, there's a problem with the regulation of dopamine. That's all it is. So it's not an issue, it's not like a learning disability in the sense that we can't do certain, like, there are other related learning disabilities, but this is truly a neurodevelopmental brain disorder where we're dealing with multiple neurotransmitters, but dopamine being the main one.

So once I kind of break that down, people are like, “Oh,” and I'm like, yeah, so in a neurotypical brain, they actually look like these glorious white doves that are just gracefully, effortlessly being like, "Knowing brain, give me the message. It's encoded. Perfect. I will take it delicately to doing brain, and it will be executed." And it does.

Then you look at my carrier pigeons and they're like, I love them, but they're so derp. And for me, medication is very helpful. Stimulant medication is very, very helpful for helping with executive function in the brain.

So if that's something you want to try, it's worth experimenting with, is what I'm saying, with a practitioner, licensed practitioner, because it's wildly effective with minimal side effects.

Anyway, so when I kind of share it that way, I feel like I get people on board where they're like, okay, brain, front brain, back brain, knowing, doing—there's a disconnect there, and that disconnect is not due to a moral failing or laziness. It is due to a hormone.

And in the same way a diabetic can't summon insulin in the timing and the amount needed, that's how ADHD is with dopamine and norepinephrine.

So the next part what I would go into is, so what the heck is an executive function? Like, what is executive functioning? Is it executive functions? Honestly, there's no agreement. So I may say executive function, functioning, functions, it's pretty much the same thing.

I think the first time I looked at a list of it, and this was probably, I don't know, maybe in one of my courses too, there's like a ton of executive functions. I think I mention maybe 12 in my presentations, and those are even just broader categories.

But the ones that tend to come up most in my coaching and with lawyers that we want to address are things like time management, because our brains don't recognize the passage of time in the same way.

Then there's prioritization, because our nervous systems are interest-based rather than importance-based. But for us, if it's interesting, boom, that's important. And so that's why we talk a lot. That's why when we write, we write a lot and we have to cut a lot out, because we can't distinguish readily. We can learn.

Organization is really an executive function that can be challenging, like the messy desk syndrome maybe. Let's say emotional regulation, that's one that surprises a lot of people. That's an executive function, being able to monitor how your emotions show up, which I think socially, that one is really, really challenging.

But there are actually non-stimulant meds that help with that really well too. What am I missing here? There is—because I feel like everything's an executive function. Ordination is kind of a subset of prioritization. It's knowing what order in which to do things. Yeah, I should have had my list up. Apologies.

Sarah Cottrell: Well, I mean, honestly, so my very layperson idea of what I think about executive function, I think about like the things you need to do to get things done.

Annie Little: Hmm. Yeah.

Sarah Cottrell: And I think I just want to amplify one of the things that you mentioned, which is, I think that when people hear interest versus importance-based nervous system, what I think sometimes, if you're neurotypical, you don't fully understand is, well, let me back up. It is fundamentally not a question of a failure to understand. So let's use an example that comes up with lawyers often, especially lawyers with ADHD: capturing your time and billing, entering your time, et cetera, et cetera, doing it timely, not losing time, whatever.

I think often at a law firm, if someone with ADHD is struggling to get in their billing, most people who are neurotypical see that as like, "Oh, well, you don't understand how important it is." Because, like, if you don't get in your bill, then, like, we don't get paid. But fundamentally, the disconnect that is happening is not that the person with ADHD is like, “I don't think billing is important. It's because it is not interesting.”

Which I think there are very few of us of any kind of neurotype who would say billing is super interesting. It's a question of like, is the front part of their brain able to communicate to the back part of their brain? That's where interest versus importance is coming in.

I say this as someone who, I don't know, I probably have an importance-based nervous system to a pathological degree, which is like, what is the thing that needs to be done? And I will do it basically no matter what.

Annie Little: But not if it's not a priority, right?

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah.

Annie Little: Because for me, I'm like, “Well, these are all important. How do I know which one to do first? Well, that one's boring, so I won't do that one first.”

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. So I think sometimes when people hear interest versus importance, they think it's just like how you feel about it. But I think what is important for people to make the connection with is, we're not just talking about how someone feels about it. We're literally talking about how their brain responds to the information.

If you keep telling someone, "Billing is really important, billing is really important," it's not actually, one, they know billing is important. They're a lawyer. They know. Do you know what I mean?

Annie Little: And they feel really bad about it.

Sarah Cottrell: Exactly. So I think this is a piece of the executive function conversation that I think often breaks down in the sense of, it can be hard for neurotypical people or people who have an importance-based nervous system to understand that it's not just, "Oh, they don't understand the importance, they just want to do what's interesting."

It's like the things in the brain that need to happen in order for stuff to get done are not happening because of the structure of the nervous system.

Annie Little: Well, and I'm really glad you brought that up because I omitted probably a really useful sort of thing there in that, what is it that summons those carrier pigeons to the knowing part of the brain and sends them to the doing part of the brain?

In a neurotypical brain, it's importance-based triggers, I call them. So if it's something that you know is important, just objectively, is like it's important to you, or it's important to someone who's important to you, like a boss or a family member, or if there is a reward for doing it, no matter whether it's a short, like an immediate reward or like a longer-term reward, that will work. And the flip side of that: an avoidance of a consequence for not doing it.

And so when I talk like that, it's like, "Well, duh. That's how everything works." If you're neurotypical, indeed. Or even on the autism spectrum. Like yes, that's important. So I hear. I wouldn't know. Because as you so astutely mentioned, you can tell me it's important. I'm like, "I know it's important. That's why I'm freaking out. I don't want to have a negative consequence. I want the cookie. I want the money. Why can't I do it?"

Because interest-based, there are like four main triggers that I will talk about. This is important for our conversation too because this is how we develop accommodations or just support in the workplace.

So the four main interest-based triggers are, of course, interest, which is the toughest one. If that's an issue, it can be tough because it's subjective and it's what's interesting to that individual person. But once you understand what, like with my kid, she has some very specific interests that if I can tie it to like Pokémon, we're good. Or something like that.

So, interest. Then there's urgency. So we work so well under pressure. Like, we thrive, which is another reason why we're great lawyers. But what's happening there, I mentioned, sort of inarticulately, the time management issue, where our brains have trouble managing the passage of time.

Part of that is, one way we can think about things is in sort of like these dichotomies. It's reductionist, but I think it's helpful for concepts. We have the knowing brain, the doing brain. We also have concepts of time, now. If it's not now, it's not now. That's it.

You know what? Here's a good visual. Dani Donovan, she's a really great ADHD creator, educator, whatever, she has this graphic that she draws. It's the ADHD brain stuff is light switches. Whereas the neurotypical brain is light dimmers.

So you can see like, so for time, it's now or not now. Whereas if you have a neurotypical brain, it's like, we have now, we have later today, we have tomorrow morning, we have tomorrow all the way up to like 10 years from now.

For us, if it's outside, and of course, what constitutes now varies depending on the situation. Okay, so that's why urgency works so well for us because it's—And one thing I do with clients is helping to identify what falls into the now for the particular task or issue we're dealing with. And then from there, we can figure out ways to bring tasks that need to be done into that period of now without it being the last-minute frantic scramble.

So urgency and then, God, Sarah, I do this all the time. I'm like, "Okay, what are my other two?" Interest, urgency, challenge, or gamification. That's actually how I did my time entry. It was like a game. I was doing it constantly all day so that I could see how I was doing, and then I could leave at the end of the day being like, "Yeah, look at how much time I got in. Wasn't easy, but I did it."

And then see, I've been trying to come up with nice, letter-leading things to help me remember, but they never— I think "NICU" is like the closest I came to, and I'm like, "I don't like that one."

Sarah Cottrell: I think the thing about gamification that lawyers in particular sometimes struggle with is, I don't know, our profession is so serious and lacking in a sense of humor most of the time. So I think there's this idea that lawyers who have ADHD, or even maybe have ADHD, don't know they do, but would still benefit from some of these gamification hacks, I think there's often this sense of, "Well, I shouldn't need this because I'm a serious person. Serious people don't need to gamify whatever, whatever."

Annie Little: It's incentives. It's like giving you little rewards that are immediate in time to keep you going because the completion of the task, that's not enough.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. So I think, one, if that's something that people who are listening to us experience, the sense of "Well, I shouldn't need this particular hack," like, that's not true. You can need or use all sorts of hacks, and they can be as serious or as silly as you need them to be in order to get things done.

But I think also, it is this idea that everyone should function in the exact same way without any sort of divergence from whatever the mean is, is so deeply embedded in the legal profession and is so problematic for so, so, so, so, so many reasons.

But I mean, this is one of them. It's this sense of like, it's not enough to accomplish the things. You have to accomplish the things in the most joyless way possible.

Annie Little: Most joyless, most lone wolf, most hands-off from anyone else. "I did it myself by grinding."

Sarah Cottrell: Right. Most, most, what was I going to say, outspoken, "I never went to therapy" vibes of anyone, then you win.

Annie Little: Right. No. And gamification is something that's kind of hard to implement because our brains sometimes can be like, "Um, you know what? I can eat a gummy bear whenever I want. I don't have to wait until I send this email."

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, "I'm an adult."

Annie Little: Yeah. It's like, "Uh, you know what? I know who set the rules of this game, and they're totally full of crap, so I'm just going to keep going."

But I think you're right in using the term gamification, which I actually don't use that often, but I do use it for time entry because it can kind of work. But the challenge part, it's like, and again, think of the light switch. It's like, "Ooh, this is a fun challenge," or "This is too challenging, I'm out."

That's kind of where we are on the spectrum. So it can't be too hard. But think about law school. Why do so many people with ADHD graduate from law school despite the intense executive function required to get through? Because it's a challenge, and it's an achievable challenge for someone who is a high achiever.

I mean, this isn't the case for everyone with ADHD, but for people who happen to be high achievers with ADHD, this sort of challenge component where it's like, "Hmm, I bet I could do that," that can be something that's really, really beneficial in practice.

But I will say, just because we've been talking about time entry so much, I will say that that is the most common thing that comes up with both neurotypical and ADHD clients that I have.

Regardless of what your neurology is, your neurobiology is, these things that we talk about, they're beneficial to everyone. That's another thing that I talk about in my presentations. It's like, "Listen, leadership, executive functions are what I call expensive." They're cognitively expensive tasks for everyone. They're hard.

Even if you're as neurotypical as they come, which some people in my household are, that's something I talked to my husband about is time entry. Everyone can benefit from pulling some of these levers.

Because even if your nervous system responds to importance-based triggers, interest-based triggers are like, what you hear, those are like those hacks. You know, like, "Ooh, life hack" or "work hack" or whatever. Finding those things, making it interesting.

Because that's another sort of pushback or question that I'll get from neurotypical people. It's like, "Well, yeah, I prefer to do things that are interesting as well. You know, I'd rather not enter my time, but I do it." And I'm like, "Why do you do it? Because it's important." Exactly. That's why. That's enough for you. So it's a nice-to-have. These triggers are nice to have for everyone, but they're must-haves for people with ADHD if they're trying to overcome a deficit in executive function.

But demands on executive function, that's pretty much what drives our day. I think we're pretty familiar with the term analysis paralysis. That's an executive function fallout. That's executive dysfunction. That's another executive function, decision-making. I think we can feel that. You feel the weight of having to make decisions. The more decisions you have to make in a day, the more decision fatigue you will experience, or you'll be overwhelmed and end up in analysis paralysis.

And then, definitely related, almost a subset, people might lump these together, but I find them to be different. There's decision-making, but then there's also choices. Having to make choices.

So choices can be easier, but when you're confronted with too many choices or too many in sequence, it's overwhelming for people with ADHD as well. Or neurotypicals. So I think that's probably one of the main—next to time management, I think—decision fatigue, and analysis paralysis.

I think those are probably two of the more mainstream executive functions you'll hear about. It's something that I like to work with clients on because it's related to one of the other executive functions that, man, it's a real focus. How do I forget this? Planning.

Because if we have no interest in planning anything outside the window of now, unless it's like a vacation. For me, I'm like, "Oh, I can plan a vacation to the last detail a year in advance, no problem." But can I plan, like, I don't know, something else three weeks in advance? Probably not. Probably not without some help.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, and I just had this thought, which I'm just going to put this little comment as a side quest topic that we don't need to go into, but it's something to keep in mind if you're a listener who's listening. It came to mind for me as an almost 42-year-old woman, as we've been talking about ADHD and how it functions, I mean, it's like, obviously, a huge part of the function is related to hormones.

If you are someone who is experiencing some sort of, I don't know, hormonal dysregulation or something else, like say, perimenopause, you may/likely will find that your experience of ADHD changes. I think a lot of people would say it gets worse in the sense that the symptoms ratchet up. So anyway.

Annie Little: Me waving my hands wildly. What? Dopamine and estrogen are directly linked.

Sarah Cottrell: Yes. Fun facts, people.

Annie Little: Fun, fun facts. So thank you for flagging that. Before we get too far off—because that is how I operate—the fourth trigger is novelty. That's very much tied to interest. So novelty, I think of as like, Orange Is the New Black, novelty is the new interest.

So novelty can be really helpful. It can also be somewhat problematic in that some of the people I work with, they would call themselves job hoppers. I do not use that term. I disagree with that term.

But they see a new job, there's a challenge factor, there's a novelty factor. "It's very interesting. I'm very interested in this. Great." But then you get into the job, and it might be one or the other or both, where the novelty wears off and so now it's boring, or and/or you master the practice area or the subject or whatever, and so it's no longer a challenge.

So it's amazing having this kind of brain because it's like once you think you've got a new system in place, going back to the image of the light switch, you can also think of it in terms of very all-or-nothing type of thinking. So once we come up with the solution, it's like our brain is like, "Yes. Solved forever. Amazing." And it's like, that's actually not at all... no, this is temporary.

And that's another thing that I make very clear when I'm doing trainings or CLEs is that the expectation from everyone, but particularly leadership and management, needs to understand this, the expectation is that any accommodation or system will not last long-term.

If something does last long-term, that is an anomaly, and we welcome it. But that is rare. You know, again, it could be something that works for years and then stops working, or it could be something that works for a month and then stops working.

And then that's where a coach is helpful to kind of help figure out what's going on. But always, I'm like, the expectation is that things are not going to last. You find a great solution, it's awesome, it's working, just enjoy it. It’s going to work until it doesn’t.

That’s what’s really helpful for management, obviously, but also I would say more important for the person with ADHD to really internalize. These systems, hacks, whatever you want to call them, that you come up with and that work, and it feels so good because you're like, "Oh God, I never knew I could operate this way. This is really supportive, really helpful."

Then, by something that's completely out of your control, it will stop working. Sometimes it's a function of your brain being like, "No, it was novelty and it's not new anymore, so I'm over it," or whatever. It can also be life events or hormonal imbalances.

But again, the key thing being it's something that's outside your control. This is not a personal failing. This is not laziness. What I try to leave people with is this idea of: "Let's engage." I think this is everything I talk about. It's like it's an experiment. Everything is an experiment.

And even when the experiment goes the way you want it to, you need to maintain this spirit of iteration and experimentation. You don't set it and forget it. That's just not the nature of how our brains work. Honestly, that sounds really boring.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, and I think the challenge for lawyers is that so much of our profession sort of wants to run that way and tell people that that's how they need to run their lives.

The other thing I wanted to say about novelty that I think people often—so I've worked with a lot of lawyers who have ADHD who think of themselves in sort of a pejorative way, like you said, as a job hopper. The reason for that is they get into a job, they work there, and either it's not a good fit because it isn’t interesting, or various other reasons.

There is this sort of sense of, "Oh, well I am a job hopper, and that's somehow a bad thing." But the reality is that I tell people, being able to recognize, "This isn't a good situation for me," and getting out is, in fact, its own skill.

Annie Little: Oh yes.

Sarah Cottrell: Most lawyers do not have that skill. I'm speaking for myself with my nervous system tendencies. It's like a freaking miracle that I left a law firm after three years because, to be honest, I probably did have this sense of, "Well, just slogging it out forever is the morally correct thing to do, and therefore I should do it because I'm a rule follower. If that's the rule, then I'm going to follow the rule."

It is such a gift to have the ability to recognize, "This is a situation that I no longer should be in for whatever reason," and to be able to go. I think people who have ADHD often do have that ability in a way that someone who’s neurotypical or neurodiverse in a different sort of way does not have. And yet, because of the way our profession works and the things people have been told, they've been made to feel like this is a sign of a moral failure or like something that's bad.

Annie Little: A sort of shortcoming of theirs. It's like part of it is pattern recognition too. ADHD brains, we make connections between so many things that we don't even realize we're noticing. Some people will notice that, like I even noticed it when I went from my first job to my second job. I knew much sooner that I was like, "This isn't going to work," because the same patterns were emerging where I was like, "Oh God, this isn’t going to work anymore." You know? But it’s a blessing and a curse.

But what I like to tell people in that situation, it’s like you said, not only is it a gift to be able to recognize that and get out for yourself, it's also a gift for the employer. I think it's really important for people to understand that. If you can identify that it's not a good fit and you're going to leave sooner rather than later, yes, there's going to be some disappointment for sure, but the employer is going to invest less in you over time if you leave.

Like, it's, "Let's cut our losses. This isn’t working. I'm going to go. I can help with my replacement maybe," or, "You can stop investing in me in this way. I'm going to go elsewhere, and you can start with someone else." I know that that doesn’t sound great, but from an employer’s perspective, it’s really helpful for them from a planning perspective to be like, "Oh, like when I left my first firm," and they were like, "Oh, but we were going to make you partner." And I'm like, "Not interested."

Sarah Cottrell: You're like, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Annie Little: Yeah, I was like, "No. Not unless these other changes happen," which I know would never happen. So, no thank you. You know?

So it's like, they need to sort of know how they're going to run their organization or whatever. While there’s of course going to be initial disappointment, ultimately, employers are like, "Oh yeah, I’d rather know sooner rather than later that that’s going to happen." So it can be a gift to all involved.

Sarah Cottrell: Are there other things, Annie, that you want people to know either about the work you’ve been doing with people who have ADHD, or the experience of being certified as an ADHD coach, or anything else?

Annie Little: Yes. I think what I would kind of like to wrap things up with is, well, first of all, go back and listen to the ADHD episodes I did with Sarah before, because I'm much better. I'm much better.

But you know, I spent a lot of time in this conversation explaining, "Well, this is why these symptoms manifest because of what’s going on in the brain." Or most people have an importance-based nervous system. ADHD people have an interest-based one. So these things are different. They need different accommodations, different modifications.

The sort of knee-jerk reaction for a lot of people, people with ADHD and without, is to be like, "Well, that’s an excuse." Like, "That’s an excuse, and that's not good enough." It's like, no. It is not an excuse, because if it were an excuse, we would say, "That’s just the way things are. Deal with it."

And I think we all know that that's not how people with ADHD are allowed to operate, nor do they want to. I find one of the biggest parts of what I do, one of my favorite parts of the ADHD coaching I do, is providing validation to people through this kind of explanation, where it's like, "Okay, you're telling me this is what’s happening. You’re saying, ‘I should be able to do this,’"

It's like, well, you know what? As someone with your brain, you actually should not be able to do that 100% of the time. That's not the way your brain is wired. You would like to do things like that a hundred percent of the time, we can find ways to increase the rate at which you get that sort of task completed. But it's never going to be a hundred percent because, by no fault of your own, that's not the way your brain works.

Different people take that in different ways at first. But over time, it becomes like it's this validation of "Oh, there's nothing wrong with me. I'm just different and I can learn how to work with this." And that's like the best feeling. Because especially if I've got someone on Zoom, I can see them saying something and they would never in a million years think that the problem they're sharing or the way they're feeling has anything to do with the way their brain is wired.

I'll say, "That's a really common thing for people with ADHD, and here's why." They're like, "Are you serious?" I'm like, "Yeah, that's like my life." I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, because you have ADHD." They're just like, "Wow. Wow. Wow. I thought I was the only one," you know? And yeah, I feel like that's one of the most powerful parts of the ADHD education and then also the coaching.

By the way, it is ADHD coaching, but I call it executive function coaching. For people, like if they have like their firm paying for it or if they don't want people to see what's on their calendar, we just call it executive coaching. And I think it also helps to drive it home where it's like, we're talking about executive function. Like this benefits everyone. Just kind of, I guess for lack of a better word, normalizing it because neurotypical people struggle with executive function as well, because it's a very demanding cognitive task.

But we can plan for that. We can plan around it. We can ask for, and I think we talked about that in past episodes too, like the different ways we can work to get accommodations or whatever. But ultimately, there is no need for anyone to disclose their diagnosis. None. Because we're just dealing with executive function. Or executive dysfunction, however you want to say it.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, and I think like ultimately, I mean, obviously, there are lots of things that I promote by Former Lawyer, going to therapy being one of the main ones. But also, I think the goal is always for you to know yourself because that is what allows you to make the best career decisions about where you want to go next.

I think part of what we're talking about today is you don't have to be a different person. In fact, if you're someone with ADHD or any other variety of whatever, you don't have to be not that. Not the masking. In fact, the best thing that you can do is say, "Yes, this is part of my experience, and what does that mean for me?" As opposed to feeling like you need to be someone other than you.

And that's going to ultimately help you, I mean in all sorts of areas, but specifically thinking about what people who are listening to this podcast might be thinking about. That is going to be super helpful when you're trying to figure out, "What do I actually want to do with my career?"

Annie Little: And learning which things are outside your control. Like, "I am never going to like doing X because I know my brain does not work that way." You know, that can be very freeing.

I mean, Sarah, when I tell you that when I got diagnosed, it was like just this waterfall of things in my brain being like, "Oh. Oh, that's just me. Oh, so being a spaz, no, I'm not being a spaz, that's just the way I talk." You know, oversharing, is it embarrassing sometimes? Yeah, but you know what? It's not a moral failing. It's an issue of impulse control with my brain. Oh.

I mean, having that awareness allows you to know yourself better and understand what's going to work with you not only in your career, which honestly is very important, but in so many areas of your life. So even if you don't get a formal diagnosis but you're pretty sure you've got ADHD, and/or you don't want to do medication, or you can't take medication for medical reasons, or whatever, all of this stuff of understanding ADHD and how your brain works is going to be wildly helpful in a lot of ways.

So you can decide how far down that road you want to go. But as someone who's been about as far down as you can go, there's a lot of good stuff out here.

Sarah Cottrell: Amazing. Is there anything else that you would like people to know before we wrap up?

Annie Little: I don't think so. Just spread the word, especially if you're somebody who is in a leadership position, or in an affinity group of some sort, or if there's a neurodiversity initiative or something like that, bring up the idea of having a training or a CLE on executive function in the workplace, or ADHD in the workplace, or something like that.

If you're in a position to be able to do that, it's something that's going to benefit literally everybody in your workplace, and it's one of the best ways that you can support your colleagues with ADHD who you may not even know exist because they're, for all the reasons we talked about, too afraid to bring it up.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Co-sign. Well, thank you, Annie, for joining me today. As you know, this is a super relevant topic for so, so, so many lawyers, so I really appreciate you sharing all the things that you have learned, both having ADHD and training to be an ADHD coach, and coaching people with ADHD, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Annie Little: And thank you for asking me back, and for embracing and accepting my very ADHD way of talking and going through these topics.

Sarah Cottrell: Hooray. All right, amazing. I will talk to everyone next week.

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.