Attorney with ADD/ADHD?

[Anonymous]

I am a new attorney with ADHD looking for an attorney with ADHD/ADD that can provide some insight on how they have adapted the legal profession to their ADHD/ADD.

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[Anonymous]

:-)Welcome!

There are more of your types out there or at least that’s what my doctor has told me. He says he sees many professionals (doctors/lawyers) that have successfully completed their schooling and are well into building their careers. He only brought this up in one of our conversations because there is a common misconception that people can’t have ADD and be ‘successful’. It just takes the ADDer a whole lot more effort to get there than some others out there.

Unfortunately, I’m a teacher so I can’t give you any helpful tips re: work. Hopefully, someone will heed your call! Actually, I think I remember reading a post a while back that indicated that the person was in your field. Maybe he’ll pop back on soon.

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[Anonymous]

Hi EsquireADD,

I am an attorney and was recently diagnosed with ADHD. Unfortunately, I cannot provide any insight since I am still “adapting” with my ADHD and the impacts ADD has had and will continue to have on my career. I am a 4th year patent litigation associate at a top tier NY law firm (Vault top 10). Needless to say, my work environment can be very demanding, competitive, and everyone (i.e., the partners) expects perfection.

I am taking Vyvanse 50 mg, but for only about a month. As a result, I have been more focused and less distracted, but I still struggle with proofreading and typo’s (i.e., paying attention to detail), which I hope will improve as I continue to take the medication. My doctor recently added Wellbutrin XL 150mg in order to help me deal with the “emotional” systoms of ADHD. I think we, lawyers with ADHD, have to be more vigilant in knowing when to ask for help, such as, asking an assistance to proof-read a document or cite-check a brief, because more likely than not, there is a mistake that we missed somewhere. Good luck. I don’t know about you, but I am certainly not disclosing that I have ADHD to anyone at my firm.

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[munchkin]

A large portion of my job is law-related and I’ve been realizing (after a few months with the benfit of meds) I need to computerize, computerize, computerize. Also – double checking isn’t enough for me – I have to triple check for accuracy if something has extreme consequences for errors. (which is a lot of what I do) I don’t have any great proofreaders helping me right now, so I don’t trust that.

There’s nothing worse than asking someone to proofread and then they don’t really do it. Some people will just hand it back to you later on and say – “looks great!” (Then I find all the mistakes later after it’s too late)

Pieces of paper are not my friend, and I delegate the organizing of paper to other staff as much as I can. Despite that, my office still looks like a fire hazard, but the more I go “paperless” the better I am at keeping track of all the projects, their progress, and the oodles of supporting documents.

I have upgraded to a copy machine that scans to pdf and emails documents to me. I have put in one database, and I have two more being implemented. I save every email, scan, etc. and have it set up so I can run searches and queries to make sure I haven’t lost track of anything. Now that I realize there’s a real problem, I’m no longer in denial, and I have become much more diligent about writing everything down, scheduling everything in my calendar even if it seems like something I couldn’t possibly forget about, and setting many alerts and alarms throughout the day.

I think I might just keep my job after all!! (But I’m still appalled at the simple mistakes I make)

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[kc5jck]

I can relate. In college, writing computer programs and keypunching, some of my mistakes, syntax mainly, would be caught by the compiler and immediately rejected. It might have cost me anywhere from a few minutes to several hours wasted time. Logical errors, or mispelling of a variable, would take much longer to fix. As a result, I learned to be quite accurate in my typing which persists to this day, over thirty five years later.

I can imagine that errors in a contract can be just as subtle and result in years of litigation if not detected in time. I have made enough errors, often minor and infrequent, that I find myself questioning and second guessing everything I do. I know what to do, I just can’t to get to the 100% accuracy that I know I should be achieving.

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[Anonymous]

Esquire, wdbrown

I think an ADD coach is someone you should talk to and find out how what can be done to support your job activities

You should find a directory of ADD coaches who work with professionals including lawyers. I have no doubt if you search you will find someone. They don’t have to be local to your area. The coaching can be done over the phone.

I was just diagnosed (Nov 11) and I am searching for a coach. Most reputable ADD coaches will offer a free consultation.

just started to look for myself this week.. I plan on informally interviewing through these consultations to see who I would work best

My line of business is consulting which involves generating as many billable hours as possible. I am looking to improve my

organization and writing productivity (research and report writing) as well as other things

Will post back if you are interested in what i find.

If you search through the videos on this site you will find out what medical experts and professionals with ADD/ADHD think about ADD coaching

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[grcal]

Anyone know of a support group specifically for attorneys? Especially in person group in Northern California?

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