Psychological Coaching in Law

Law is an interesting place for a psychologist to work in. We are working with a lot of very clever people who are highly trained in their field.

However, that intelligence like any superpower has two sides, as a rule of thumb, the more intelligent and highly trained someone is, the more they will try and use that superpower of rational thinking to try and think themselves out of a problem.

One of the problems with this is that not all problems are solvable by thought, sometimes, you just must acknowledge a situation for how it is, and then to change it both do and think differently. Very easy to say, but much harder to do when you are in the middle of a challenging situation. Trying to think a way out of a situation can be hard when loading is already high and can be counterproductive.

There’s often a level of cognitive load that’s just constant. Multiple matters, competing demands, and decisions that don’t sit neatly in a box. It’s not about ability — it’s the volume and weight of what’s being carried.

Alongside that, you start to see risk fatigue. When everything matters, the sense of risk isn’t just assessed, it’s felt. That can subtly shift how decisions are approached.

There’s also the reputational piece, which is rarely said out loud but is always there in the background. Lawyers know that their decisions don’t just have outcomes — they have visibility and often an impact, whether positive or negative.

All of this can leak into the levels of overall happiness and joy that a person experiences or is able to experience in their lives.

None of this is reflects a lack of skill or experience. But is much more a function of good people operating under sustained psychological demand.

The investment in legal know how and experience is huge, but to sustain and live a life where we also thrive, we also need to spend time learning how to use that capability under sustained pressure and how to moderate that pressure.

The legal world is at least as psychological as the world of high-level sport, where I have spent an awful lot of my life. We work as a matter of course with those living their lives through sport, I think the same will apply to the legal world within a few years.