Physical Health and the Competent Lawyer

Capacity, Chronic Conditions, and the Rules

Law is physically strange work. Long stretches of stillness, punctuated by short periods of
extreme demand, with a nervous system that never fully stands down because someone else’s
problem is always pending. Over twenty years, that pattern leaves marks.
California Rule 1.1(b) says competence includes the physical ability reasonably necessary to
perform the service. Not a metaphor. The text of the rule. Sleep loss does not make you a worse
person. It makes you slower to notice the thing you would have caught, which is the part of
your work clients cannot evaluate and rely on entirely.
This two-hour program covers what legal practice does to a body and what the current data
shows, then the practices that hold up during a trial calendar rather than during an ideal week.
It spends half an hour on practicing with a chronic condition, an injury, a disability, or the
changes that come with age: pacing, right-sizing the book, coverage, assistive tools, and
deciding your handoff threshold in advance rather than in the middle of a flare. Then the rules,
including the gap between Rule 1.16(b)(8), which permits withdrawal when a condition makes
representation difficult, and Rule 1.16(a)(3), which requires it when representation becomes
unreasonably difficult. That gap is where the real judgment lives.
You will leave with a coverage and contingency worksheet to fill out while you are healthy,
which is the entire point.
This is education for lawyers, not medical advice. Decisions about your health belong with your
physician.

Schedule:
Time Subject
0:00 – 0:03 Welcome, objectives and scope
0:03 – 0:23 What legal work does to a body
0:23 – 0:48 Maintaining capacity in a real practice
0:48 – 1:03 The rules: competence, diligence and client
Time Subject
communication
1:03 – 1:05 Stretch break
1:05 – 1:35 Practicing with a chronic condition, injury or
disability
1:35 – 1:50 Withdrawal, firm measures and protected
characteristics
1:50 – 2:05 Case study: the trial lawyer and the
scheduled surgery
2:05 – 2:10 Quiz, evaluation and certificate

Credit line: 2 hours. Approval pending with the State Bar of California.