Women’s History Month, Alignment, and the Courage to Pause
This Women’s History Month has offered me a moment to pause and reflect.
Recently, I was deeply honored to be featured in Rubin, Fortunato & Harbison P.C.’s "Women to Watch” series, which highlights women who are shaping the future of their professions. The piece shares part of my journey - from two decades as a litigator navigating the pressures of a demanding profession, to discovering mindfulness during a difficult chapter of my life, and ultimately dedicating my work to helping others find more sustainable ways to live and work.
What I appreciated most about the article was not simply the recognition, but the reminder of how many professionals quietly carry similar stories. So many of us have learned to push through challenges, to keep performing at a high level, and to present a polished exterior - even when the internal experience is far more complicated.
Mindfulness didn’t remove the demands of my profession. What it offered instead was a different way to meet them: with greater awareness, steadiness, and self-compassion.
If you’d like to read the full Women to Watch feature, you can find it here.
A Conversation About Career Alignment
This theme of awareness and alignment continued in another recent conversation I had the privilege of having with Jessie Brown, JD, PCC, a former attorney turned career coach for lawyers.
Jessie featured our discussion in her newsletter ahead of the release of my episode on her podcast, Returning to Soul. In the piece, she reflects on something many lawyers - and many professionals - can relate to: choosing a path that appears clear, stable, and successful, only to later realize there are parts of ourselves we placed on the back burner along the way.
In our conversation, we spoke about the role mindfulness can play in helping people reconnect with themselves, not necessarily to leave their careers, but to experience them differently.
One idea we explored was the "art of non-doing.”
For someone trained to bill every moment of the day, the concept initially felt completely foreign. But over time I came to understand something counterintuitive: the space we give ourselves to rest is what in turn, allows us to recharge and gain greater clarity.
When we allow ourselves moments of stillness - even just two or three minutes at a time - we begin to notice important signals: Where we feel energized. Where we feel drained. What truly matters to us.
Mindfulness doesn’t tell us what decisions to make. But it gives us the clarity to make them more wisely.
If you’d like to learn more about our full conversation, I invite you to check out Jessie’s LinkedIn Newsletter "What Happens When You Stop Pushing and Start Noticing.”
Bringing Mindfulness Into the Ethics Conversation
These ideas - awareness, clarity, and sustainable performance - are becoming increasingly important in the legal profession.
On April 17, 2026, I’ll be joining a panel of outstanding colleagues for the Ethics Compliance Crusher program hosted by the Pennsylvania Bar Institute. I’ll be speaking alongside Daniel J. Siegel, Michael Yagercik, Victoria White, Esq., and Brian Quinn as we explore some of the ethical challenges that most commonly keep lawyers up at night.
The program examines issues that many attorneys face in everyday practice, including:
Conflicts of interest
Client communication challenges
Confidentiality and trust accounting
Competence and supervision
Importantly, the program also looks at the connection between ethical stress, professional judgment, and lawyer well-being.
From a Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (LCL) perspective, we’ll discuss how chronic stress and unresolved ethical concerns can affect decision-making and how evidence-based practices, including mindfulness, can help attorneys regulate stress, strengthen clarity, and support sound professional judgment.
The program runs Friday, April 17 from 1:00-4:15 PM ET and offers CLE credit for attorneys in participating states.
You can learn more about the program here.
A Question Worth Sitting With
Across all of these conversations - Women’s History Month reflections, podcast discussions about career alignment, and even ethics programs for lawyers - the same theme keeps emerging.
Awareness.
When we pause long enough to truly pay attention, we begin to see more clearly: how we’re living, how we’re working, and what may need to shift.
Sometimes that shift is external. Often, it begins internally.
So I’ll leave you with a simple question that continues to guide my own practice:
What did I do today to extend kindness to myself?
The answer doesn’t have to be big.
Sometimes it’s just one breath. One pause. One moment of remembering that you are human, not a machine.
And that small moment of awareness can change everything.
Warmly,
Courtney