The Flourishing Lawyer: AMulti-Dimensional Approach to Performance and Well-Being, by Heidi K. Brown(ABA, 2022) Lawyers are readers by necessity – and also by choice. PresidentHarry Truman once said, “Not all readers become leaders, but all leaders mustbe readers.” This column will feature all sorts of books that lawyers may find interesting,both professionally and personally. Subjects will include nonfiction, fiction,biographies, popular culture, professional development, and more. Ideally,topics of books will mesh with the themes contained in the subjects addressedthat month in the magazine. For this introductory column, we’ll take a small stepbackward to address an important topic covered in the October 2023 issue: thewellness and well-being of lawyers. …. Another refreshing component tothis book is Brown’s well-rounded approach to incorporate other disciplinesinto lawyer well-being, including art and sports, to find one’s personal “flow.”She’s an avid boxer, which explains the heart-shaped boxing gloves on thebook’s cover. The training exercises encompass all types of fitness – mental,physical, and emotional – and call for the elimination of a one-size-fits-all approachto legal education and training, and how success is defined in the practice oflaw. She also discusses professionalism and civility at length, calling on alllawyers to change the general tone of our profession, stating: Of course, our jobs are demandingand we’re all going to encounter intense moments in which everyone is stressed.Naturally we’re all going to have bad days when our emotions get the best of usand we say things less artfully than we should. But when that behavior becomesa pattern, the norm rather than the exception, we must stand up for ourselves andothers. In the not-too-distant past,lawyer well-being was not widely discussed. This book is an important additionto a new area of legal discourse that will, hopefully, continue to flourish.■
