08/30/2026
Last night, we ventured out to the theater (for the first time in years) to see Coyote vs. Acme. Understandably, much has been discussed about the main themes of corporate greed and control. However, what personally resonated was Will Forte's character's professional and personal journey.
Attorney Kevin Avery is afraid of losing. He has apparently stepped away from more difficult, emotionally demanding cases and built a smaller professional life around routine matters. He lives in a hotel, which seems odd, but in reality it's where there are fewer decisions to make, fewer responsibilities to manage, and fewer things capable of going wrong. Much like John Cena's character did, it would be easy to judge him for retreating and deem Avery as unsuccessful. Instead, I understood him.
Lawyers are hired to enter conflicts that other people cannot resolve. We absorb the facts, uncertainty, financial stakes, anger, and fear, then accept responsibility for guiding someone through a system whose outcome we cannot control. We can prepare thoroughly, exercise sound judgment, and advocate effectively. We cannot control the facts we inherit, the witnesses, opposing counsel, our clients, the judge, the jury, or how the law will ultimately be applied. In litigation, both sides may have capable lawyers and reasonable arguments, but only one side may leave with the ruling it wanted.
Still, lawyers are expected to win. Clients may experience an unfavorable outcome as their lawyer’s failure. Some lawyers internalize that expectation until every adverse ruling or lost case feels like a judgment of their competence or worth. That gap between responsibility and control carries a psychological cost.
Candidly, there have been periods when I deliberately stepped back and chose more routine, less emotionally demanding cases. After years of handling difficult, energy-sapping matters, reducing the weight I carried was a way to avoid burning out entirely. Perhaps that's why I did not see Forte’s character as someone who lacked ambition or courage. I saw someone trying to remain functional within a profession that often celebrates endurance while providing too little support for the consequences.
An American Bar Association publication reported that a 2024 survey of lawyers and legal professionals found 69% experiencing anxiety and 36% experiencing depression. Yet when a lawyer reduces a caseload, chooses less demanding work, establishes firmer boundaries, or steps away from a "prestigious" path, the decision may still be treated as weakness.
We should be slower to judge. Making a professional life smaller or more predictable can reflect self-awareness rather than failure. Sometimes it's an attempt to recover. Sometimes it's what allows a lawyer to remain in the profession at all. Rather than talking about making lawyers more resilient, we should ask why the profession requires so much resilience for so long, and whether we are willing to support lawyers who recognize that continuing at the same intensity is no longer sustainable.
American Bar Association and The Florida Bar -- this is a conversation we should continue having in and for our profession.
