Vermont Bar Journal, Vol. 40, No. 2 Vermont Bar Journal, Winter 2017, Vol. 43, No. 4 | Page 13

JEB: And he did the trip four times.
JS: He did it five times, I believe. And for
my six times, it’s something that I look back
on very fondly and would do again in heart-
beat, given the opportunity.
JEB: Coming full circle, do you feel that
while you were doing it and thinking about
doing it, it helped you balance your law
practice life in any way?
JS: It definitely is always hard to get away
from the office for ten days. That was al-
ways a challenge and I was never complete-
ly away because with email and stuff if any-
thing huge happened I was reachable, but
I would usually do with that in the evening.
There was a sense of physically being away
from the office and doing things that are
tangible and feeling connected with high
school students and the people down at
these churches that was really deeply thera-
peutic for me. And I come back physically
exhausted, but spiritually refreshed.
JEB: Ready to get back to work, but more
balanced in your mind.
JS: Absolutely, yeah.
JEB: Because there are a lot of studies
about how stressful the practice of law is
and how much addiction and depression
there is in the field, mainly because attor-
neys tend to run at one hundred percent
all the time go, go, go. An attorney’s shot
at longevity and happiness appears to im-
prove greatly if the attorney can find other
things that they enjoy doing and make time
for them.
JS: In today’s work environment, being
able to disconnect long enough to let go
of it, is a real challenge and for me it al-
most took this kind of an overwhelming ex-
perience to completely absorb me and to
force me to disconnect. If it was just going
out and sort of hanging out on a vacation,
I would not have been able to disconnect
that thoroughly.
JEB: Right, these journeys took a lot of
mental and physical energy.
JS: Whatever was ever going on at the
office was not first on my mind. It was how
are we going get this wall done? How are
we going to get this fence built? How are
we going to get what these people are
counting on us to do and how are we going
to not let them down?
JEB: And that puts your law practice in
prospective too when you come back.
JS: It does.
JEB: Indeed it fits well into our work-life
balance theme. Unfortunately, you can’t
www.vtbar.org
do it all the time, but then it wouldn’t be
the same if you were doing it all the time.
]It’s incredible that you made the time to
do something charitable, to do something
with your hands, to do something spiritual,
all of that wrapped into one but on many
occasions.
JS: To the degree I can, I try to do things
that are tangible. So, I like going out with a
chainsaw or doing a construction project at
home. I’ve always I’ve had to do that. I have
to get out of my head and work with my
hands. So that’s helpful.
JS: He learned a lot. That’s the first sort
of commercial construction he did, clearly.
JEB: People find that very peaceful. I’ve
had people write to me about this column
noting the tangible things they do to keep
their hands occupied and keep their brain
away a little bit from work. But that’s why
we started interviewing people to see what
they are doing to maintain balance.
JS: It’s a great thing what you are doing
with these interviews because for each at-
torney, as with Bernie, I probably would
have never known. There are some amaz-
ing things that people do, but you have to
ask them to find out what that is.
JEB: You never know! I appreciate your
taking the time in telling me your story. I
know there is such much more, but the ar-
ticle is only so many words.
JS: I think there is a part of me that hopes
that talking about this sort of stuff will have
a little bit of impact, to create a space -- so
these kinds of things can keep happening.
JEB: That would be a bonus!
JS: So maybe if somebody reads it, they
will be inspired.
it.
JEB: Right, but not just think about it, do
JS: What I found most amazing is how
wonderfully rewarding and fun it is to do
this kind of stuff. It sounds terrible, you
know working hard every day, sleeping on a
floor, cooking and cleaning, and doing the
stuff in groups, but it is really, incredibly fun.
That is what my experience is.
JEB: Because people are great--both the
people you are working with and the peo-
ple you are helping to bring people togeth-
er as ‘us,’ right. There is nothing more re-
warding than that.
JS: Yes, exactly!
JEB: Thanks again, and I do hope you are
able to go back!
JS: Thank you.
____________________
Do you want to nominate yourself or a
fellow VBA member to be interviewed for
Pursuits of Happiness? Email me at jeb@
vtbar.org.
THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2017
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