{"id":2590,"date":"2026-01-21T17:51:41","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T22:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/aclr-online\/volume-63\/i-hate-self-care-a-criminal-defense-lawyers-lament\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T17:58:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T22:58:34","slug":"i-hate-self-care-a-criminal-defense-lawyers-lament","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/aclr-online\/volume-63\/i-hate-self-care-a-criminal-defense-lawyers-lament\/","title":{"rendered":"I Hate Self-Care: A Criminal Defense Lawyer&#8217;s Lament"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 1\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<p>Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I think people should take care of themselves. They should eat well, exercise regularly, and get a good night\u2019s sleep. They should spend time with friends and family. They should have hobbies and interests. With any luck, they should find true love. But in the past decade or two, and especially since the COVID pandemic, there has been a disturbing turn inward. I\u2019m talking about the \u201cself-care\u201d craze, which has become its own pandemic, or at least epidemic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 4\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<p>In this Essay, I share my concerns about what I regard to be an excessive focus on self-care in younger criminal defense circles and suggest a better way forward. First, I discuss the turn to self-care by the current generation of law students and young defenders and some of the literature urging it. Second, I examine the misuse and overuse of the term \u201ctrauma,\u201d and whether it is helpful to clients or lawyers. Third, I acknowledge that not everyone is cut out to be a defender and those seeking \u201cbalance\u201d might consider choosing work that is less demanding. Finally, for those inclined to become public defenders, I propose reframing the work as a privilege, not a burden\u2014that is, the urgency of the work and the commitment required to do it well makes for a purpose- driven, meaningful life.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/01\/I-Hate-Self-Care.pdf\">Read More.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I think people should take care of themselves. They should eat well, exercise regularly, and get a good night\u2019s sleep. They should spend time with friends and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15439,"featured_media":0,"parent":2548,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-2590","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15439"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2590"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2595,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2590\/revisions\/2595"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/american-criminal-law-review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}