Migraine

Short question: What have your experiences been with the legal profession as a migraineur?

Explanation: I finished my undergrad in 2006, successfully enough that after two years teaching, I'll be headed to a very good law school in the fall. I have also been suffering from migraines for most of my life, though they were only diagnosed in my late teens. By modifying my lifestyle and a daily dosage of Topamax, I've significantly reduced the frequency and severity of my headaches.

At college, I chose my schedule around my headaches (to regularize sleep patterns and allow for absences) and informed my teachers. Now that I'm headed to law school, I'm concerned that my old strategies may not work anymore.

My questions are basically this:
1/ Do you have any tips for handling law school as a migraine sufferer?
2/ What experience have you had revealing your disability within law school/the legal profession?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi CH!

I'm not a Lawyer or even pretend to be one.
However, I can say welcome to mymigraineconnection, and to our forum family.

Are you going to be moving across the country? Far away from your current doctor? We have a Patient-recommended Migraine and Headache Specialist directory over here for your use.

Again, welcome, and if there's anything that we non-lawyer-types can help with, let us know!

Hi CH -

I am a lawyer, haven't been practicing for a while, though. I don't know how much I can help. My migraines didn't get frequent until I was out of law school and had been practicing over 10 years. (Before that I used to get about 1 every 6 months - that I can remember, though chances are I had more and only remember the very severe ones). When I was in law school and my first years in practice, I frequently got migraines around heavy deadlines and big stress events - either law school exams or court deadlines, or court appearances. I think stress was one factor and missing sleep and missing meals another big part in triggering the migraines. It's great that you're already having success with Topomax, that should help. I don't know how flexible your class schedule will be, but Hopefully you should be able to schedule your study time to get regular sleep.

If I had it to do over I would not have chosen to go into litigation. There are many areas of law that are not as intensely stressful or quite as intensely deadline driven. I also would not have gone to work for a big Wall Street law firm - a small practice usually has a more humane outlook on how many hours to expect of people! (I made a lot of money, I'll say that, the only time in my life that I did, but the cost to my health was high!)

Whether the law school will accommodate you probably varies widely from one law school to another. I know mine was very accommodating to a student with a brain tumor, but I never heard of them making any accommodations for anyone else! (Sorry, but it's true.) That was 25 years ago, so maybe things have improved. In terms of working, as I said, small firms were pretty accommodating. The courts were accommodating, too, I had court appearances rescheduled when I had a migraine on several occasions. The big firm I worked for expected me to work with a 102 degree fever, so they sure didn't think a migraine was something to stop for! If I had a migraine I ran into the ladies room to throw up and just kept on working. No wonder I left there after a few years!

I hope I haven't sounded too discouraging! I think you are miles ahead of where I was in already understanding and managing your migraine disease. I think you can choose carefully around what kind of work you do and create a career for yourself that works. i wish you all kinds of luck and a big welcome to the forum!

- Megs

Welcome CH.

One of our forum moderators went to law school with migraines. We can contact her for you and have her come to the forum to talk to you. She's on a leave of abscence right now.

Hello, CH, welcome to the forum. We're glad you found us.

Thank you so much for all of the kind welcomes and advice! I definitely would be interested in hearing from the moderator you mentioned, Deb. I'm not starting classes for a good few months, though, so no need to rush her back if she's too busy.

Meg - Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I'm not planning on heading into biglaw for a lot of the issues you describe. Did you practice in any settings aside from that firm that you can speak to from experience?

Thankfully, my headaches tend to hit just after majorly stressful events, so I'm hoping that will keep me going through my exam periods. I can't describe how helpful it is to hear stories like yours; they make me believe it's possible to pursue the career in law I've always wanted.

Hi CH and welcome! I'm not in law, but I am in architecture. I finished my 5-year architecture degree in 2006 - I can imagine why you're concerned about going through law school with migraines as going through architecture school was incredibly difficult. I did manage it though. I almost had to take a leave of absence my third year, when my CDH and migraines were completely out of control, but that's when I was finally diagnosed and started seeing a neurologist. Topamax got my head under control and allowed me to finish my honors degree on time, with a double-minor and a year studying abroad.

Now I'm working my internship years in an architecture firm as I'm preparing to begin my 7-section licensing exam this summer. I hope to be fully licensed by the end of 2009. Unfortunately my migraines/CDH are completely out of control again and working a full-time job is difficult. I somehow manage it though. A big reason I can do it is that I found a firm that's very employee-centered, that allows flex hours and has decent benefits (including health insurance). This is NOT the norm for the architecture field - normally we're the starving artist type working 80 hours a week for next to nothing.

So this isn't exactly the same as law, but there are a lot of similarities. Hopefully this helps you some. It is definitely possible to have a life with migraine disease. My migraines are now daily - I have migraine pain and symptoms 24/7 and have yet to find a good treatment plan. It's certainly not an ideal life, but I'm still progressing in my career and finding a way to live life around the beastie. It sounds like you've had success with this as well so far in your life.

We've got quite a number of lawyers/former lawyers on here. Gretchen (gwp) is one as well, so she'll probably come post here when she sees this.

Welcome again - let us know how else we can help you.

Welcome to the forum family CH

I'm not a lawyer, either. But, like Jamie, I can still say hello and ply you with welcome smooshes!

Hi CH - Sorry it's taken me a few days to get back here again. You said:

quote:

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I'm not planning on heading into biglaw for a lot of the issues you describe. Did you practice in any settings aside from that firm that you can speak to from experience?

Thankfully, my headaches tend to hit just after majorly stressful events, so I'm hoping that will keep me going through my exam periods.

You're certainly welcome! In addition to the big firm (golden handcuffs) I worked for several quite small firms and in a legal services office. All of those were pretty much 9 -5 or 9 - 6 with occasional exceptions. Also transactional law is a much steadier, safer bet for having a regular life than litigation!

With regards to law school, again, it varies school by school. Getting through the 1st half of 1L, until after your first exams, is by far the most stressful part. After that, sometimes we got take-home exams, which were stressful in their own way, but certainly easier on the body/head. The other thing is that in the big lecture classes (most of them, in my experience), everyone has assigned seating and a turn to be called on (this week the first row left will be called on, next week first row right, etc.). As long as you're there and prepared when it's your turn, it's not crucial to be in class every single time. You have to get there as much as possible, of course, but most students form study groups and help each other learn all the material. So taking some time out when you need it should be possible.

Good luck, again, and keep us posted!

- Megs

Hi CH! I am currently a practicing attorney and I graduated from law school in 2005 so I wanted to share my experiences with you. Before I start, I just want to tell you that you've found an amazingly supportive group of people in this forum and that should help you a lot in law school and as you begin your career!

As for law school, like nutmegan I found exam time to be stressful and a headache trigger. Ironically, I found orientation day to be quite stressful. I got a migraine at orientation, didn't know where the restroom was yet so I got sick in a garbage can in the hall! It was humiliating, sure, but that experience forced me to share my illness with my profs like you already had the courage to do in undergrad and I found that, even thought it was hard to admit a weakness in a competitive environment, it helped. Other tricks- I got a tape recorder for lectures where I was too ill or tired to take notes. I started reading study guides about a month before final exams. I tried to keep a regular sleep schedule. Finally, for final exams I tried to stay focused the whole week. Like you, coming down from stress is a trigger so to avoid getting headaches after each test I started to review for the next exam after the previous one and I tried to get plenty of sleep instead of going out with my peers. Some of these were tough choices, but I found that all of these things helped out a lot. Despite migraines I had a great law school experience and was able to participate in extra curricular activities.

As for practicing law, I am currently a criminal prosecutor but I have done defense work and a corporate law internship in the past. I can say that having headaches at work is a struggle. The key is to know when to push through and know when to go home. Even with the worst migraine, you can make it through that big trial or deadline. In my opinion, it's important to rest though when there isn't something critical going on. I struggle with how much to tell my coworkers about my illness a lot lately and, I won't lie, I sometimes feel guilty when I need to go home sick but I find the practice of law satisfying and totally able to be done despite migraines!

Let me know if you have questions or want to chat more. I'm new here too. I've been reading the forum for a long time but you're post actually inspired me to post

Cori

Glad you decided to post, Cori. Welcome! We'll hope to hear more from you in the future.

Cori-Welcome to the forum family

If you have any questions, just ask away. I look forward to seeing you around the forum.

Hi, Cori! Add a droolie welcome smoosh to the pile!

Hi Cori - Just adding my welcome too!

- Megs