"I Can Do Amazing Good." Liz Vennum is Running a Life and a Law Firm as a Lawyer with ADHD
Explicit content warning
01/27/20 • 58 min
Liz Vennum is hilarious and compassionate and crushing it as a law firm owner with ADHD. Her vulnerability and her (gentle but persistent and swift) kicks in my ass have inspired me and—in many ways—are responsible for helping me get over my own imposter syndrome and perfectionism to launch this podcast and the website that goes with it.
As the Managing Attorney at Vennum PLLC in North Carolina, Liz opens up about her life as a mom with ADHD, a business owner, a spouse, and a bleeding heart.
We talk about growing up as a girl with undiagnosed ADHD (inattentive, not hyperactive), Facebook groups, ADHD in the workplace, why JDHDs make great litigators, and Liz's approach to people and talent and management and serving her clients.
Learn More about Liz Vennum
Two Quotes
“It was just a relief at that point. Like, 'Oh. Thank God. This is why.' This is why I always think 'Well, you could be first in your class if you tried a little harder. You could keep your stuff organized if you were just more disciplined... Just to be able to let that GO..."
"We all had these two things in common: We were lawyer moms and we had ADHD. So the other moms who have coordinated birthday parties for their well-dressed children in matching socks, they just don't understand about the rest of our lives."
ADHD Resources in this Episode
- Law Mamas Facebook Group
- Law Moms Focus Facebook Group (for law moms with ADHD)
- ADDitude Magazine
- Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande
- David Seah
- Manager READMEs (blog post) (video)
- Good Boss, Bad Boss, by Robert Sutton
JDHD | For Lawyers with ADHD
- You can learn lots more, read the show notes, and much, more by visiting TheJDHD.com/7.
- Join the JDHD mailing list.
- Sign up for my totally free 10-Day email course, "An Introduction to ADHD for Lawyers."
- Sign up for our text newsletter— Text “JDHD” to (551) 212-8883 to join!
- Follow JDHD (and Marshall Lichty) on your favorite social channels!
- Twitter (JDHD)
- Twitter (Marshall)
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Liz Vennum is hilarious and compassionate and crushing it as a law firm owner with ADHD. Her vulnerability and her (gentle but persistent and swift) kicks in my ass have inspired me and—in many ways—are responsible for helping me get over my own imposter syndrome and perfectionism to launch this podcast and the website that goes with it.
As the Managing Attorney at Vennum PLLC in North Carolina, Liz opens up about her life as a mom with ADHD, a business owner, a spouse, and a bleeding heart.
We talk about growing up as a girl with undiagnosed ADHD (inattentive, not hyperactive), Facebook groups, ADHD in the workplace, why JDHDs make great litigators, and Liz's approach to people and talent and management and serving her clients.
Learn More about Liz Vennum
Two Quotes
“It was just a relief at that point. Like, 'Oh. Thank God. This is why.' This is why I always think 'Well, you could be first in your class if you tried a little harder. You could keep your stuff organized if you were just more disciplined... Just to be able to let that GO..."
"We all had these two things in common: We were lawyer moms and we had ADHD. So the other moms who have coordinated birthday parties for their well-dressed children in matching socks, they just don't understand about the rest of our lives."
ADHD Resources in this Episode
- Law Mamas Facebook Group
- Law Moms Focus Facebook Group (for law moms with ADHD)
- ADDitude Magazine
- Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande
- David Seah
- Manager READMEs (blog post) (video)
- Good Boss, Bad Boss, by Robert Sutton
JDHD | For Lawyers with ADHD
- You can learn lots more, read the show notes, and much, more by visiting TheJDHD.com/7.
- Join the JDHD mailing list.
- Sign up for my totally free 10-Day email course, "An Introduction to ADHD for Lawyers."
- Sign up for our text newsletter— Text “JDHD” to (551) 212-8883 to join!
- Follow JDHD (and Marshall Lichty) on your favorite social channels!
- Twitter (JDHD)
- Twitter (Marshall)
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Previous Episode
Helpers Gonna Help: Ethics lawyer, entrepreneur, and innovator extraordinaire Megan Zavieh
Megan Zavieh is a lawyer who helps other lawyers. She's a California state bar defense lawyer, an entrepreneur, an innovator and #legaltech nerd, and an omnipresent voice in attorney mental health and well-being.
In today's episode, we talk about lawyers with ADHD, shame, helping self-represented lawyers in attorney discipline proceedings, and how anxiety, depression, and ADHD show up as frequent patterns in Megan's clients.
We also talk about building law firms with margin and space and systems and incremental improvement. Megan's story inspires all of us lawyers with ADHD: we don't need "perfect" systems. We need the curiosity to start building them and the habit of improving them over time.
Learn More about Megan Zavieh
- YouTube
- ZaviehLaw.com
- Megan's podcast, Lawyers Gone Ethical, and the Lawyers Gone Ethical episode we recorded together.
- The State Bar Playbook
Two Quotes
“These people need help. These are the lawyers that I always said back when I was 18 that I want to be their psychiatrist. I don’t want to be their psychiatrist anymore, but I can be their counselor, and I can be their guide through this process.”
"Maybe you don't need medication, maybe you don't need to go to a psychiatrist, but we need to talk about this. And I think that lawyer-to-lawyer is going to be the best network for us to be having those conversations so that in the future you start to find out early on that if you get that feeling, it means you need to do something, not that there's something wrong with you."
ADHD Resources in this Episode
- Acuity Scheduling (*When I recorded this episode with Megan, I wasn't an affiliate. But now I am an Acuity affiliate. If you use my link, I'll get a small commission that helps JDHD stay focused. I use and endorse Acuity without reservation and without influence from my affiliate status.)
- Calendly
- Lawyerist LabCon (f/k/a TBD Law)
- ABA TECHSHOW
JDHD | For Lawyers with ADHD
- You can learn lots more, read the show notes, and much, more by visiting TheJDHD.com/6.
- Join the JDHD mailing list.
- Sign up for my totally free 10-Day email course, "An Introduction to ADHD for Lawyers."
- Sign up for our text newsletter— Text “JDHD” to (551) 212-8883 to join!
- Follow JDHD (and Marshall Lichty) on your favorite social channels!
- Twitter (JDHD)
- Twitter (Marshall)
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Next Episode
David Seah: Video Game Designer Turned Cult Productivity Guru
David Seah is possibly the most interesting man in the world. Growing up in a seminary on the top of a mountain, he has evolved from video game designer to JavaScript developer to cult productivity internet superhero.
His carefully-crafted, user-focused productivity tools help ADHD lawyers and non-ADHD lawyers alike grapple with their most important priorities and vanquish their most challenging struggles.
Learn More about David Seah
Two Quotes
“The big secret with productivity systems is you can follow any of them and they work... so long as you keep following them."
"A Gantt chart is a way of visualizing how much time a set of tasks will take to complete a project... It's great at Thanksgiving when you're cooking all these things at the same time and only have four burners on your oven. So I actually make a Gantt chart every year for my Thanksgiving dinner. That's how nerdy I am."
ADHD Resources in this Episode
- The JDHD Landing Page at DavidSeah.com!
- All of Dave's productivity tools in one place!
- The Emergent Task Planner StickyPad on Amazon
- The Emergent Task Planner
- The Emergent Task Timer
- Manual Gantt Charting in Excel
- The Concrete Goals Tracker
- The Task Progress Tracker
- The Day Grid Balancer
- The Task Order Up!
- Time Tracking in Excel
- Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande
JDHD | For Lawyers with ADHD
- You can learn lots more, read the show notes, and much, more by visiting TheJDHD.com/8.
- Join the JDHD mailing list.
- Leave Marshall a voice note at Speakpipe.com/JDHD
- Sign up for my totally free 10-Day email course, "An Introduction to ADHD for Lawyers."
- Sign up for our text newsletter— Text “JDHD” to (551) 212-8883 to join!
- Follow JDHD (and Marshall Lichty) on your favorite social channels!
- Twitter (JDHD)
- Twitter (Marshall)
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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