“It seemed like being human was irrelevant,” says Keller, reflecting on the dominant narrative in the legal profession. The message was that the law was objective, and that the job of lawyers was to look at facts, analyze them, and come to a conclusion. “But the reality is that lawyers are human beings trying to solve the problems of other human beings. There’s some objectivity that we have to maintain but we’re always going to have emotions and thoughts. If we’re not accounting for that it creates a lot of problems.”
These muddled feelings of anxiety and belonging followed Keller into the workforce. But they were also joined by new emotions—excitement around having found her dream job.
Having determined that her initial path of environmental law did not involve enough human interaction, Keller moved to the federal government where she started as legal counsel for the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Process.
That’s where things clicked. In her role, Keller met with Indigenous people who had been taken from their families and communities to attend residential schools. Travelling across the country and collaborating with claimants and their lawyers to resolve claims, Keller was passionate about the work and valued the opportunity to contribute to people’s lives.
But over time, the stories shared by residential school survivors began to erode Keller’s own mental health. She felt the emotional rawness of the hearings permeate the professional shell she had so carefully constructed. “It got to the point where I couldn’t keep doing the work,” recalls Keller. “In my last week of hearings I was sitting in the car crying.”
Keller was diagnosed with secondary traumatic stress, a condition that comes from hearing the firsthand traumatic experiences of others. Looking back, Keller wishes there had been more mental health support available for legal counsel and training related to trauma-informed approaches.
“If you’re working in law you can easily be exposed to people who have experienced trauma,” says Keller. “Understanding that trauma exists and what might be happening in someone’s life because of it is so critical to be able to work effectively with that person and solve their problems.”
A role model for the lawyers of today and tomorrow
In her journey to heal and seek mental well-being, Keller says there are two lessons she would like to have learned earlier. The first relates to trauma, and how lawyers can take trauma-based approaches in their work—an emerging movement in the profession. Second, she wishes someone would have helped broaden her mindset of what was possible for her life and career.
To that end, Keller has contributed to a new book called Women in Law. The collection of essays shares the experiences of 23 lawyers who used their degree to pursue a diversity of pathways, both in the legal profession and outside of it.
Keller has also started offering mindset and wellness coaching for lawyers and entrepreneurs. Through her practice, she supports individuals to define what success means to them, navigate their mental health struggles with greater ease, and better understand how their body and nervous system responds to stress.
Her coaching is also about resilience building. “The goal of resilience for me is not about bouncing back from setbacks, because that would mean you’re essentially the same person as before,” explains Keller. “Resilience to me is about enlarging our capacity for what we can deal with in life [...] and expanding one’s ability to be with pleasure in their life.”
As well as supporting lawyers through her coaching, Keller also hopes to be a role model for current uOttawa law students. That starts with offering a piece of advice that would have helped during her degree: “Stuff happens in our lives. We need support, and the more support you can get the faster you will reach your potential. Even if that requires you to pivot in another direction—that’s totally okay.”
Keller’s life and pursuit of her own mental well-being are a testament to that.
Resources
Joining to promote mental health, the University of Ottawa and the Alumni Association have undertaken a number of wellness initiatives for our community. Need help but don’t know where to start? These links will take you to resources that may be very useful for you.