The Advocate’s Loneliness

Written By Leigh Johnson

We don’t talk enough about the loneliness of advocacy. Not just for clients. For lawyers. For team members. For anyone who holds the emotional weight of another’s story—and has to do it while being "professional," controlled, composed.

Loneliness isn’t always about isolation. Sometimes it’s about role fragmentation. The part of you that feels everything isn’t allowed to show up at work. The part of you that’s exhausted has to pretend to be steady. The part of you that’s grieving is asked to cross-examine without shaking. That’s not just burnout. That’s a form of dissociation.

 

You’re Holding Too Many Roles Alone

In BTC, we talk often about the burden of the unspoken role—especially among advocates. You’re the therapist, the strategist, the damage controller, the grief sponge, the steady hand. But you have nowhere to go with your own grief.

You pour everything into your client, but when you lose, no one asks you if you’re okay. And when you win, there’s no one who understands how conflicted it really feels. You start to believe this is just what strength looks like: self-sacrifice in silence.

 

But We Build What We Rehearse

If we never rehearse being seen, we forget how to let it happen.

In BTC circles, we rehearse community—not just as a concept, but as an act. We do this through sociometry, through warm-ups that allow advocates to name:

  • What they’ve been carrying

  • Where they feel invisible

  • What kind of support they wish existed

And then we practice giving and receiving that support. Not abstractly. In real time. With real people. Using real language. 

 

Rehumanization Is a Skillset

Community doesn’t just appear. It’s built through mutual visibility and shared risk. BTC teaches lawyers how to be in community without performing for it. How to show vulnerability without falling apart. And how to recognize when others are carrying more than they can say. We don’t just impact clients through storytelling. We impact each other through role presence.

 

Subscribe to my Substack for weekly breakdowns, exercises, and behind-the-scenes strategies from BTC. https://buildingthecase.substack.com/

 

Leigh Johnson

Leigh E. Johnson—A Master of Storytelling in the Legal Arena

In the high-stakes world of trial lawyering, where facts clash and narratives collide, Leigh E. Johnson stands out as a guide for crafting stories that win hearts, minds, and cases. As a trial lawyer and founder of Trial Whisperer and Law Focus Groups, Leigh has dedicated her career to transforming complex legal battles into compelling human stories that resonate deeply with juries and clients alike.

Leigh’s innovative approach is rooted in action methods, which she uses to uncover the emotional core of every case. By combining rigorous analysis with creativity and empathy, she helps legal teams transform raw evidence into narratives that transcend legal jargon, capturing universal truths and driving courtroom success.

Her journey is as unique as the strategies she employs. From managing communications in military combat units to controlling airspace as an air traffic controller and even working in biotechnology, Leigh’s diverse experiences have shaped her unmatched ability to think creatively under pressure and frame the hidden elements of any story. A graduate and faculty member of Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College, she has trained countless lawyers in the art of storytelling, psychology, and narrative structure.

In this book, Leigh shares the techniques and insights she has honed over decades—tools that empower professionals to create powerful, impactful stories, whether in the courtroom or beyond. Through her lens, storytelling becomes more than a skill; it becomes the bridge between facts and understanding, between strategy and victory.

Let Leigh be your guide as you explore the art and science of the story spine, a transformative framework that has shaped the outcomes of trials, leadership strategies, and lives.

Next

Ghost Clients and Unspoken Stories