November 16, 2016: Pitch to the Indiana Lawyer Newspaper
I reached out to an attorney colleague I already knew who had his own column for the Indiana Lawyer Newspaper. At lunch, I shared my diagnosis with him and pitched my idea about writing about mental health and wellness for the Indiana Lawyer. After our lunch, he was kind enough to write this email to the editor of the Indiana Lawyer:
By email, I would like to introduce you to Reid Murtaugh. Reid is friend and attorney in Lafayette Indiana. He and I had an interesting conversation over lunch the other day about his interest in writing some articles for the Indiana lawyer on mental health issues.
Being a lawyer and an individual who manages some of these challenges gives him a unique perspective and I thought you might be interested in speaking with him further. I will let you both take it from here, but if I can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thanks!
I then sent this email to the editor:
November 16, 2016 at 7:28 AM
I have been practicing since 2009, and I started a solo practice in January of this year. I recently decided to share my bipolar diagnosis publicly. I am going to write about this experience and share it with other attorneys through social media and a newsletter. I would be happy to submit content to the Indiana Lawyer. I have attached the Facebook post where I publicly shared that I am bipolar and a draft article that could be turned into an article for submission. I want focus on how you can thrive with a mental illness if you work really hard at treatment. I would like to share some of the techniques I use because I think they can help everyone in the profession.
Feel free to give me a call if you would like to discuss this further.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
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