By the time Stacey Stevens became a lawyer at 41, she had already proven everything she thought she needed to prove.
She had rebuilt her life after early trauma, raised two children, climbed the professional ladder from legal receptionist to law clerk to law school graduate, and entered a profession that prides itself on endurance. On paper, it was a triumph.
In reality, it felt hollow.
“I remember thinking, Is this it?” Stevens says. “I had arrived, but I felt strangely disconnected from myself.”
That disconnection is not a personal failing, she argues. It is the predictable outcome of what she now calls performance conditioning, the invisible programming that teaches high-achieving women to survive, succeed, and self-abandon all at once.
The Myth of Meritocracy
Law likes to believe it is a meritocracy. Work hard. Keep your head down. Deliver results. Advancement will follow.
But research paints a more complicated picture, especially for women. National studies from Canadian law societies show that while women now make up more than half of law school graduates, nearly 30 percent leave the profession within five to seven years. Among those who stay, more than 60 percent report significant psychological distress.
Burnout is often blamed. Stevens thinks that the explanation does not go deep enough.
“Burnout is not the disease,” she says. “It’s the symptom.”
The real driver, she believes, is the way women are conditioned long before they enter law school. From an early age, girls are socialized to prioritize love, validation, and acceptance. To be agreeable. To read the room. To adapt.
That conditioning does not disappear when ambition arrives. It simply changes costumes.
The Goldilocks Trap
One of the most visible manifestations of this conditioning is what researchers call the Goldilocks Dilemma, first identified by social psychologist Alice Eagly. Women who are warm and collaborative are liked but not respected. Women who are assertive and decisive are respected but not liked.
Too soft. Too hard. Never quite right.
“In law, this shows up everywhere,” Stevens says. “How do we speak in meetings? How we lead teams? How much of ourselves do we allow to be visible?”
Over time, the safest option becomes shrinking. Holding back opinions. Editing tone. Performing competence without presence. The result is not just frustration, but exhaustion.
When Authenticity Becomes Risky
The second myth Stevens challenges is the belief that authenticity is a liability. Decades of organizational research support this fear. Women who display empathy and emotional intelligence are often viewed as less competent. Those who display authority are penalized socially.
So women learn to armour up.
“We start playing roles instead of telling the truth,” Stevens says. “And the cost of that performance is high.”
That internal split, between who someone is and who they think they need to be, is one of the strongest predictors of burnout. Not workload alone, but self-betrayal.
Trauma Does Not Stay in the Past
Stevens is careful when she uses the word trauma. She is not talking only about catastrophic events. Trauma can also be moments of humiliation, fear, or rejection that condition future behaviour.
A child mocked for speaking up may become an adult who stays silent in boardrooms. A teenager punished for independence may become a professional who overworks to earn approval.
“These moments wire patterns,” she explains. “And unless we interrupt them, they keep running.”
That insight reshaped Stevens’ career. A longtime student of personal development and neuroscience, she began connecting her legal training with identity work and narrative psychology. The result is her FIRE Framework, a model designed to move high-performing women from self-abandonment to self-actualization.
From Burnout to FIRE
FIRE stands for Fulfilled, Inspired, Resilient, Empowered, not as aspirational buzzwords, but as practical states of self-leadership:
- Fulfilled means aligning work with personal values, not external expectations.
- Inspired means reconnecting with purpose beyond performance.
- Resilience means building capacity without self-destruction.
- Empowered means owning your story instead of letting the system write it for you.
The work begins with self-awareness, noticing the stories driving behavior. It deepens through self-respect, refusing to justify exhaustion or silence as the price of success. It requires self-advocacy, starting internally, then extending outward with clarity rather than apology. And it demands self-discipline, the willingness to keep choosing alignment even when old patterns resurface.
Stevens often references Viktor Frankl, who wrote that when we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. “That doesn’t mean tolerating harm,” she says. “It means reclaiming agency.”
The Future of Leadership in Law
Stevens is quick to acknowledge that policy reforms and institutional programs matter. But she believes cultural change will remain limited without internal change.
“While we wait for systems to evolve, conditioning keeps running,” she says. “And women keep paying the price with their health, their confidence, and their presence.”
The question she leaves audiences with is deceptively simple: What would change if women stopped trying to be just right and started being whole?
For Stevens, the answer is not just personal. It is generational.
“If we want the next generation of women in law to thrive,” she says, “we have to model something different.”
If you are interested in booking Stacey to speak to your organization, connect with Stacey Stevens on LinkedIn.
Written in partnership with Tom White
