This new column seeks to raise the bar on the ethics and quality of life of lawyers. Many lawyers today suffer a growing malaise. As Steven Keeva, editor of the ABA Journal, says in his book Transforming Practices: Finding Joy and Satisfaction in the Legal Life, lawyers feel “trapped in lavishly furnished cells” in a “culture that values winning to the exclusion of almost everything else.” Keeva comments that collegiality and civility are “two much-mourned casualties of contemporary law practice.” A 1990 ABA Young Lawyers Division Survey of Career Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction found that ” increasing hours worked and resulting decrease in personal time have become a major problem.” and dissatisfaction in the legal profession has increased. The unhappiness of young lawyers (and consequent law firm attrition) reached such epidemic levels that the Association of the Bar of the City of New York formed a Task Force on Lawyers’ Quality of Life in 1996. The Task Force’s 2000 report reflects the results of focus groups and surveys of lawyers in 17 of the largest firms in New York City. The report summarized the price of lawyer malaise: “While at the firm, unhappy associates fail to achieve their full potential at a cost to them, their firms, their clients and their families. Invariably many lawyers leave the law firm, and even the practice of law, prematurely, resulting in undesirable and costly turnover.”
Most law schools teach law students to dismiss and repress feelings and intuition in order to draw conclusions based solely on demonstrable fact and legal logic. Yet Daniel Goleman reports in Working with Emotional Intelligence, that studies show that’s[f]or star performance in all jobs, in every field, emotional competence is twice as important as purely cognitive skills.” Exorcizing emotions may support sound principles for the rule of law, but constitute a formula for disaster in personal relations and group dynamics. Law professors and psychologists co-wrote a November 2001 Cardozo Law Review article entitled Why Lawyers Are Unhappy. The authors cited as a critical factor the “zero-sum” nature of the practice of law, in which the adversarial system creates a loser for every winner. They stated, “To the extent that the job consists of zero-sum situations, one can expect the negative emotions “ sadness, anxiety, anger “ to pervade the job.” The resulting single-minded drive toward winning the competition gets taken to the extreme. Mark Perlmutter asserts in Why Lawyers (And the Rest of Us) Lie, that our legal system “ingrains in lawyers that the truth is anything for which we can make a case.”
Not surprisingly, the legal life takes a grave toll on the personal lives of lawyers. Lawyers ranked highest in the incidence of depression among 104 professions according to a 1990 Johns Hopkins University study, with evidence of depression at a rate more than three times the average for the general population. A 1992 study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that male lawyers were twice as likely to commit suicide as adult men in the general population. A study of male Washington state lawyers found that substance abuse problems occurred at twice the rates for adults in the general U.S. population. A study of Arizona lawyers revealed an even higher percentage of attorneys with concerns about their alcohol use.
Despite these gloomy statistics, or perhaps because of them, lawyers are searching for and finding new ways to work that restore balance and fulfillment to the practice of law. This column will explore ways to practice law in more satisfying, yet still profitable ways. As Timothy Gallway discusses in The Inner Game of Work, we will look for ways to “reach desired objectives in a fulfilling manner,” meaning “both work objectives and personal objectives can be met at the same time.” Raising the Bar will look at emerging trends and movements such as collaborative law, holistic law, restorative justice, therapeutic jurisprudence, alternative dispute resolution, preventive law, lawyers as peacemakers, humanizing legal education, and other alternatives for success as a lawyer.
Even within traditional practices, as law migrates toward being a business more than a professional practice, lawyers find they must learn skills never covered in law schools. Today, in order to offer both financially successful and personally fulfilling careers, law firms utilize expertise in marketing, management, training, technology and finance. While firms may successfully outsource many technology and financial/accounting issues, today rarely can a lawyer afford to continue to maintain substandard skills in marketing, management or training/mentoring. As Ford Harding discusses in Creating Rainmakers, in the “old days” merely “being a first-rate lawyer in a first-rate firm would get people to call you and get you referrals.” As Harding notes, however, “growth in the number of professionals has outstripped supply in many areas, increasing competition for clients.” But how are these old dogs (or even untrained new pups) going to learn new tricks while keeping up with the ever-increasing pace of the practice of law? Raising the Bar will cover practical tips for marketing a law practice, time management, enhanced communication, personnel management, talent retention, and creating compensation alternatives that foster efficiency and rainmaking
A lawyer recently told me, “When I graduated from law school I was proud and excited to be a lawyer, but 20 years later I leave the office every day feeling battered and bruised, not only by opposing counsel, but even by members of my own firm. I feel like the proverbial kicked dog.” Raising the Bar will provide a variety of innovative approaches for lawyers who yearn for a more cooperative, less combative practice of law. At the same time the column will suggest practical methods to reduce stress by developing essential communication and management skills for today’s business of law.
Next month we will discuss tips to address a primary stressor in many lawyers’ lives: How to Market a Small Firm Practice.
This article was originally published in the “Raising the Bar” column of the Texas Law Reporter in February 2003