I Want to be a Happy Lawyer

I am a Control Freak and a Pessimist

Why? Because being happy consists of avoiding what generally makes other people unhappy?

Psychologist Lynn Johnson attributes depression in the legal profession to two personality traits many lawyers have: perfectionism and pessimism. The legal world attracts perfectionists because the legal world rewards perfectionism. We learn this very early on. In undergrad, we need to have a near perfect GPA and perfect LSAT score to get into the best law school.

But were all the lawyers who later wind up perfectionist and pessimistic trying to get into the best law schools with near perfect scores?

Then, we need to have perfect grades at the best law school in order to get into the best law firm.

Aren't we talking now about a rather small fraction of all the lawyers in American society? I don't know how you define "best" law firms, but might we say that not more than 1% of the lawyers work there? Surely all these perfectionist and pessimistic, hence depressed, lawyers cannot mostly be drawn from this 1% of the lawyer population?

As lawyers, we are ostracized for small writing errors, and praised for billing 14 hours in one day just to have a perfect answer for our client.

I must tell you that if lawyers were being widely ostracized for small writing errors, there would be no one left in the city to practice law.

And as much as we strive for perfection, we never feel like anything is good enough. As a result, our level of stress rises and our happiness diminishes. Many lawyers are also pessimists. We are always planning for the worst, never taking risks, and constantly worrying about the future. Not surprisingly, a Johns Hopkins study in 1990 showed "that in all graduate-school programs in all professional fields except one, optimists outperform pessimists. The one exception: law school." Why? Because "pessimism helps us excel: it makes us skeptical of what our clients, our witnesses, opposing counsel, and judges tell us. It helps us anticipate the worst, and thus prepare for it."

To Be a Lawyer in My Own Estimation

This seems rather awkwardly mechanical as a form of textual interpretation. Maybe we could find a more philosophically resonant way to put the argument. Polonius has the franchise, has he not? "This above all: to thine own self be true."

Learning to Control My Own Happiness

What a quaint reference. Christian New Thought rarely turns up in law student essays. This particular quote is actually, it seems to me, part of the generic language of American self-improvement literature. We are to perfect ourselves, or achieve worldly success, or whatever, by acquiring self-control. As stout a secularist as Ben Franklin can be found at that tabernacle. And what are we to control in ourselves? Our ideas and our feelings: otherwise known, to pretty much every cultural and intellectual historian of the American 19th century as "the Head and the Heart." One could get in from Horatio Alger as well as from Neville Goddard.

Hardly matters that it isn't even vaguely true. To get what we want in life—it would be substantially truer to say—we have to stop believing in our conscious control of our ideas and feelings altogether.

Why are these "references," rather than links in the text, that we could click through if we wanted to? They're not more useful here, are they?

I have some trouble believing that happiness consists in conquering one's tendency to be unhappy. So I don't think a happy lawyer is one whose self-respect is preventing her from drinking too much or committing suicide. I think she's someone who loves her work and believes deeply in its value, who has a way of life that suits and sustains her, and who faces the future with confidence and interest rather than with fear.

I Want to be a Happy Lawyer Aristotle said, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” I agree with Aristotle, and my biggest fear in life is not being happy. Yet, I chose to be a lawyer. According to a Johns Hopkins University study of more than 100 occupations, lawyers lead the nation with the highest incident of depression. An ABA survey indicated that 41 % of female lawyers are unhappy with their jobs. The ABA also estimates that 15-20 % of all U.S. lawyers suffer from alcoholism or drug abuse. Moreover, in 1996, lawyers surpassed dentists as the profession with the highest rate of suicide. Although these statistics are grim, I believe that it is possible to become a happy lawyer. In fact, when people ask me what type of lawyer I want to become, I do not say, “a prosecutor,” or “a bankruptcy attorney.” I say, “a happy lawyer.”

I am a Control Freak and a Pessimist My goal in law school is to learn how to become a happy lawyer. But first, it is important to learn why many lawyers are generally unhappy. Psychologist Lynn Johnson attributes depression in the legal profession to two personality traits many lawyers have: perfectionism and pessimism. The legal world attracts perfectionists because the legal world rewards perfectionism. We learn this very early on. In undergrad, we need to have a near perfect GPA and perfect LSAT score to get into the best law school. Then, we need to have perfect grades at the best law school in order to get into the best law firm. As lawyers, we are ostracized for small writing errors, and praised for billing 14 hours in one day just to have a perfect answer for our client. And as much as we strive for perfection, we never feel like anything is good enough. As a result, our level of stress rises and our happiness diminishes. Many lawyers are also pessimists. We are always planning for the worst, never taking risks, and constantly worrying about the future. Not surprisingly, a Johns Hopkins study in 1990 showed “that in all graduate-school programs in all professional fields except one, optimists outperform pessimists. The one exception: law school.” Why? Because “pessimism helps us excel: it makes us skeptical of what our clients, our witnesses, opposing counsel, and judges tell us. It helps us anticipate the worst, and thus prepare for it.” It is no surprise that lawyers are unhappy. Put a control freak and a pessimist in an unpredictable, hyper-competitive, and very often extremely demanding environment, and you get depression, suicide, and substance abuse.

To Be a Lawyer in My Own Estimation If lawyers are unhappy because many of them are perfectionists and pessimists, the question then becomes: am I a perfectionist and pessimist? You bet I am. How can I be a happy lawyer if I am a control freak and a pessimist? I will not find the answer to this question by choosing to work at a law firm that I like the most. I will not even find the answer to this question by choosing to work for a public interest organization helping people. I will not find an answer to this question by starting my own practice, finding my own clients, and making my own hours.

I believe I will find the answer through the advice a law professor once gave me: to be a lawyer in your own estimation. What does it mean “to be a lawyer in my own estimation?” According to the dictionary, the word “own” means, “of or belonging to oneself or itself.” The word “estimation” means, “the process of finding an estimate, or approximation which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable.” So, technically, I need to find the answer through the process (the process belonging to myself) of finding an approximation that is usable for some purpose even if data may be incomplete. Breaking this down, a “process belonging to myself” can simply mean my own thought process. So, “finding an approximation usable” would simply mean to guess. “Some purpose” would be the purpose of finding happiness as a lawyer. “Even if data may be uncertain” would mean even if the information I used to arrive at my question were incomplete. So, using my own interpretation, the key to being a happy lawyer is to use my own thought process to guess the answer, even if the information I used to arrive at my question is uncertain. In other words, to be a lawyer in my own estimation means to be a lawyer who accepts who they are, and trusts oneself despite having uncertain answers.

Learning to Control My Own Happiness If I can accept that I am a control freak and a pessimist, I may be able to use those qualities to my own advantage. Neville Goddard said that in order to get what you want in life, “[w]hat you must acquire [is] control of your ideas and feelings.” Ironically, many lawyers don’t realize that their own happiness is in their control despite being absolute control freaks. Thus, if I channel my energy of perfectionism into controlling my own state of mind—into controlling my own happiness, despite being pessimistic, I believe I can become a happy lawyer. I just need to accept who I am, and trust that my weaknesses will eventually become my strengths. I believe that I can do this in the three years I am in law school.

References:

http://www.legalunderground.com/2005/03/lawyer_depressi.html

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/therapy-matters/201105/the-depressed-lawyer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimation

-- AlexandriaSchumacher - 25 Feb 2013