Why Are So Many Lawyers Unhappy? Six Reasons

In The Times (of London), there appears an article by Sathnam Sanghera entitled Why Are Lawyers Miserable that lists six reasons why so many young English lawyers are unhappy with their profession (Sanghera quotes a recent statistic that nearly 25% of English lawyers want to leave the practice of law).

Sanghera notes that lawyer dissatisfaction has been a topic of conversation across the pond in America since 1989 when Deborah Arron published Running From the Law: Why Good Lawyers are Getting Out of the Legal Profession, while England's lawyers are only recently waking up to the problem (not that American law firms have solved the issue in the past 18 years).

With delightful sarcasm, Sanghera bluntly rattles off the reasons for lawyers' unhappiness - his list is right on the mark:

1. the dehumanising hours (traceable, of course, to billable hour requirements)
2. the yawning gap between lawyers' intelligence and the frequently mind-numbing nature of their work (Sanghera humorously observes that television and movie depictions of lawyers as attractive people making clever arguments in wood-panelled courtrooms is a far cry from the reality of most lawyers who spend the majority of their time in back offices drafting and redrafting small print that almost no one will read).
3. the yawning gap between the ideals of those entering the legal profession and the reality (lawyers quickly find that the day-to-day practice of law is usually not about fighting injustice or changing the world)
4. the cumulatively lowering nature of the work (by this Sanghera means that the nature of lawyers' work responsibilities require them to be competitive, aggressive, judgmental, adversarial, emotionally detached, and paranoid -- traits that won't endear them to the wife and kids at home)
5. the vortex of hatred that envelops lawyers (i.e., the environments in which lawyers work is almost always adversarial and combative)
6. the self-inflicted nature of lawyers' suffering (Senghara's point here seems to be that most lawyers have the option of leaving law, but don't because they want the money, the power, etc. -- many lawyers thus feel "trapped" by a prison of their own making)

All in all, a magnificent, albeit depressingly familiar analysis. Read the full article here.

Dear readers, are we missing any other reasons you can think of?

Comments

[Kathleen]

Good article, but please note that the author lists 6 top reasons, not 5!

[Cynthia G]

Law firms need to go more towards flat rate billing. Mark my words, the billable hour will be the death of this profession for many reasons!