Law School, The Legal Profession and Lawyers

Okay guys, as most of you know I am currently spending my summer doing research for a professor and I have some free time on my hands. I decided to do some readings about the legal profession to make myself ready to start thinking about what I want to do when my degree is done. My original readings had to do with trying to teach myself the ‘practical’ legal skills, which basically refers to client interviewing, counseling, negotiation etc. I have come to discover, unlike all other professional schools, law school doesn’t come close to teaching you what you have to know/do in your profession, i.e. how to be a lawyer.

Reviewing the bibliography in one of the books I came across some resources that just spoke about the lives that lawyers lead. So when I went down to the library I found a whole shelf of books that discuss the legal profession. Score for me I thought, I love to read and I would just sink my teeth into the books and come out a little wiser about where I want to go. Well let’s just say I got the biggest dose of cold water in the face I have ever gotten.

Now I had heard in various places and amongst some of the faculty that the legal profession isn’t always the best place to be. In the Canadian Bar Association magazine also hinted in a sort of oblique way that lawyers weren’t the happiest bunch. I felt this was troubling but at law school you learn this way to put troubling thoughts to the back of your mind, so I just placed this stuff back there. That was until I started reading these books.

Most of the books I read talk about practicing law in the states, with a particular focus on the major firms in the major cities. Many of the books are highly critical of law school, showing how law school can take bright young humanistic people and turn them into cold, detached, nervous, anxious and depressed people, who, like drones, will try to find any shred of security they can which usually leads them to take high paying jobs in corporate firms. The reason for this search for security is complex, but the books tend to point to a number of reasons.

First, probably most glaring, is debt load. Most students who enter law school have either no debt or very minimal debt. The reason for this is either they were really good in their undergrad and got scholarships and stuff or were from wealthy families who could afford to put them through their first degree. Well, after three years most students are in debt on an average of 60,000$. The prospect of making 90,000 to a 120,000$ your first year out is quite tempting since you could get rid of your debt in two years. But there is a huge catch to making this money, which I will discuss below.

Second, law school does funny things to you, both physical and psychological. First week out people are bright and enthusiastic, in good spirits, albeit a bit nervous. By January they are about half way beaten down, exhausted and burnt but still willing to move forward with the whole project. By the end of spring people are just ruined, burnt, waiting to get the F*%^& out of town. There are many stories, but I can relate one from one of the girls in my group. This girl was clearly a type A personality. She got to law school after only 2 years of undergrad. She was clearly a hardworking student. The only thing was, during exams, she had a huge bottle of peptobismol in front of her from which she would take large gulps. This is fucked I thought. Others complained of backaches, intestinal troubles. I myself, suffer from some chest pains and weird pains in my side, between my lowest and second lowest rib.

Psychologically it is super stressful. You know marks are important, really important if you want to have any flexibility to were you work(let alone make enough money to pay down your debts). The problem is, everybody at law school was near the top of the class so you are competing with the best of the best (outside of med school of course). Remember those statistics that said after high school only the top 10% or whatever made it to college? Will cream of from that 10% or whatever it was, the top 10% of that group and you basically have law students. For instance at Western for every 1 person that got in there were about 11 that applied and didn’t make it in. To make things worse law school grade on a B curve. What this means is that the average of the class always has to be a B. The result of this is that it is very difficult to get a mark higher than a B in any course. We all realized this and were hesitant to help each other out when we were facing problems. One girl here treated it like a one way street, she would expect other peoples help but refused to give any! The unfortunate thing is that law school rewards this kind of behavior. This girl got a fellowship to work in Europe for the summer. I myself just helped others figuring teaching someone Contracts just meant that I knew the material really good, which would of course just help me along when it came to the exam.

All this competition makes you paranoid, you start asking yourself questions about whether or not the advice the person was giving you was actually them trying to screw you over etc. You become real cynical and detached. You end up REALLY not caring about the fate of others and only become concerned with your own circumstances. Someone’s failure at something, or hearing that someone has C’s across the board will either invoke in you a sense of indifference (beh, not me who cares), accomplishment (yes, I did better than them), relief (phew, at least I’m not the worst in the class). Worse, for many, this kind of news, that someone did poorly, leads to a sense of Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is a German word that means ‘to take joy in the pains of others’. It basically means to take happiness in the misfortune of other people. This is the sense of happiness we get from realizing that someone failed at something, got shot down from their pedestal, got screwed in a financial deal etc. People are taking joy in the failure of others.

Law school also changes your habits of mind. I find myself to be more impatient with things. I find it difficult to read novels or philosophy. Its more difficult to just sit and reflect about anything, your so used to your mind going a mile a minute. I have also noticed that my political views changed. I catch myself being way more cynical about things, more bigoted, making ridiculous closed minded statements all the time. Even my mother noticed it, (JD I am sure you noticed some of this as well). Thankfully I have found some perspective on the whole thing and am trying to retool the way I think.

So what about the profession itself? Well the picture is grimmer than law school.

Depression and Suicide-> People in the legal profession, from the day they start law school to the day they retire are at a greater risk to develop major forms of depression or to commit suicide than any other facet of society. Think about these stats I got from the CBA’s Parctice link website:

• A study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University revealed that of 28 occupations studied, lawyers were most likely to suffer from depression.
• As outlined in Part 1 of this series, data collected from various lawyer and employee assistance programs across Canada indicates that mental health issues consistently top lawyers’ list of complaints. In 2004, roughly two-thirds of calls placed to various provincial Lawyer Assistance Programs concerned mental-illness or psychological difficulties.
• Although depression affects only five to ten per cent of the population at any given time, a recent study in Washington State found that of a sample of lawyers, 19 per cent reported symptoms of depression.
• A similar study conducted by the North Carolina Bar Association indicated that a quarter of those surveyed demonstrated symptoms consistent with depression; 12 per cent indicated that they thought about suicide at least once a month.

That last one is pretty depressing, 12 percent of those demonstrating symptoms of depression, indicated that they thought about killing themselves at least once a month. I know I will never practice in North Carolina but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was the same in Canada. This is a fucking problem, big time.

Not only is suicide a problem, caused by depression, anxiety, and stress. A whole host of other ailments come from this toxic cocktail, namely cardio vascular disease, the ‘shakes’ (uncontrollable shaking of the hands), hair turning prematurely gray, obesity, insomnia, loss of appetite… really there are to many to list. Studies show that the legal profession, from law school all the way to making partner in a big firm, suffers high rates of health problems than any other profession, including medicine where life and death decisions are being made.

On top of all this lawyers are big into Booze and Drugs. One study reported that over the span of their career 70% of lawyers will come face to face with some sort of alcohol related problem. Most cases of professional negligence deal with lawyers failing to exercise due diligence because of the alcohol. Cocaine is really popular as well. At a recent party I told some friends that I couldn’t drink because of a health condition and they suggested I just do lines of cocaine instead (I declined, saying that I would rather take the risk of liver failure over putting that stuff into my body).

I could go on and talk about marital difficulties and a whole host of other problems but I think the picture is being painted.

Do you remember my discussion of the debt load? Well making 90,000$ to 120,000$ sounds awesome until you realize the cost that would take on your life. To get this kind of salary you have to work in Toronto. I don’t view working in Toronto as inherently bad, a lot fo cool stuff there, but you have to work about 80 hours a week. Let me rephrase, you are expected to work 80 hours a week, anything less and your cut. Guys this means working an average of 11 hours a day, everyday of the week! Or 16 hour days if you want to work 5 days a week. I still fail to understand how this is even humanly possible, but it happens. Not only doesn’t this leave time for family or anything like that it also means that you never have time to relax and just unwind.

But the alternative is still working hard hours for like 40,000$ a year somewhere else, like the east coast, or smaller regions in Ontario.

Supposedly the work is really boring as well, which may explain the turn to cocaine and booze. thought it was bad enough people smoking dope before going to work at the call center.

You think, fuck that I won’t do that, but you think debt load and you feel compromised. One thing that makes the debt worse is that most of it is owed to a bank. If you take 10 years to pay off a debt of 60,000 it will end up costing you over 109,000$ to pay back a debt of 60,000 originally. Many people just can’t do it and defult on there loans or take jobs they really don’t want just for the money.

One girl in San Francisco whose debt had become 300,000$ turned to prostitution to help pay down her debt (While working full time as a lawyer). Of course, all we can do is sympathize with her. (Funny, the guys at the law school, when I told them about this, just shrugged).

Honestly guys I could go on and on about the problems with the legal field. Its real sad and disappointing.

I am sure at this point, if any of you are still with me, are wondering, well Dan what are you going to do? And my answer simply is, I don’t know. With no real alternative I just figure I will stay with law school and get in debt some more hoping positive things will come out of it. I hope I can just keep a sense of perspective on the whole thing.

I sent out some feelers to see how bad the situation is in the Maritimes for practicing law. I am also contemplating joining the Army after the degree.

This isn’t as crazy of an idea as it seems, I could go into the direct officer training program become and officer in the armed forces and a Military lawyer. A few good advantages about this are that I would likely not spend much of my salary since I would be busy with work. I would always have work considering I have to commit for a number of years. The work may be pretty interesting, considering I might command some tanks and deal with legal matters. Could be pretty exciting actually. It might lead to some UN work or something.

A second option I am thinking of exploring is working for the department of foreign affairs. This would be fun as well considering that I could be both a diplomat and a lawyer. As diplomat I would be posted around the world, get some language training and utilize my political science background. I know I have gripped about all things international in the past but this seems more interesting than spending 80 hours a week in a Toronto office preventing tax liabilities in the merging of two large steel companies.

The problem with these jobs is that they are super competitive to get into and don't pay all that much. All those international relations keeners are gunning for these jobs and I don’t have half of the volunteer experience that they have. Some of my profs here are pretty supportive of my alternative career ideas and think I should get a job somewhere (Some of them snapped their fingers saying I would be hired like that, snap!) but I have found that people tend to view my situation as a lot better than what it actually is.(Or maybe I am just a downer).

Another alternative is to enter academics with all its own problems. Heck, I am considering going to med school, if I can rank in the top 10 of my class I might just apply when I am done. I am curently ranked 25th out of 180.

So, my philosophy is I will stick with it, just make sure my marks are as high as they can be, try to get the jobs I want and if that fails well, what can I say, that is how the chips fall sometimes. Don't get me wrong I recognize that getting a law degree isn't the worst thing to happen to a person, neither is being in debt.

If your thinking of law, even in the most remote of senses, do some research first, you might not like what you find.