WHY IS LAW SO STRESSFUL?
Clearly, the fact that US and UK lawyers suffer from depression and substance
abuse at rates that are among the highest in the western world, suggests that
the occupational stressors they endure are at least partly responsible. While it
is beyond our scope to describe them all in detail, a summary account implicates
a variety of environmental stressors in interaction with a number of
predisposing individual characteristics.
Some of the environmental stressors are generic and apply to a number of
occupations besides law, whereas others are specifically indigenous to law.
Generic factors include: time pressures, work overload, competition, difficult
people; environmental stressors that are specific to law include: legal role
conflicts, adversary system, area of practice.
In addition, there are personality traits and demographic characteristics
that make some lawyers more susceptible to stress. Individual characteristics
include: perfectionism, emotional awareness,
values. There are also demographic
factors, including: age, gender, race. These factors do not act independently,
but are tied together in an intricate web. Depending on your analytical starting
point, each of them is sometimes the cause and sometimes the effect.
Among the primary complaints that lawyers cite as contributing to their
stress are time pressures, work overload, and inadequate time for themselves and
their families. Simple statistics as well as descriptive accounts suggest that
many legal workplaces are like working class (or blue collar) sweat shops. The
typical City/Wall Street lawyer is expected to log a minimum of 1800 billable
hours per year; many lawyers are expected to far exceed this figure. An 1800
hour minimum translates into almost 7 hours per day, 5 days per week, 52
weeks a year. Since this does not include, eating, socializing, going to
meetings, reading mail, seeking new clients, etc., it has been estimated that to
bill 7 hours one must work 9-12 hours. Thus, it is common for lawyers to take
work home, to work on weekends, and to not take their allotted vacation or
holiday time.
As the number of lawyers climbs higher and higher, some blame their pressures
on competition – there are many more lawyers now than even 20 years ago and many
seem to be competing for the same jobs. Other factors that have contributed to
greater competition include slower economic growth in the general economy,
corporate downsizing, and law reform. These and other developments have caused
lower morale, job insecurity and less loyalty. In summary, lawyers as well as
many other professional groups have found that during the 1980s and 1990s,
making a living has been become more difficult.
Some lawyers attribute their stress to less than ideal work-site atmospheres.
They complain about political intrigue and backbiting, disrespect and incivility
from superiors and adversaries, poor clerical and paralegal assistance, and
unfair promotion procedures. Others point to the fact that many law firms have
such a strong profit motive that they lack many human
values. These lawyers
often feel like commodities that can be used, discarded, and easily replaced. It
is generally known that our adversarial legal system may be partly to blame for
promoting a Machiavellian environment, in which aggression, selfishness,
hostility, suspiciousness, and cynicism are widespread. This causes a number of
distressful effects, including generalized irritability and anxiety.
Another set of concerns that lawyers experience involves conflict and
ambiguity about their roles in society. Some lawyers report a tremendous weight
that comes with feeling responsible for solving other people’s problems within a
context where mistakes are very costly. At other times they report feeling
guilty about the fact that they are often forced to hurt people, some of whom
have already undergone tragic ordeals. These issues also underlie the antipathy
that the general public feels for lawyers, which is itself another source of
stress. In addition, too many lawyers report that they lack a feeling of making
a real contribution to society.
Of course, not all areas of law or types of practice are equally stressful.
Generally, the private practice environment tends to be more stressful than the
corporate or government setting (except for litigation where government
prosecutors are underpaid, overworked, understaffed and under-supported).
Certain areas of practice, such as family and criminal law also tend to be
particularly stressful. Three underlying factors appear to make a difference:
workload, time pressures, and amount of conflict.
In addition to the external stressors, there are individual traits that must
be entered into the formula as well. For example, perfectionism is a common
personality trait among lawyers that makes them more susceptible to stress.
Perfectionistic people live by the following rules: "I must do a perfect job or
I will fail. I need to be in total control. Details are extremely important."
While some perfectionism is necessary in the practice of law, when taken too far
it creates an enormous amount of distress. Since the true probability of
everything going according to plan is close to zero, perfectionists tend to be
perpetually disappointed.
Another common trait among lawyers that causes stress is that they tend to be
exceedingly analytical "thinkers." In fact, a national study of over 1200
lawyers revealed that 77% of them prefer to make decisions on the basis of
emotionally detached logical analysis. These data suggest that a significant
number of lawyers do not fully appreciate the positive role that emotions can
play in human cognition. Thus, they tend to lack the ability to deal with their
own emotions in the healthiest of ways, and tend to be insensitive to the
feelings of others.
It is a fact of life that our adversarial legal system stimulates feelings of
hostility, cynicism, aggression, fear and low self-esteem. Lawyers who are not
adept at handling such emotions or who have a predisposition for experiencing
them will be more likely to feel stress. Similarly, because legal outcomes are
not always "just," lawyers who are not skilled at handling their emotions may
feel either too disappointed or too detached. Either extreme reduces job
satisfaction and personal fulfillment.
Another factor that has been partly blamed for the stress lawyers experience
is the ascendancy of materialistic values. A number of legal scholars
nostalgically recall a time when law was more of a profession and less of a
business. Their view is that not too long ago lawyers were much more devoted to
the rule of law and to such principles as integrity, commitment, and good will.
They were less focused on economic self-interest, felt more in control of their
lives, had a greater sense of contributing to society, and were more highly
respected by others.
Finally, such demographic characteristics as race, age and gender also have
been shown to be risk factors for stress among lawyers. Members of minority
groups and women in the law complain about job discrimination. Female lawyers
express higher rates of job dissatisfaction due to sexual harassment. Younger
and female lawyers also experience more conflicts about balancing work with
family obligations.
THE PLIGHT OF YOUNG AND FEMALE LAWYERS
Several large surveys of American attorneys have demonstrated that an
excessive number of young lawyers and female lawyers are dissatisfied with their
jobs. This is confirmed by smaller UK surveys. Although a significant proportion
of all respondents expressed significant job dissatisfaction, women did so at
almost twice that rate.
Reportedly, what young or female lawyers find most troublesome about law is
the amount of time they spend working at the expense of all other activities. In
a 1995 survey conducted in the US by the ABA Young Lawyers Division,
30% of ABA members who were under the age of 36 or admitted into practice for
less than 3 years were dissatisfied with the allocation of time between their
work and personal lives. This complaint was more prevalent among lawyers working
for large firms. Compared to 23% of young lawyers in 1-2 person firms, over 62%
of young lawyers in 150+ person firms expressed unhappiness about their
inability to live a balanced life.
Nearly half of lawyers, in survey after survey, report that the demands of
their work do not allow them to have a satisfying non-work life (i.e., personal,
family, social, civic). Of those who were divorced or separated, over a third
blamed the failure of their marriages partly on the pressures of their jobs.
Among lawyers who had never been married, nearly half said that the pressures of
their jobs were partly to blame for that as well. A consistent finding is that
younger and female lawyers are significantly more dissatisfied with the quality
and quantity of their leisure time than older and male lawyers.
Even though young and female lawyers are concerned about a variety of
problems with the practice of law, it is not surprising that "work overdose" is
their most frequent complaint. Young lawyers (both males and females) are in the
stages of life where they need more personal time to find a mate and get married
or to spend with their newly formed families. Too often, they find that they
can’t do that and get ahead in law at the same time.
Female lawyers, regardless of their age, face a similar plight. Although our
society has come a long way in terms of women’s rights, it is still more
socially acceptable (though not healthy) for men to neglect their families.
Women are expected to be the primary caretakers of children at all ages, as well
as elderly parents. In general, law is simply not a "family friendly"
profession. This, plus the fact that female lawyers tend to be more in touch
with their emotions than their male cohorts, creates more internal turmoil
regarding their time allocations.
THE WORKAHOLIC LAWYER
The single most frequent complaint about the practice of law is the "hours."
Indeed, the great majority of lawyers work more than the national standard
of 40 hours per week. They commonly take work home after an exhausting day, come
in to their offices on weekends, fail to take their full vacations, and often
operate in a crisis mode. For some (too many) lawyers, work pervades everything.
Even what seems to be personal time (e.g., watching a movie) is often secretly
spent thinking about work.
"Workaholism" does have obvious benefits, but these come at a price.
Workaholics tend to develop headaches, sleep disturbances, high blood
pressure, and other more serious illnesses. They are prone to acquire various
food, alcohol and drug addictions. In addition, they have difficulty
establishing or maintaining close personal relationships, and they have higher
divorce and failed parenting rates. Finally, it is not unusual for them to
experience depression, anxiety, and even more serious emotional illnesses ---
and eventually to "bum out."
The stress typically associated with the practice of law makes workaholic
lifestyles even more risky. Lawyers constantly take on the weight of other
people’s problems. They commonly deal with clients and adversaries who are
emotionally strained and at their worst. And, of course, lawyers are often
embroiled in conflict and involved with hostile opponents. Law professors also
may work long hours but, because they do not experience the same stress as
practitioners, are less likely to feel the deleterious effects.
From a health perspective, all of this suggests that lawyers (like pilots)
need to work less than the average number of hours, not more. So, why are so
many of them working so many hours? Who or what is to blame?
Accusing senior partners of being too demanding is easy, but this explanation
is probably too simplistic. Although many senior partners do indeed pay little
attention to the personal human needs of their associates, they are usually even
worse at taking care of their own. Also, some of the most workaholic law
firms
of all are solo practices. Similarly, workaholism cannot be totally blamed on a
current recession or on increased competition; long hours is a way of life for
many lawyers during prosperous times as well.
The truth is, workaholism among lawyers has a number of intertwined root
causes that are psychological in nature. Although the following are neither
exhaustive nor universally applicable, they apply to a considerable number of
lawyers.
JUSTIFIABLE PARANOIA
One root cause of workaholism is in the very nature of our adversarial legal
system, which requires many lawyers to adopt a dog-eat-dog world view. Within
this environment, it is realistic for lawyers to suspect that people have
ulterior motives, that it is safer to be secretive, that others will seize every
opportunity to take advantage, and that manipulation and selfishness is
widespread. In such an adversarial context, thinking this way is necessary for
victorious survival and reflects nothing more than professional competence.
When mentally ill people have "unwarranted" suspicions about the actions of
other people, it is called "paranoid ideation." The most common effects of
paranoid thinking include generalized irritability, anxiety and fear along with
physical symptoms like "butterflies in the stomach" and insomnia. These emotions
drive paranoid people to invest enormous amounts of energy into thinking of ways
to avoid anticipated harm.
Although the suspiciousness that lawyers experience is often justified and
cannot itself be clinically classified as "paranoia", it does have similar ill
effects. At the very least, performance anxieties are likely to force many
lawyers into workaholic behavior and thought patterns. In addition, since
suspicious ideation is difficult to turn off and on at will, it is likely to
spill into and damage their relationships with associates, friends, and family
members. In turn, this causes feelings of isolation, loneliness, and
depersonalization.
The best advice for people who are forced to work in a psychologically
antagonistic environment is to limit exposure to it. Workaholic schedules should
be minimized and more time should be spent in activities with family and
friends, so that humanistic feelings can be rekindled. Given all of the other
forces that drive workaholic lawyers, however, this advice is easier given than
followed.
PERFECTIONISTIC THINKING
Another cause of workaholism among lawyers is the fact that "law" is driven
by rules, order and organization, and thus, requires logical thought, objective
analysis, and close attention to details. Lawyers are regularly judged on their
ability to apply these skills within a context where mistakes can be very
costly. This raises performance anxiety and induces perfectionistic thinking,
which in turn leads to an obsessive dedication to work.
On one hand, perfectionism drives people to achieve professional success and
is reinforced through praise and recognition. On the other hand, the urge to be
perfect can lead to indecision, procrastination, and excessive thoroughness.
Thus, when taken to extremes, it actually inhibits productivity. In addition,
since perfection cannot be fully achieved, striving for perfection can cause
chronic discontent and low job satisfaction. In other words, it takes the fun
out of work.
Those who enter the law with perfectionistic tendencies are particularly
susceptible to having work take over their lives. Since there is always room for
improvement, perfectionists have difficulty knowing when to let go of their work
and stop researching, rewriting and preparing. At times, deadlines are their
only salvation. Perfectionistic lawyers also tend to spread themselves too thin.
That is, they anticipate (imagine) that events in the future will go more
smoothly perfectly) than they have in the past and, as a result, tend to take on
more work than they can handle.
This type of thinking also spills into lawyers’ personal lives in a number of
ways. Being excessively in control at work tends to choke off spontaneity
everywhere else. Perfectionists are often viewed by others as people who do not
know how to relax or have fun. They also tend to be critical and demanding.
These qualities often have disastrous consequences for their relationships with
spouses, children, and friends. Unfortunately, workaholic perfectionists
sometimes compensate for their failures at home by devoting even more time to
work.
INSATIABLE DESIRE FOR SUCCESS
Many lawyers, as well as others in our society, become workaholics because
they are driven by an insatiable desire to achieve an ever increasing level of
professional and financial success. Such individuals make the mistake of
believing that success has a satiation point, and that it is possible to get
there more quickly by "temporarily" sacrificing one’s personal life. For
example, some may say, "As soon as I make partner, I’ll pay attention to my
other needs." Since past professional goals are constantly replaced by new ones,
other needs are in fact permanently deferred.
These lawyers seldom enjoy their professional and financial success; they
live in the future, not in the present. No level of achievement is savored for
very long before it is interrupted by the pressures of newly set ambitions.
Success is elusive in that it is perpetually anticipated rather than
experienced. Happiness is always foreseen, but seldom felt.
In addition to a mistaken belief that professional or financial success has a
satiation point, these lawyers often are out of touch with the psychological
needs they are really trying to satisfy. That is, an uncontrolled drive to
succeed is frequently related to a deeper need for security, love, esteem,
power, or autonomy. For example, few people want a great deal of money per se;
in many cases wealth represents a way of getting love and admiration. In
reality, a more balanced personal life can achieve these psychological needs
more effectively than workaholism. Sadly, this fact is rarely understood.
For tips on how the practice of
mindfulness can help, send an email to
with
"MWS Mindfulness, Balance & Awareness" in the subject and nothing in the body
