do lawyers need to be miserable first in order to become happy?
I've now done 42(!!) interviews of lawyers for my book (the Happy Lawyer). That's enough for patterns to emerge - both among the happy lawyers and among the miserable ones.
One thing I've noticed a number of happy lawyers talk about is that they were miserable before. Whether it's the senior partner who sets her own schedule, the junior partner who's built a great team, or the in-house lawyer who left the firm. They're happy now, but there was a period (sometimes a long one) where they weren't happy. 😢 It's pretty common in fact. What's that about?
And more importantly, is it necessary?
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You see, one of the things I tell to everyone before I interview them is that one of my duties will be to separate causal factors from correlative factors. This period of suffering - what is it?
I WANT to believe that it's correlative. That you don't need to have suffered in order to be happy as a lawyer. Maybe prior suffering is actually independent of current happiness - after all, suffering is normal in life from time to time. In that case, maybe the pattern of suffering I've seen so far is just the normal fact that some suffering is inherent in life (Exhibit A - see Buddhism's first noble truth - "life is suffering").
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But for those of us who've grown up in the legal practice, there is sometimes an understanding that your first few years (particularly if you're at a big firm) are going to be really hard. I think the view is that we grow a lot through adversity, and it's important for lawyers to actually learn how to practice.
Interestingly, it seems like a lot of the suffering is not tied as much to what the lawyers worked on substantively, but rather HOW they worked on it. How much autonomy was there? Did they have to cancel personal plans? Did their bosses yell at them and expect perfection (you made a typo?!? 😡😡)?
But this piece isn't meant to be an indictment (or even an analysis) of the legal industry. I'm always more interested in things on an individual scale.
If YOU'RE suffering, what can YOU do? ❓❓ MUST you suffer in order to progress?
Certainly there are different strategies to dealing with professional suffering as a lawyer:
Strategy 1 (Head Down) - grit and bear it. Put your head down and eventually it will pass.
Strategy 2 (Peace Out) - f### it. Get out of law.
Strategy 3 (Fix It) - try to change where you're at, and if that doesn't work then change where you're at.
I'm sure there are other strategies, but those are the main ones I've seen so far. When I was coming up through the ranks, strategy 1 (head down) was the one espoused to us. I certainly felt called to try strategy 2 (peace out), though I never did.
So, how much suffering is necessary to become a good lawyer? And how much can we separate that from the suffering inherent in life?
What do you think?
Paul
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