"being a lawyer conflicts with almost every aspect of life"
A lawyer said that to me recently. Not in anger or despair or anything, just a calm, collected point-of-view on what it takes to be a great lawyer. And that is: everything.
The funny thing? For that lawyer, it was true.
Yet, there are so many lawyers for whom it is NOT true.
Let me be clear, I don't think the goal is to try to remove all the costs of being a lawyer. I believe that there's nothing in life that doesn't come without some sort of cost (even if it's the lost opportunity cost of pursing something different). So the real exercise then is in: 1) minimizing the costs, and/or 2) trying to make sure that they're something you're okay with paying (some lawyers I spoke with are okay with working super long hours, others want to make sure they're interested in each deal they work on).
There are so many variables at play here: industry, practice area, sex of the lawyer, private practice / private sector / public sector, seniority/responsibility, colleagues, commute/location, etc. I could go on and on.
The most important variable to start with is: what do you WANT (out of work, out of life, out of your relationships, etc). And I think the one a lot of people forget to ask is: how can I get even better at what it is I'm doing in order to get more leverage (with colleagues/clients or broadly within the market) to get what I want.
Pay attention to those two variables, and I believe that you'll be able to both minimize the costs and align them to be something you don't mind paying. In other words, you won't feel that being a lawyer conflicts with almost every aspect of life.
-Paul
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