Lawyer Depression: Part 2 - How Depression Can Affect Our Career Choices
A few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the high rate of depression among lawyers. As I noted in my earlier post, the article cites “escalating billable hour quotas, . . . ceaseless deadlines and [the] adversarial nature of [lawyers'] work” as some reasons for why lawyers are so depressed.
Others have noted that lawyers are extremely pessimistic. As psychologist Martin E. P. Seligman notes, people with a “pessimistic explanatory style” tend to see “bad events as pervasive, permanent, and uncontrollable.” While people with a pessimistic outlook tend to fair worse in many situations (e.g. sales, athletics), pessimists actually fair better in law. Pessimists tend to see many more potential problems in any given situation than optimists do — a skill that the legal profession rewards. As Seligman notes:
The ability to anticipate the whole range of problems and betrayals that non-lawyers are blind to is highly adaptive for the practicing lawyer who can, by so doing, help his clients defend against these far-fetched eventualities. If you don’t have this prudence to begin with, law school will seek to teach it to you. Unfortunately, though, a trait that makes you good at your profession does not always make you a happy human being.
Unfortunately, the pessimism which makes some lawyers miserable in their careers can impact attempts to change careers as well. In 2001, career counselor Robert C. Chope wrote an article (abstract, full article pdf) identifying several pessimistic messages that career changers sometimes tell themselves, and his advice for overcoming them. While his advice is geared toward how career counselors can help clients overcomes these messages, much of the advice is directly applicable to career changers themselves.
The messages and Chope’s advice:
- “My career is a hopeless, oppressive endeavor.” Advice: Learn how you developed this mind set. What is the evidence that your circumstances are hopeless? What are the arguments against hopelessness?
- “I’m helpless, who would hire me?” Advice: Do one positive search activity a day and keep a record of the activities. Also, try activities that are unrelated to career search (e.g. improved eating habits, exercise, volunteering) to confront helplessness.
- “I can’t start at the bottom again.” Advice: Focus on what you will contribute, not where you will start.
- “I’ll never get work.” Advice: Evaluate the search process, instead of looking at a career search as a win or lose game.
- “I need to be certain about my search techniques.” Advice: “[R]ecognize that there are no certainties in the career change process.”
- “I feel as if I failed.” Advice: Recognize that failure “is simply part of moving forward.” Break down the career search into controllable activities.
- “I feel worthless.” Advice: Don’t evaluate self worth with other types of worth. Take an inventory of yourself which may include attributes that you may not have considered.
I know that I’m generally a pessimist and also a perfectionist (another trait which makes lawyers prone to depression). I also know that I’ve thought (and sometimes said aloud) some of the messages listed in Chope’s article. The two which I’m most prone to are “I feel as if I’ve failed,” and “I’m helpless, who would hire me?”
With regard to the first, I tell myself sometimes that I must be a failure — after all, I’m choosing to possibly leave a career which thousands of new graduates clamor to enter each year; one that I entered myself only recently. I also tell myself that I’m a failure because I haven’t figured out what I want to do next. I know both of these messages aren’t accurate — there are hundreds of other lawyers who have left the profession, and they aren’t failures — strong evidence that I’m probably not one either. Also, career change takes time — logically I know it , but emotionally I sometimes forget it.
With regard to the second, I’m not sure why I feel like employers wouldn’t hire me. If I think logically about it, I know there is no evidence supporting that. I’ve been fairly successful in the jobs I’ve had, and a legal career provides plenty of transferable skills. At this point, this message probably comes from not having developed a new career direction — I’m right that I won’t be hired (in fact, I’m not even able to really search effectively) if I don’t know what I want to do! At this point, my “who would hire me” message to myself is really putting the cart before the horse!
Now you know that pessimist messages I tell myself. What messages do you tell yourself that keeps you from moving ahead in your career?
Lawyer Depression: Part 1 — The Roundup
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the alarming rate of depression among lawyers. The Journal cites the statistic that “19% of lawyers suffer depression at any given time, compared with 6.7% of the population as a whole.” Ever-increasing billable hour quotas, “ceaseless deadlines” and the adversarial nature of lawyers’ work are among the reasons are cited as reasons for the high rate of depression.
This article struck a chord with legal bloggers: there are now about a dozen blog posts which reference the Journal article:
- Correlation and Causation in Lawyer Depression at Concurring Opinions and Legal Profession Blog (cross-posted). He asks, “But do lawyers become depressed, or do people with a biochemical predisposition to depression become lawyers?”
- WSJ: Why Are So Many Lawyers So Depressed? at TaxProf Blog.
- Even Lawyers Get the Blues: Opening Up About Depression (within the Legal Profession) at Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog.
We work in a stressful profession. People bring us their problems and expect us to fix them. We search for the truth in adversarial courtroom settings. We often deal with important and significant high-stakes situations. Your law practice tip today is to be alert for your own mood changes and to take care of yourself this holiday season.
- Depression Confession: Help for Lawyers Who Suffer at Blawgletter.
- Why Are So Many Lawyers Depressed? at Inhouse Blog.
- Lawyers with depression at Novalawcity. She links to a podcast that Daniel T. Lukasik, founder of lawyerswithdepression.com, did last year.
- Why Are So Many Lawyers So Depressed? at the WSJ Law Blog.
- Retirement and Pre-retirement Depression at Practice Development Counsel’s Next Generation Next Destination. Mentions the depression older lawyers sometimes face which is “frequently attributed to the loss of professional identity, especially if they have made their practice the dominant component of their life.”
- Lawyer Depression Comes Out of the Closet at ABA Journal.
- Lawyer Depression at Lawsagna. “Many lawyers hide such conditions for fear of losing their practices.”
- Is Blogging an Antidote to Lawyer Depression? by Carolyn Elefant at Legal Blog Watch.
- Some Disparate Thoughts on Empowerment and Creating Opportunities Through Blogging by Carolyn Elefant at My Shingle. She provides a few extra thoughts building on her post at Legal Blog Watch, noting: “But blogging goes beyond personal empowerment; it can create huge, life changing opportunities.”
We suspect that people with great creative gifts — a group that includes the best lawyers — feel the pain of birthing innovative ideas. Imagine, therefore, the agony of rejection — a common experience for lawyers. Which experience in many cases may lead to the dullness of depression.
The ABA and other bar groups are questioning the emphasis on billable hours (PDF) that drives lawyers to exhaustion, while some law schools are helping students and alumni evaluate whether they have chosen the right field. Individual lawyers are also stepping up to discuss their depression on websites or as visiting lecturers.
For lawyers who aren’t necessarily clinically depressed (which is a serious illness requiring medical intervention and professional help), but feeling angst or lingering malaise, one possible antidote (and by far, not the only one) is… blogging. Whereas law practice enslaves lawyers, blogging empowers, giving lawyers a unique voice in a world where they usually serve as a mouthpiece for others, giving them control over a domain, even if it’s just a tiny little piece of the Internet. Most importantly, blogging builds connections and conversation with others, and eradicates the sense of loneliness and isolation that serve as a breeding ground for depression.
Depression can be a big issue when contemplating a career change. Perhaps escaping depression is one of the reasons to consider changing careers. Or maybe depression is one of the obstacles hampering a career change. How we feel about ourselves plays a huge role in how we figure out our career direction.
In my next post, I will explore how depression and feelings play a role in career change.
Update - Another Article that I missed:
- Why Are Lawyers So Damned Depressed? Well, You’re A Lawyer. You Figure It Out at Build a Solo Practice, LLC. She cites another reason lawyers may be more prone to depression:
I would like to proffer another perspective on challenges facing all lawyers which are unique to our profession. I see it quite often with my clients and we address it. It’s not depression but my guess is it can cause depression. It is the knowledge that we have chosen a profession which turns problem-solving into an art form in order to be professionally and financially successful. This very same problem-solving skill which is highly regarded makes you a magnet for EVERYONE’s problems, not just paying clients.
Personal Finance and Career Change
Personal finance is one of the major obstacles that can keep lawyers from changing careers, or even taking a different job within the legal profession. A recent article in the ABA’s Student Lawyer magazine states that the “average 2005 graduate of a private law school carried over $78,000 in debt from law school alone.” Add in the average undergraduate debt of $19,000, and many law school graduates start their legal careers with over $100,000 in debt.
Consider these examples:
A recent law school graduate has $250,000 in student loan debt, with a minimum student loan payment of $900 per month. He lives and works in the Washington, D.C. metro area, making about $150,000 a year as a contract attorney. He wants to move into a permanent law firm job, but he cannot afford to make less than $100,000 a year. His academic credentials are not spectacular, so it is likely that any permanent position that he takes will be for less money. As the colleague who told me the story said, “He makes six figures, but he never has any money because everything he earns goes to bills.”
Chuck Westbrook of I Hate Your Job writes about his friend’s desire to change jobs, and the financial circumstances that stand in the way:
My friend David is in a job that he absolutely loathes. David is a smart, young guy who landed a pretty lucrative first job, yet now that he’s been working there for a year, he’s realized that he’s made some poor choices when it comes to his career and his finances, and he’s miserable.
. . . .
He wants to make a change, but you’ll recall above where I mentioned that David had become aware of some mistakes that he’s made. For one thing, when trying to pick out a job for himself, he had his eyes on the $$$ and not much else. He didn’t care that he didn’t find insurance all that interesting, and didn’t take the time to process what a 60 hour workweek would feel like.
He made some questionable budgeting decisions as well. David drives a relatively new Lexus and lives in an apartment in one of the nicest parts of Chicago. He also is without a rainy-day fund and has moths in his 401k. He’s driven his monthly expenses up too high for the next couple of years and has no savings. So now, though he wants to work in marketing, he’s obligated to maintain his income by something that makes him miserable.
As Westbrook notes, keeping your expenses under control is vital. In a recent post, JD Bliss Blog discusses a Wall Street Journal article by Terri Cullen about two sisters who left higher paying jobs, where they were miserable, for lower paying jobs that better fit their career goals. As Cullen notes, “Lots of people stay in jobs they hate solely because it pays the bills — ask any newly minted lawyer slogging away at a corporate job to service $100,000 in student-loan debt. My sister and I weren’t that deep in the hole, but we still felt trapped by debt.”
Cullen notes several moves that you can take to ease the financial burden of a career change, prior to leaving your miserable job:
- Focus on reducing debt.
- Build up your savings.
- Try making your career situation less miserable by improving your current situation within your company. Cullen includes new positions with your current company, flexible work hour arrangements, and urging your employer to make some changes to your current position as possible ways to stay with your current employer. (Of course, as JDBliss Blog notes, these types of changes are more feasible for some lawyers (e.g., in-house counsel) than for others (e.g., partner-track associate).
- Investigate the job market to determine your employability. Cullen notes, “[n]etworking is the best way for people in high-paying fields to find jobs in alternative careers.”
- Upgrade your skills: review job postings to see what skills employers seek and then take classes to fill in the gaps.
Of course, if you’ve already left your job, or you’ve been laid-off or fired, your ability to implement some of these measures may be limited. One tactic which is usually possible, however, is limiting your expenses by (as one of my favorite financial gurus would say) “amputating your lifestyle.” If David is serious about changing careers, he can lose the Lexus and move to a cheaper apartment. These steps alone would help him to free up the cash he needs to pay down other debt and establish an emergency fund. It is a matter of priorities: does David like his car and apartment more than the prospect of having a job that makes him happy? Is he willing to make the lifestyle sacrifices will help him attain his career goals?
My first example is a bit harsher, particularly since it appears the young lawyer is using his income primarily to pay off student loan debt, rather than live the high life. A few things do strike me, however. First, Washington, D.C. is an expensive city. Would moving to a cheaper city help this lawyer cut his expenses in a way that would help him pay down the debt faster? Second, what was this lawyer doing during law school? $250,000 in student loan debt strikes me as extremely high, even if he paid full tuition at a top law school. This lawyer may have been able to avoid some of his current misery by keeping his expenses under better control during law school. Again, he could have accomplished this by amputating his lifestyle. (For a good example of a student who is actively amputating his lifestyle, see The Frugal Law Student).
Personally, I have taken several steps to “amputate my lifestyle” since I began my career change. I no longer buy things that don’t fit with my career change goals. Restaurant meals, trips to the bar with friends, new clothes, and decorations for my house are all luxuries that are now rare in my life. In addition, I am much more conscious about small expenditures (like coffee from the local donut shop) than I used to be. While sometimes I kick myself for my lack of frugality prior to my decision to change careers (think of all the money I could have saved), I know that the steps I am taking now are the only reason I am able to work part-time, explore career options, and still pay my bills. While my financial situation is not improving, my career change choice is not making it worse either.
Career change does not need to be financially disastrous for lawyers. Planning ahead to mitigate the financial burdens associated with career changes, and taking steps to reduce your expenses both before and during a career change can help you realize your dreams by removing one of the major obstacles to change.