<p>My school hosted a panel discussion last week. Six people, three of which were alumni, came to campus and chatted about their experiences of applying to law school, surviving it, and going into the workforce. All of them attended T5 schools.</p>
<p>Only one was a practicing attorney. </p>
<p>It really wasn’t something they wanted to talk about. In fact, when asked directly, they changed the subject. They were all still young, entrepreneurial, they said. They went on to talk about their blogs, businesses, etc. So, the question never really got answered.</p>
<p>Why do attorneys burn out? What can be done to avoid it?</p>
<p>Burn-out comes from too much stress. The leading cause of excessive stress is working too many hours.</p>
<p>The pressure to work too many hours is endemic at big law firms.</p>
<p>At my last reunion, I was surprised by how few of my classmates (at Berkeley) were still practicing in large firms after 25 years. There were judges, arbitrators, sole practitioners, in-house attorneys, government attorneys, entrepreneurs, and attorneys working for boutique firms. Off-hand, I can think of only two of my law school classmates who are working for the same firm they started with after law school.</p>
<p>The kind of personality that thrives on working really long hours year after year at a large law firm isn’t that common. Most who aspire to doing so burn out at some point.</p>
<p>Presumably, most know the risk of long hours when going into it. It’s funny that, not too long after the panel, I stumbled across this:</p>
<p>[Law</a> Schools Now Require Applicants To Honestly State Whether They Want To Go To Law School | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source](<a href=“http://www.theonion.com/articles/law-schools-now-require-applicants-to-honestly-sta,18089/]Law”>Law Schools Now Require Applicants To Honestly State Whether They Want To Go To Law School)</p>
<p>i don’t think its just a matter of burn out in big firms – i think a lot of lawyers burn out even when not working at big firms.</p>
<p>personally, i think too often people go to law school without truly understanding what it means to be a lawyer. they’re smart, they debate well, they have an intellectual curiosity that law appeals to. perhaps they take an undergrad course in some law related area and find it really interesting. </p>
<p>but the practice of law isn’t about pursuing your own intellectual curiosity, or debating what you find interesting. practicing law is about meeting the needs of your clients. i think too many prospective lawyers actually fail to realize the degree to which “the client” will influence their professional lives. </p>
<p>the client determines what issues you work on and what time frame you work on. the client(s) ultimately determine your livelihood – whether you are at a big firm with big clients or a solo practice with individuals for clients. clients can be unreasonable. clients can be demanding. clients expect a lot for the money they are paying you. clients do not want to hear that the work of another client is more important and keeping you from the work you need to do for them. </p>
<p>now there are plenty of service fields in which someone is working to please a client – but add to it the fact that lawyers are often dealing with clients when they are not particularly happy. “why can’t i do xy or z?” “why should the gov’t be telling me how to do xy or z?” “i can’t believe so and so did such and such to me!” “i don’t believe the union is expecting me to agree to ab and c!” and also by the nature of the business, you are often dealing with someone else’s lawyer whose job it is to represent their interests which are often different than those of your client. </p>
<p>now with respect to the specific situation you asked about – add in the fact that the economy has made the current job market for lawyers harsh to say the least. do you know if the non practicing lawyers were non-practicing by choice? maybe the opportunities they thought would await them when they applied to the T5 schools simply weren’t there?</p>
<p>Both unbelievablem and Greybeard made some excellent point, with which I agree.</p>
<p>The number of people who have the same job in the same field for many years these days is small. Why? Burnout is certainly not limited to the legal profession (though it is not unusual). Companies go out of business or change attitudes/goals/perspectives over time. Many companies want more and more from their employees, demanding that they do more with fewer resources and under immense time pressure despite layoffs and other morale depressing events. Some people just want a change at some point. Some people have opportunities present themselves that were unanticipated but, in the end, are welcome. Sometimes people’s lives necessitate or make desirable career changes – illness in self or relatives, having children, changes in career of spouse, etc. </p>
<p>Also, just because an attorney leaves Biglaw to find opportunities where they still utilize their law degree – in house, in the judiciary, writing, going over to the “business side”, etc. – doesn’t mean that they burned out. It just means that they followed a different path.</p>
<p>The Ed Sullivan Show used to feature an act where a guy had all these plates spinning on top of sticks. He ran frantically from plate to plate giving each a spin just in time to keep it from falling off. That’s what it feels like to practice law.</p>
<p>UnbelievableM - You described it perfectly! Many lawyers don’t get that they’re hired to work FOR a client, to help the client achieve the client’s goals. Those goals can be driven by economic or emotional reasons, as opposed to the law. (Nothing is more frustrating than believing that you have all the answers for a client, but the client doesn’t want to hear them.) You also can never turn off being a lawyer. The better the lawyer, the more he or she is engrossed with the law. It’s not just the long hours that can be exhausting. When you add law firm or corporate politics relating to the profession, it’s amazing that more lawyers don’t become bartenders in the Caribbean.</p>