TS Eliot must have been attending a few school meetings of his own when he wrote: “We will not stop exploring, and the end of all our exploration will be to get back to where we started and get to know the place for the first time..” I just got back from my 40-year reunion at law school. I saw my old school for the first time through the eyes of a man who now understands the meaning of my three years there, but also saw for the first time the reasons for how I experienced law school and the four decades of legal practice that followed.
Over the years, law school announcements will follow you through various new offices or home addresses. They invariably include a direct request for money and feature a showcase of alumni successes. With all those smiling faces moving on to senior positions in government and private practice, I wondered how many of them were struggling like me to learn the trade and build a business. I felt like I was on the fringes, a creature of hiding and shame, surviving only in comparison. It was a surreal experience to see a promotion announcement, a closed deal, or a court victory by someone who wasn’t even born until ten years after I became a lawyer.
But the shame was mostly self-imposed. Comparison is a deadly practice that poisons balanced vision. Somehow it didn’t occur to me that a law school wouldn’t show the dark underbelly of alcoholism, drug addiction, divorces, lost cases, bankruptcies, and depression that especially afflict lawyers. After 40 years of stressful deadlines, demanding clients, and combative opponents, I still managed to win a few, had my health, and could claim a few friends and a close intimate relationship. Maybe I wasn’t a star, but I had survived 40 years dodging a wrecking ball and even had some golden moments.
The law is punishing work. He’s ruthless, the stakes are high and he’s extremely competitive. Add to that nasty cocktail that attorneys by disposition focus on “getting it right” to earn the rewards of social approval. That’s great, except it doesn’t work in the long run. It does not work more than 40 years. It may not even work for four years. High blood pressure, lack of exercise, poor diet, and exhaustion can quickly turn a middle-aged man into an intensive care patient. Large law firms especially require long working hours that turn into weeks and months of incessant hours. Family meals, family events, time with the kids, getting away from it all with your spouse—these good intentions pile up in the bin of memories lost forever.
The 2016 Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation report chronicles the victims. Of responses from 12,825 attorneys in 19 states, the results indicated that about 28 percent struggle with depression, with 19 percent admitting to disabling anxiety. But of the 12,825 responses, 75 percent skipped questions about drug use altogether. Lawyers may be afraid to admit their dependency for fear of losing clients and possibly their licenses. That secrecy only makes things worse as they cling to the illusion that they are still in control. After all, lawyers are personalities who “take charge.” They are reluctant to admit that they are addicts who need a 12-step program and rehabilitation.
According to Seattle-based psychologist Andy Benjamin, JD, Ph.D., law schools transform personalities into status-driven, often hostile adversaries who develop analytical skills and suffer from stunted emotions. The artistic or playful sides of law students shrink and disfigure from the experience. Professional work after law school reinforces the process of dehumanization. The desire to serve the public good is overwhelmed by the dangling carrot of prestige and big money. The good news is that the student population is getting smart and applications to law school are declining as students realize that high tuition doesn’t deliver the promised rewards.
The national epidemic of prescription opioid abuse leading to heroin addiction has hit the legal profession hard. The lawyers’ drive to succeed leads them to be functional addicts until drunkenness overtakes them. The “production at all costs” mentality of large companies can cause colleagues to ignore the red flags as long as the addict continues to hit their quota for billable hours.
My law school meeting included a slide show presentation on a large overhead screen. One slide listed as “In Memoriam” at least 40 dead classmates. When my eyes took in the slide for the few seconds it was shown, I was shocked by the numbers, about 1 in 7 of the total population of our class. Most of us are in our sixties. As I looked around, I saw the hunched backs, the rounded shoulders, the deep wrinkles around the eyes and cheeks, the overweight or underweight physiques, the balding or graying hair, and most tellingly, the awkward effort to connect with a time and a place that we left behind so long ago.
And so, I saw myself and the law school of my past for the first time 40 years later. I saw that I had been duped by a subculture of promised power and prestige, but had paid the price of my soul. If I had survived 40 years, and if I survived another 10, it would be because I continued to unlearn the dehumanizing habits of law school and the practice of law. It would be because I woke up from the hypnotic trance of social status and money to claim the true meaning of being a lawyer: to serve the cause of justice and social good. Corporations do not satisfy shareholder expectations with abstract ideals, nor do they pay lawyers to pursue such goals. There will always be personalities ready and able to promote shareholder value. But many great lawyers could make a living defining their legal practices for themselves if they had the courage and the imagination.
