STRESS AND THE LEGAL PROFESSION

This paper was written Nov 28, 2005 for my UFV Crim 129 (Academic and Professional Development) course, taught by Terry Waterhouse.

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Stress. Every profession experiences it at different levels. Causes and effects are also different. For example, in the military, stress is experienced much different than in the legal profession. The reason being, the military profession is a life and death scenario. However, the focus of this paper is on stress and the legal profession.

In the legal profession there are a variety of causes of stress. Dealing with clients, lack of recognition, unwanted overtime and lack of skill are just a few causes of stress. Other causes of stress can be routed in the client’s legal matter, such as a profession that causes the most tension (i.e. combat tour with the military), death of a family member, divorce, going to jail, getting fired from work, and eviction from home. The effects of stress in the legal profession range from family problems to emotional problems, and the results can be just as devastating, such as divorce, quitting, or even suicide.

However, there are solutions to dealing with stress. According to Dr. Arthur Foster, a clinical psychologist, there are six basic strategies for dealing with stress, based on an awareness of what it is and making conscious efforts to deal with it. They include maintaining a balance of physical activities involving work, play, rest and exercise, communicating with one-self and others about problems creating stress, having a small group of people to talk to about those problems, reflecting on problems from a distance, outlining a purpose in work and maintaining a larger perspective (ABA Journal September 1979, vol. 65, issue 9, p1284).

Foster’s partner, Dr. Thomas Green, has “...a sense that many young lawyers are declaring themselves unwilling to live the life of the young attorney with the kind of stress that people before them did” (ABA Journal, September 1979, vol.65, issue 9, p1284).

Green said this new attitude has resulted in a greater effort by many lawyers to balance the priorities of their business and personal lives. Foster added that many lawyers now “want lawyer well-being, not just lawyer survival or even financial success” (ABA Journal, September 1979, vol.65, issue 9, p1284).

Other ways of dealing with stress are imaging techniques. “That’s where you imagine a place where you feel really comfortable, thinking of what it looks like, feels like, smells like. It can be in a forest, by a stream or ocean or in a meadow surrounded by flowers – whatever you want. Do this in a quiet place for several minutes a day to help you relax. “It takes as long as a coffee break but it’s much more refreshing,” said Sara Weiss, director of Heartland Psychological Services (Blodgett, Nancy ABA Journal, September 1985, vol. 71, issue 9, p19).

A psychologist who offers a stress reduction class for lawyers at Fordham University School of Law in New York, Weiss also suggested lawyers set aside certain times during the day when they are not accessible to clients (Blodgett, p19). Other options she suggested to reduce stress are to work part time, teach law instead of practicing full time, or set up a limited private practice (Blodgett, p19).

She acknowledged that these options will likely reduce one’s salary. But that’s the trade-off for becoming calmer and perhaps, healthier... (Blodgett, p19). Weiss says lawyers typically cope with stress by drinking, taking drugs, becoming obsessive about problems or internalizing them, which can lead to physical ailments such as ulcers or colitis (Blodgett, p19).

Elise Geltzer, director of professional development for Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York, said many associates in her firm say they pay a heavy price for long hours – more than 2,000 hours a year in some firms. Single lawyers have trouble meeting other people. Married associates have little time for their spouses and children. They have become short-tempered. In short, they are well-paid but don’t have the time to enjoy the money they make (Marcotte, Paul, ABA Journal, October 1989, vol. 75, issue 10, p43).

On the positive side, Geltzer noted, many of these same lawyers look at the grind as similar to a medical internship – an intense post-graduate learning experience. Recognizing that associates aren’t drones churning out billable hours, Geltzer’s firm has taken some steps to help make the work experience less stressful. If approved by a partner, an associate’s pro-bono or other civic work counts toward the number of hours worked. Also included is time spent on bar work, speeches, continuing legal education, recruiting and law firm committees (Marcotte, p43).

The firm also has memberships for its lawyers at health clubs, hands out tickets to plays and has a mentor program. Confidential counselling for stress or other personal problems is available through an employee-assistance program (Marcotte, p43).

But, said Yale Law School Professor Geoffrey Hazzard, the growing competition among firms, the explosion of legal work produced and the instability of long-term relationships between firms and clients all mean that the pressures will continue. “The problem is how to cope with it, and not say it’ll go away,” said Hazzard (Marcotte, p43).

“In 1985, an ABA survey of 2,500 young lawyers found that over half of the second-year associates in large firms were dissatisfied with their work,” noted Don Samuelson, a Chicago lawyer who runs a placement service for lawyers (Harper, Timothy, ABA Journal, May 1987, supplement, vol. 73, issue 5, p28).

Samuelson, whose work includes putting experienced lawyers into nonlegal jobs, said, “Early years in a large firm are characterized by the novelty of a big paycheck, long hours, tedious detail and a growing awareness of the methods by which senior lawyers solve problems and collect fees. The lives of young lawyers centre on work, almost to the exclusion of anything else” (Harper, p28).

For some, the work is so absorbing, so consuming, that they don’t mind the lack of a home, family or social life. Some would like to enjoy life outside the office more, but cannot because so much of their identities are bound up in the kind of big-time, big-city law practice... (Harper, p28).

The money also can be a trap: If an associate in a big firm quits the law, becomes a corporate counsel or goes to a small firm, how many years will it take him to get back to that big-firm salary (Harper, p28)? There are many reasons for burnout among the best and brightest, beginning even before law school, Samuelson says (Harper, p28).

“Part of the problem is that so many new associates just don’t know what to expect,” said Nancy Krieger, placement director at the University of Michigan Law School. “They don’t understand that a lot of the practice of law is so solitary, with so much time alone in the library. And clerkships don’t give them a full appreciation of the number of hours involved.” Krieger said placement counselors used to warn graduates about 50-60-hour work weeks...(Harper, p28).

In addition, the rapid growth of so many firms since the late 1970’s has meant a different atmosphere for new associates. “Firms that used to have 20 or 30 lawyers might now have 200 or 300, and the same friendliness is just not there,” Krieger said. “There is often a real sense of isolation among new associates coming into a firm. They just feel they’re not very bright” (Harper, p28).

Richard Leukart, the senior partner in charge of recruiting at Cleveland-based Baker & Hostetler, said associates burn out because of too many hours, a lack of control over cases and boredom with doing the same type of work repeatedly (Harper, p28).

Liza Yntema graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1984 and went to work for a 225-lawyer firm in Chicago. Within months, she wanted out. “It was a combination of reasons,” she says. “I wasn’t doing things I felt I was good at. I was in the library a lot, writing briefs, with no sense of what was going on in the real world – politics, economics or anything else. I was surprised at the lack of respect between partners and associates” (Harper, p28).

Jeff Mohr and Roger Wiegley, classmates who graduated from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1978, both started out with big firms and later took corporate counsel jobs. Mohr never looked back, but Wiegley soon returned to the same big firm he had left (Harper, p28).

“In a big firm, a young associate’s practice is confined to a narrow area in order to justify the higher fees,” says Mohr, who in late 1983 became senior counsel for the Charter Company, a Jacksonville, Fla., Oil Company. “You do the same kind of work over and over, and I felt I was getting stagnant. I didn’t feel I was developing properly as a lawyer, with a wide range of responsibilities” (Harper, p28).

It didn’t help that his firm, Foley & Lardner, raised the number of hours an associate was supposed to bill from 1,500 to 2,000 a year, and lengthened the track for making partner from six and a half to eight and a half years (Harper, p28).

“At a big firm, you’re not expected to have much of a family life,” says Mohr, the father of two small boys. After working 60-70 hours a week at the law firm, his 50-55 hours a week as a corporate counsel seemed like a breeze (Harper, p28).

“But I was regarded as a tremendous worker because most people at a corporation only work 40-45 hours a week,” he said (Harper, p28).

The downside of corporate work is that the pay doesn’t keep up, he says. And while there are usually a number of partner vacancies in a law firm, there is only one general counsel spot to shoot for in a corporation (Harper, p28).

Wiegley had a different experience when he left the Washington office of Sullivan & Cromwell to become the one-man legal department for a California company. “The work was not nearly as challenging,” he said. “If you work for a corporation, as lot of what you do in-house is the less important work. You send out the most interesting and challenging work” (Harper, p28).

For him, the extra free time away from the office was not worth the drudgery in the office. His old firm welcomed him back. “In my own experience, work for a private firm is much more satisfying” (Harper, p28).

Now, if being a lawyer is too stressful there are other alternatives. For example, Cheryl Heisler, a 1983 graduate of Northwestern University Law School, loved her job as an associate with Katten, Muchin, Zavis, Pearl, Greenberger & Galler in Chicago (Harper, p28).

“I had a nice situation there,” she said. “I was lucky enough to work directly for a partner. I had a lot of hands-on experience with deals, a lot of transactional work. And I had a lot of client exposure” (Harper, p28).

As she got more client exposure, however, she found herself more interested in what the clients were doing than in what she was doing. “I was offering a limited service as a lawyer,” she said. “Law was only one part of the picture, and I wanted to be part of the big picture.” After nearly three years with Katten Muchin, she took a job in marketing for Kraft (Harper, p28).

“I had to start over, but so far it’s been worth it,” she says. “I think it’s helped me to have a background different from the usual MBA. But I use the same interpersonal skill, organization ability and discipline you need as a lawyer” (Harper, p28).

“You can use your legal training as a springboard to do almost anything else you want to do,” she said (Harper, p28).

In addition to the previously mentioned solutions, others could include an extra hour of sleep, regular workouts, such as aerobic and anaerobic exercises and of course maintaining a proper diet.

But whatever works, have a plan and stick to it, advises Karen Kaplowitz, a former employment litigator who now focuses on business development consulting in Princeton N.J. Given the stress of being in trial, it’s not the time to develop a new routine, she says. The first trial, she adds, is often the hardest, in terms of how it affects you physically (Ward, Stephanie Francis, ABA Journal, August 2005, vol. 91, issue 8, p32).

Kaplowitz gives physical activity high marks, even if a workout is limited to 10 minutes. “If you are in the habit of getting your brain going and your body going by some type of exercise, then just doing a shortened version of it gets you going,” she adds. “Do something-even if it’s only a little bit-and do it every day” (Ward, p32).

Charlotte L. Wager, a Chicago partner...agrees. When she’s in trial, Wager might walk to the courthouse from her office, rather than taking a cab. “It’s important to sometimes be able to walk away from the stress, even if that means a quick stroll around the block,” Wager says. “Your more valuable to the team when you’re thinking clearly and less stressed” (Ward, p32).

And if you’re trying a case out of town, Wager says, bring tennis shoes and a bathing suit, in case your hotel has a pool and a gym. “You never know when you’re going to have 45 minutes to spare, and it makes a huge difference if you can get some physical activity,” she says (Ward, p32).

After you’ve kept your energy up during the day, how do you wind down at night? Wine and a hot bath might do the trick for some, while others might need something more, like meditation (Ward, p32).

“I don’t think it’s widely done in the profession; it seems like here on the West Coast the people who initially have been interested in it are folks in family law practice because they’re looking for a more collaborative approach,” says Dennis M. Warren, a health care lawyer in Sacramento, Calif., who also teaches meditation. For sleepless nights-and Stressful days-he advises a breathing technique called thoracic breathing, which helps the body obtain more Oxygen (Ward, p32).

“Under stress, our breathing just stops, so you’re only breathing with the upper third of your lungs, and the breath literally doesn’t get down and fill up the lungs,” Warren says. “If you can open up and breathe deeply, it changes the blood chemistry” (Ward, p32).

According to Warren, associates tend to blame the stress they feel during trial on judges, partners and opposing counsel. Instead, he advises young lawyers to look deeper. “Those aren’t the real issues; they’re just circumstances,” he adds. “The real issue is how you’re relating to it. If what you have is an anxious, fearful perspective, then that’s what you’re going to get” (Ward, p32).

REFERENCES

ABA Journal (Sept 79, vol. 65, issue 9, p1284) Stress: Lawyers Seek New Cures For Old Ill

Blodgett, Nancy ABA Journal (Sept 85, vol. 71, issue 9, p19) Cutting Stress

Harper, Timothy ABA Journal (May 87, supp., vol. 73, issue 5, p28) The Best and Brightest, Bored and Burned Out

Marcotte, Paul ABA Journal (Sept 88, vol. 74, issue 9, p34) Identifying Stress Sources

Marcotte, Paul ABA Journal (Oct 89, vol. 75, issue 10, p43) Stressed Out

Ward, Stephanie Francis ABA Journal (Aug 2005, vol. 91, issue 8, p32) Wound Up? Wind Down