The Happy Lawyer: Making a Good Life in the Law

by Nancy Levit, Douglas O. Linder

You get good grades in college, pay a small fortune to put yourself through law school, study hard to pass the bar exam, and finally land a high-paying job in a prestigious firm. You're happy, right? Not really. Oh, it beats laying asphalt, but after all your hard work, you expected more from your job. What gives?

The Happy Lawyer examines the causes of dissatisfaction among lawyers, and then charts possible paths to happier and more fulfilling careers in law. Eschewing a one-size-fits-all approach, it shows how maximizing our chances for achieving happiness depends on understanding our own personality types, values, strengths, and interests.

Covering everything from brain chemistry and the science of happiness to the workings of the modern law firm, Nancy Levit and Doug Linder provide invaluable insights for both aspiring and working lawyers. For law students, they offer surprising suggestions for selecting a law school that maximizes your long-term happiness prospects. For those about to embark on a legal career, they tell you what happiness research says about which potential jobs hold the most promise. For working lawyers, they offer a handy toolbox--a set of easily understandable steps--that can boost career happiness. Finally, for firm managers, they offer a range of approaches for remaking a firm into a more satisfying workplace.

Read this book and you will know whether you are more likely to be a happy lawyer at age 30 or age 60, why you can tell a lot about a firm from looking at its walls and windows, whether a 10 percent raise or a new office with a view does more for your happiness, and whether the happiness prospects are better in large or small firms.

No book can guarantee a happier career, but for lawyers of all ages and stripes, The Happy Lawyer may give you your best shot.

Genres: Law, Nonfiction

285 pages, Hardcover

First published June 23, 2010

Reviews

[Stefen Short · Rating 2 out of 5]

As expected, the authors of this book write as if the "Top 100 Firm" is the only existing law practice setting. They realize that the money driven nature of law practice is a major cause of lawyer dismay, but feed right into it. That said, this book is useful only to managing partners of large firms. If you're a civil rights lawyer like me, seek therapy someplace else.

[Jaleel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book begins with an interesting overview of happiness theory and research. The writing isn't particularly engaging. The "practical" advice wasn't very enlightening. Things like changing your mindset about work and appreciating little things seemed fairly obvious to me. The book argues that a sense of control over your career is essential to happiness, it then acknowledges why lawyers face a unique difficulty in establishing this control but then fails to provide any useful advice for ameliorating this difficulty.

There are better books about happiness. While this book does discuss how general happiness principles can relate to lawyers, I feel like I'd enjoy drawing those connections from a different book more.

[R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Happy Lawyer does two things very well. It describes, with a clinical precision, some of the predominant reasons that lawyers tend to be less than satisfied with their chosen profession. Secondly, it describes, on a surface level, some aspirations for lawyers and for mid-sized to large firms which might lead to some measurable improvement in the happiness of effected lawyers.

Beyond that, this work is largely without any practical use or application for those of us toiling away in the trenches every day. Of the few suggestions for improvement made here, nothing seems to be unique, new or ground-breaking. Most of the suggestions bandied about are bumper-sticker philosophy references to finding some meaningful work as a lawyer. Most of the issues raised here are the stuff of 1990's era ABA headlines. Even with the 2010 copyright date, this book doesn't really seem to address the issues pertinent to the majority of today's attorneys: crippling student loans, the continuing shrinkage of the job market, the growth industry in ginning up malpractice claims and the day-to-day emotional damage that we see (and absorb) from the clients and client issues that continue to charge at us, almost unabated.

This work might be a good primer for a non-lawyer that is married to, or considering marrying, an attorney. For those of us that don't work in BigLaw and are seeking practical advice, I would look elsewhere.

[Julian I · Rating 5 out of 5]

“My advice to recent graduate is: find something that you love to do, something that will motivate you to get out of bed when you are tired, something that you will try to work on when you are sick, something that you want to do even if you didn’t have to earn a living, and then see if someone will pay you to do that work. And, understand that even when you’re in the right job, doing the right thing, and happy, there will still be bad days, there will still be things that you don’t like. There will be moments when you do not think you can do what needs to be done. Take a breath, triage, prioritize, and get something done, cross it off your list and move on to the next thing. Do not let the best be the enemy of the good.”

Short Summary:

The book delivers a great overview of the current “happiness science” especially concerning the lawyer profession. In addition to that it delivers an analyzation about the credibility of surveys regarding happiness (and how to influence them). In the last part of the book, you can find hands-on tips for a better life in the law and as human in general. Because we now know, a happier human will be a happier lawyer.

Ways to become a happier lawyer:
1. Make sure your job is one that matters to you.
2. Think about the way your job positively affects other people.
3. Strive for a comfortable work-life balance.
4. Work to make your job more secure.
5. Take control of your work product and work space.
6. Connect with people.
7. If happiness seems possible in your job, commit to that job.
8. Increase the frequency of your flow experience.
9. Avoid making upward comparisons.
10. Find out what experiences have made other lawyers happy.
11. Know your strengths and what gives you pleasure.
12. Align your work with your values.


Main Takeaways:

- Unhappiness rates and depression rates do not correlate (i.e. Finland, artists).
- Two technique for increasing happiness:
o Meditation
o Exercise
o (adequate and regular sleep)
- Three Components of Satisfaction:
o Genetics (40-80%)
 Happiness set point (proven with identical twins, which were separated at birth and raised in very different circumstances)
o Circumstances (10%)
 Many factors, including standard of living and degree of individual freedom, seem to affect happiness differences among nations, yet no factor plays a bigger role than the level of trust people have in their government institutions and fellow citizens.
o Own Internal decisions and actions
- Pessimism has a positive dimension that we often refer to as “prudence”. By spotting pitfalls ahead, the prudent lawyer brings clients safely into a happy harbor when a more optimistic sort might have left the client marooned by an unanticipated disaster.
- The best prediction of how happy you will be in five or ten years is precisely how happy you now are.
- Six keys to life satisfaction:
o Security
o Autonomy: Ability to make your preferred choices and not have them dictated either by fear or imagined or real constraints (Though accepting that not every door is open to us is not only part of growing up but is part of becoming a happier person). Choice overload is a nightmare for maximizers but not for satisficers who understand that no choice is likely to be perfect and that the time spent trying to select from a set of reasonably good alternatives can be better spent in more satisfying ways.
o Authenticity: Being who you really are.
o Relatedness: Feeling well connected to others.
o Competence: A person who masters challenges or accomplishes a difficult task feels capable, feels valued, and is likely to feel happier. In particular, by developing competencies, a person increases their opportunities for activities that thread that happy needle between boredom and anxiety, and which are highly correlated with feelings of enhanced well-being.
o Self-esteem
- Economists have found remarkably strong positive correlations between the availability of lawyers in a society and the existence of civil rights and civil liberties.
- The data are clear that busy people are happier than those with little to do (A sense of personal control is a twenty-times better predictor of happiness than income).
- Lawyers as a group, are more introverted, more doubt-ridden, and cooler and more logical than most people. They are less open about their feelings and less inclined to live in the present than most people. Lawyers are more competitive, confident, aggressive, and achievement-oriented; they can be argumentative.
- Many lawyers express “high-dominance” personalities. High dominance personalities are associated with a strong competitive drive and are marked by frequently interrupting, controlling conversations, changing topics, offering unsolicited advice or instructions, and stating strong opinions.
- Caution and skepticism can help clients if and when things do later go to hell in a hand basket.
- Jobs are not objects set in concrete; they are goal-directed, behavioral systems that can be restructured to make those in them happier creatures.
- Lack of control: As a lawyer, you pretty much do the work a client needs done, whether it’s your idea of an interesting project or not. This lack of control might well account for the fact that lawyers had the highest rates of major depressive orders among surveyed occupations
- Facets of control:
o Appropriate balance between demands of your job and the demands that come from being a parent, spouse, relative, or friend.
o Job security
o Believing that your contribution matters. Feedback is critical for happiness.
o Number of opportunities in the workplace to control things
o The ability to alter one’s work environment
- Changes for more control in law firms:
o Flexibility in hours and work location
o Allowing lawyers to bring children to the office
o Providing flexibility in choosing clients and work assignments
o Letting lawyers choose how they approach and complete work products
o Encouraging lawyers to alter their personal work environments
- Relative income, however, matters much more to people than absolute income.
- The vast majority of lawyering is drudgery work – it is sitting in a library, it is banging out a brief, it is talking to clients for endless hours.
- Flow:
o The sense of time flying comes when we are so absorbed in an activity that it crowds out the worries and self-consciousness that dog so much of our existence.
o When everything is going just right, and the challenge is enough to test our skills and demand our attention but not so daunting as to produce anxiety, we are in what has been called “a flow experience”.
o Features of an activity with a potential flow experience:
 An activity that requires you to apply a skill that you have
 The demands on that skill must not be so great as to produce anxiety yet must be sufficient to avoid boredom that accompanies less-demanding tasks.
 There must be clear goals.
 The activity should be on that frees you from the flights of mind and distractions that accompany the more humdrum experiences of life.
 The activity should be one that is not interrupted by phone calls, police sirens, bathroom breaks, daydreams, or sports score searches.
o If you are a lawyer who takes pride in writing skills, flow can come in the simple task of putting one clear and significant sentence after another on a page.
o Take stock of those activities during your workday that give you a sense of flow and find a way to do them more often.
o Offices and workspaces with views of outdoor life are more conductive to flow experiences than spaces without windows or with views of brill walls.
- Best predictor of academic and career success: Conscientiousness  “the degree to which a person is organized, persistent, and goal-directed.”
- Students try to obtain high grades as a form of credentialing rather than seeking understanding or mastery of the material. If you let these extrinsic markers of achievement define you, you are setting yourself up for unhappiness.

[Kender]

I really enjoyed this blog because it highlights something people in law often forget: you can build a meaningful life and a rewarding career at the same time. The idea of finding balance instead of burning out feels more important than ever. I’ve seen professionals in high-pressure fields lean on resources like rsvlbailbonds.com when their clients need quick support, and it reminds me how valuable it is to have dependable systems in place. When lawyers can trust those support networks, they can focus on doing their best work. Building a happier legal life really does start with protecting your time, energy, and peace.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admittedly a slow read, “The Happy Lawyer” is an insightful self-help book for any lawyers (or future lawyers) who want to find satisfaction in their careers. It is a well researched work, for sure, but some of its insights are repetitive and seemingly obvious. If you are an incoming law student and only going to read one book about managing that experience, I would not make it this one, but this is nevertheless a fine addition to any collection on the subject someone chooses to read.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree we may need time to spend for ourselves, but I know its hard for lawyers to keep up with family and profession.

I think an article is enough but I read whole book, interestingly its interesting to know many professional's life and their commentary.

[Duong Le · Rating 4 out of 5]

Một quyển sách hay. Những gì viết trong sách không hoàn toàn là những thứ mới mẻ với mình nhưng mình cảm thấy hài lòng vì sách đồng tình với những quan điểm của bản thân. "Đọc sách mà biết hay chẳng qua vì nó là tiếng dội của lòng mình" như lời bác Nguyễn Duy Cẩn từng nói ...

[Sheldon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Science-backed, succinct, and practical. This book should be mandatory reading for every law student.

[Kelly Greenwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Make choices based on internal wishes rather than money.

[Avi Rutschman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provides an interesting survey of the field of happiness research. The only useful/applicable advice is that you should make an effort to find components of your job that you do like and that if none are to be found, you should seriously considering leaving your job. The portions discussing reformation of the billable hour system are interesting, but a pipe dream at best.

[A.C. Lillywhite · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book does a pretty good job of explaining how lawyers are depressed. It offers some advice for choosing a career in the law that might be less miserable than other careers in the law, depending on a cross section of talents, drives, interests and overall ability and earning potential.

It's pretty depressing.

Especially for law students in the midst of a prolonged existential crisis; on that front, it kind of just assures you that the same obsessive and masochistic personality traits that got you to law school in the first place, and that are currently causing you to feel inadequate and unhappy, will probably continue to plague you for the rest of your life. But you could at least find a career that doesn't exacerbate those issues. Good advice, I guess, but the packaging left me feeling annoyed and kinda hopeless.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why are lawyers often unhappy? Although there's no single answer, it appears that some of it is self-selection, some of it is a function of business models, and some of it is a function of time. Some chapters are more useful than others, but this is a generally solid application of the burgeoning science of happiness to a somewhat gloomy profession. All lawyers ought to give this a read, as there are plenty of tools for self-adjustment in one's career trajectory. Let me know if you want to borrow my copy.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to Paddy Ryan for a very thoughtful graduation gift! In the earlier chapter, the authors canvass a fairly broad array of social science research on happiness and career satisfaction. They generally avoid tenuous conclusions about causation, but at the expense of a slightly breezy approach to wrestling with what conclusions might be preferable from amongst those arguable. They are also funny at times, although fairly sparingly. The book is aimed at American lawyers, but it's still fairly relatable. It might make a nice gift for someone about to start law school.

[Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally thought it was a great book. I appreciated the scientific approach to happiness, as well as the way the different "tiers" of law firms was broken down. I plan on becoming a lawyer, so this was a nice little introduction on what to expect for when applying to firms and schools. Of course, some people here believe the book has simplified the profession too much. It had ignored issues such as the job market, the issues with school accreditation, and student debt. However, the lack of those specifics didn't affect the book too much.

[Tricia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok read - some interesting points about happiness. Probably would have been better off reading this in law school than now - has some good things to think about in choosing a law career. According to this book, lawyer personalities are often "predisposed" to unhappiness, and that often makes them better lawyers. In addition, several components of the law job supposedly contribute to unhappiness (lack of autonomy, high billable hours, no work/life balance, etc.)

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read about 80% of this, which is pretty good considering that I am not a lawyer. The book is general enough that non-lawyers will find interesting references, too. The source material is good without sounding overly academic. I did find it engaging that the author recognized that her audience may only be considering law school among a myriad of options. That's smart, considerate, well-rounded writing.

[Marisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was required reading, and was written by two professors at my law school. So in all fairness to them, I am only going to say that this book featured some interesting research. Whether or not it told us things we already know can be left up to you.

[Aditi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read that provides some useful perspective on why lawyers are generally less happy/satisfied than other professions. But the tips for how to improve seem either daunting or glib, and not particularly insightful or original. Worth a skim.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains a few very powerful take-away lessons. Otherwise, it was a slow read, densely packed with statistics and little analysis while directing itself at big firm lawyers.

[Al Menaster]

At page 75 I gave up. The stuff is just too, too obvious, it's just not interesting enough to keep reading.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good practical advice and some good ideas for self-inventories.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly stuff I knew from reading other happiness literature, but nice to have it applied to my profession.

[Jodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book. It's fairly common sense advice on how to be happy in your career but the authors compile a lot of the research on happiness which is interesting.

[emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful information about the practice of law.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a gift from my parents. Some good ideas and information. But it also warns us "Even professional chocolate tasters have bad days at the office." 3.5 stars.

[Sara Naheedy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for any lawyer trying to carve out their legal career.

[Satida Anan]

No i didnt even read yet so