52 Vand. L. Rev. 871
Dear Law Student:
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the profession that you are about to enter is one of the most unhappy and unhealthy on the face of the earth--and, in the view of many, one of the most unethical. The good news is that you can join this profession and still be happy, healthy, and ethical. I am writing to tell you how.
TEXT:
[*872]
I. The Well-Being of Lawyers
Lawyers play an enormously important role in our society. n1 "It is the lawyers who run our civilization for us--our governments, our business, our private lives." n2 Thus you might expect that a lot of people would be concerned about the physical and mental health of lawyers. [*873] You would be wrong. n3 Contrary to the old joke, n4 scientists have not replaced laboratory rats with lawyers, and medical literature has little to say about the well-being of attorneys. At the same time, many law professors--at least those teaching at the fifty or so schools that consider themselves to be in the "Top Twenty"--do not care much about lawyers. Increasingly, faculties of elite schools and aspiring elite schools consist of professors who have not practiced law, n5 who have little interest in teaching students to practice law, n6 and who pay scant attention to the work of practicing lawyers. n7 Even law professors like me--law professors who practiced law for several years, who love teaching, and who are intensely interested in the work of lawyers--often do not have the training or resources to conduct empirical research about the legal profession. n8 As a result, legal scholarship also has little to say about the well-being of attorneys. n9
If one looks hard enough, though, one can scratch up some information about the health and happiness of attorneys. And this information--although rather sparse and, in some cases, of limited value--strongly suggests that lawyers are in remarkably poor health and quite unhappy. [*874]
A. Lawyers' Poor Health
1. Depression
Lawyers seem to be among the most depressed people in America. In 1990, researchers affiliated with Johns Hopkins University studied the prevalence of major depressive disorder ("MDD") across 104 occupations. n10 They discovered that, although only about 3% to 5% of the general population suffers from MDD, n11 the prevalence of MDD exceeds 10% in five occupations: data-entry keyers, computer equipment operators, typists, pre-kindergarten and special education teachers, and lawyers. n12 When the results were adjusted for age, gender, education, and race/ethnic background to determine to what extent those in each occupation were more depressed than others who shared their most important sociodemographic traits, n13 only three occupations were discovered to have statistically significant elevations of MDD: lawyers, pre-kindergarten and special education teachers, and secretaries. Lawyers topped the list, suffering from MDD at a rate 3.6 times higher than non-lawyers who shared their key sociodemographic traits. n14 The researchers did not know whether lawyers were depressed because "persons at high risk for major depressive disorder" are attracted to the legal profession or because practicing law "causes or precipitates depression." n15 They just knew that, whatever the reason, lawyers were depressed. n16
Other studies have produced similar results. A study of Washington lawyers found that "compared with the 3 to 9 percent of individuals in Western industrialized countries who suffer from depression, 19 percent of . . . Washington lawyers suffered from statistically [*875] significant elevated levels of depression." n17 A study of law students and practicing lawyers in Arizona discovered that when students enter law school, they suffer from depression at approximately the same rate as the general population. n18 However, by the spring of the first year of law school, 32% of law students suffer from depression, and by the spring of the third year of law school, the figure escalates to an astonishing 40%. n19 Two years after graduation, the rate of depression falls, but only to 17%, or roughly double the level of the general population. n20
Another study, making use of the data generated by the Washington and Arizona studies, reported that while "the base rate of any affective disorder (which includes depression) is 8.5% for males and 14.1% for females, . . . the percentage of male lawyers . . . scoring above the clinical cutoff on the measure of depression is nearly 21% and for female lawyers 16%." n21 And finally, a study of North Carolina lawyers found that almost 37% reported being depressed and 42% lonely during the previous few weeks, n22 and that 24% reported suffering symptoms of depression (such as appetite loss, insomnia, suicidal ideation, and extreme lethargy) at least three times per month during the previous year. n23 [*876]
2. Anxiety and Other Mental Illness
Depression is not the only emotional impairment that seems to be more prevalent among lawyers than among the general population. The Arizona study also found elevated rates of anxiety, hostility, and paranoia among law students and lawyers. n24 Over 25% of North Carolina lawyers reported that they had experienced physical symptoms of extreme anxiety (including trembling hands, racing hearts, clammy hands, and faintness) at least three times per month during the past year. n25 And the Washington study found indicia of anxiety, social alienation and isolation, obsessive-compulsiveness, paranoid ideation, interpersonal sensitivity, phobic anxiety, and hostility in "alarming" rates among lawyers--rates many times the national norms. n26 For example:
The base rate [in the general population] for obsessive-compulsiveness is 1.42%, yet nearly 21% of the male lawyers and 15% of the female lawyers in the study score above the clinical cutoff on the measure of obsessivecompulsiveness. The same pattern exists in regard to generalized anxiety disorder where the base rate is 4%, while 30% of the male lawyers and nearly 20% of the female lawyers in the study report scores above the clinical cutoff on the measure of anxiety. n27
Needless to say, these studies "give[ ] substantial indication of a profession operating at extremely high levels of psychological distress." n28