That’s not my conclusion, but his.  Will Meyerhofer, one time Sullivan & Cromwell associate turned namby-pamby, social working, psychotherapist, bares his soul at Above the Law.  I’m trying hard to control the urge to throw a box of tissues past him to the floor.

But Will’s statement, that he sucks at law, makes an important point.  Just because someone has graduated law school, even done pretty well at it, doesn’t mean that he’s cut out to be a lawyer. 

There are two components to Will’s statement, though he seems to only recognize one, or perhaps rolls them together.  It may be that a person simply isn’t good at applying the lessons learned in the real world.  Not everyone is cut out to stand tough in a courtroom, swirling stories around them and enchanting the jurors while making federal agents cry.  One can have the cite to every Supreme Court decision on the tip of his tongue, and not be able to make a persuasive closing argument.  So you suck at law.

Another may have the most discerning eye, capable of scanning a thousand pages of documents and in a flash discerning the slightest conflict, most obscure detail that blows a case wide open that would cause droopy eyelids to merely flutter and ignore.  Yet the idea of strapping on a tie one more day raises thoughts of putting a long, sharp needle through their eagle eye.  They too suck at law.

And there’s yet another, very different, issue that Will may yet come across.  While his focus is on young associates, dealing with the consequences of an ill-conceived decision to go to law school because they couldn’t stand the sight of blood, there are lawyers who are both good at, and enjoy, the practice of law during the nascent period of their career.  But times change.

Give yourself twenty, thirty years at the same thing, day after day, year after year, and you may revisit whether law is as much fun now as it was then.  Some people burn out.  The ability to keep that fire burning, that push to achieve against all odds, tends to be far stronger with youth.  Eventually, you’ve done it, and you get tired.  You wake up one day and the need to prove yourself, the desire to prove yourself, just isn’t there.  You suck at law.

Finally, there’s the natural desire to seek new challenges.  It’s not necessarily a by-product of boredom, but rather a desire to find something that gets your juices flowing again.  Trying another brilliant case, or drafting another comprehensive contract, no longer provides the sense of satisfaction it once did.  It was fun, but not thrilling.  You want to feel the passion of a first kiss, the thrill of the first jump, and the law no longer does that for you.  You find yourself yearning for a new challenge.  You suck at law.

Meyerhofer makes clear that admitting that you suck at law isn’t a failing, but a way to free oneself from the constraint of having endured three years of boredom and lunacy, a financial commitment tighter than any straightjacket and external expectations that make one feel as if the concession is akin to admitting that you are a fraud. 

There is nothing wrong with sucking at law.  Indeed, my guess is that we all do, at one time or another.  The real fraud is the one who desperately conceals it, hiding behind puffery and bravado to pretend that he’s above all the issues that confront lawyers, and pretty much anyone who has committed to a lifetime of hard labor.  At one point or another, we all suck at law.

This isn’t to say that we should throw off our shackles and burn our yellow pads.  For some of us, we ended up where we belong, for better or worse.  For others, we have made peace with the life we’ve chosen, even though every day isn’t as thrilling as the one before, or day one.  It’s not a bad life by any means, if you’re suited to it, and it offers some wondrous benefits.  Do you really think making womens dresses is all that much fun?

The notion of admitting it, if only to yourself, that this didn’t turn out to be quite what you thought it would, doesn’t make you weak or foolish.  It makes you human.  There really isn’t anything wrong with being human.  You haven’t failed because the whole lawyer thing didn’t turn out to be what you thought it would.  You made a mistake.  Stercus accidit.

The only thing to remember is that as long as you keep strapping on that tie every morning, and taking on the responsibility of holding another person’s life in your hands, you don’t have the choice of indulging your mistake at your client’s expense.  So long as you’re a lawyer, be a lawyer, even if it’s painful.  If you, after harsh reflection, can’t perform the job, then get out.  Now. 

And if you just don’t like it anymore, then figure out if there is something better out there for you.  Life is pretty long, and there’s no sense being miserable for most of it.