A twit from Clio’s “lawyer-in-residence” (whatever that means), Joshua Lenon, was an eye-catcher:
‘The average mental state of lawyers is depressed.’ Belief expressed at #shapethelaw
It’s carefully worded to show that, while it was said, it wasn’t that Josh bought it. But still, it was said at a conference with a hashtag. This “group,” if that’s what it can be called, offers its slogan: Authentic Necessary Collaboration. That may mean something to you. It doesn’t to me, but then, what do I know? I’m just a lawyer.
Our goal is to help shape the future in terms of how people work and how our legal system functions. This means improving the lives of both lawyers and consumers of legal services. We want to create a community of lawyers that are dedicated to practicing law with authenticity and courage. The community will support one another in creating a society in which law is used for good of all, focused on what justice is and what it means to be just. Wellness, mental, physical, and emotional health plays a core part of each member’s identity not only as a lawyer but as human. One way of doing this is to facilitate safe spaces — such as an unconference to talk about what it means to be a human and a lawyer.
We value community, collaboration, commitment to self-care.
Is this what you’re looking for? Are lawyers all miserable, depressed, drug-addled, victims? Will an “unconference” where they promote the “community” of miserable people make you feel better? After all, misery loves company.
There isn’t much of an argument that there are miserable lawyers. Some suffer from depression. Some from drug and alcohol addiction. Some just hate being lawyers. Other hate that they became lawyers and are saddled with monstrous debt and no legal job. Sure, there are plenty of reasons to be depressed. But does that mean the “average mental state of lawyers is depressed”?
What is becoming an increasing concern is that there is a growing coterie of lawyers desperately seeking victimhood. After all, doesn’t everyone want to be a victim these days? You can evoke the sympathy of others, gain likes for being the most pathetic person on Facebook, enjoy the admiration of other lawyers who want to be victims too, and have a built-in excuse for your every failure. Don’t slut shame lawyers, even if their sadness means other people get put to death, lose their homes or their children. It’s not the lawyers’ fault. They’re depressed. Poor lawyers.
Over the past year, I’ve watched as one of the funnier legal blogs, Above the Law, has transformed itself from snark and sarcasm into sad victim tears. Post after post from its outside contributors tells lawyers how awful it is to be a lawyer, and how it’s okay for them to ball up in a corner and cry because their life is so horrible and exhausting. Where it once made lawyers laugh, it now makes them cry, but at least they have the comfort of knowing that other lawyers are crying with them.
Let’s draw the distinction for the shamefully shallow: there are lawyers with real problems, and there are lawyers who want to have problems, and so they seize upon the ordinary ups and downs of life and magnify them into majestic victimhood. Where once lawyers aspired to overcome adversity, lawyers now aspire to wallow in misery.
If you are clinically depressed, seek help. There is nothing wrong or shameful about it. If you’re addicted to a mind altering substance, seek help. There is nothing wrong or shameful about it. If you feel sad on occasion and want people to rub your tummy, tell you that “it’s okay to be miserable, and you should embrace your sadness and join a community of people who get sad too,” grow up.
And if they tell you that your failures as a lawyer aren’t your fault, they are lying to you. You like the lies, because then you can pretend you aren’t failing and enjoy your misery to the fullest, but you are.
Lawyers are, and I hesitate to use this word, privileged. We are given the honor and duty to represent other human beings. Some of us are cut out for this responsibility. Some are not. But we’re not victims because we are lawyers, and whatever personal issues we face do not relieve of us our duty. If our lives suck, it pales in comparison to the lives of our clients. If you want to wallow in your own self-indulgent misery, then you do not deserve the honor and privilege of being a lawyer.
It’s too obvious for words that a certain swathe of people are enjoying the current trend of finding justification for their victimhood under every rock. There are good reasons for much of this, such as cops killing black guys for being black guys, and there are bullshit reasons, such as some kid wearing a hat that says “Make America Great Again” that makes someone else pretend to feel “unsafe.”
Some lawyers want so desperately to be victims too that they heed the whining of how hard, how sad, how depressing, how exhausting it is to be a lawyer. For the most part, these lawyers wouldn’t devolve into whining jello balls if there was no one else to empower them to be the most fragile they can be. Instead, someone would tell them to “snap out of it” and they would. They would put on their grown-up lawyer suit and walk back into court to fight again.
Instead, there is a cottage industry developed and fostered to empower lawyers to be fragile teacups, crying “woe is me” and being surrounded by comforting voices. No, woe is not you. No, your life isn’t miserable and you’re no one’s victim. You’ve got a job to do, a responsibility to fulfill.
If you can’t do it because you want so desperately to be a sad little victim, then give your ticket back to the character committee and tell them they made a terrible mistake. You lack the grit to be a lawyer. And the poor schmuck who thinks you’re there to save him from his misery deserves better than you and your self-indulgent whining.
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I googled the phrase practice law with authenticity. Holy crap, there are many links to sites discussing authenticity and the law, the few I looked at seem incredibly stupid and obvious. I wanted to scream and run away. My initial reaction when reading the post and seeing the mention of authenticity made me think of lawyers sporting logos declaring them to be “100% Authentic Attorney”.
As for the rest of the message from #shapethelaw, what makes them think lawyers are any different from the rest of us in terms of mental state? Their verbiage would apply to my profession, my wife’s profession, or the guy next door’s profession as much as it does to lawyers.
I’ve come across hundreds of posts, blogs, etc., relating to these notions over the past couple of years. At first, they were the weird outlier, inhabited by a handful of misery wallowers, but they’ve become increasingly pervasive and, recently, ATL hopped aboard the sadness train. I’m reaching the point where this seem dangerous to lawyers, new ones in particular who are inclined toward the trigger warning/safe space view of the world, and confuse their every sad feeling for trauma, violence and victimhood.
Of course it’s no different than your profession, your wife’s or the guy next door. It’s just life. Except to those inclined to seek victimhood, life is unbearable when they’re empowered by others to indulge their most fragile feelz. It’s not a law phenomenon, but a societal one that’s being promoted as law problem. It’s not just ridiculous, but dangerous. When sad lawyers think this profession is all about their hurt feelz, we’re fucked.
I’m looking forward to practicing law against such people.
Mainly because I like making people cry, and these folks look like easy marks…
I like making people cry too, but I prefer agents. Their tears are so much sweeter.
By “agents” do you mean Customer Service Representatives? SWMBO maintains that they are my prey of choice. That said, I did once encounter one who possessed a brain – I called an 800 number for some putative antibiotic suit and, after much rambling in which I was “uncertain” as to whether I’d been prescribed any of the drugs in question asked “Well, what do they normally prescribe for zombie bites?”
She got the joke, laughed, wished me a good evening and hung up on me. I wish that one of the companies that I deal with in real life would hire her.
More seriously, while you’ve made it clear that you’re not looking for tummy rubs, I find this to be one of your finest posts. I say “one of” because it’s part of a theme, in which you clearly set out the ethical obligations incumbent upon the profession and exhort members of the guild to live up to them.
Yours is not the only voice saying that, but it’s one of the clearest. Thank you.
SHG,
Although the participants are too dim to understand it, “Authentic Necessary Collaboration” has to have been secretly started by Larry David. All the best.
RGK
They share his enthusiasm.
Which should be curbed…
It’s a conference with a hashtag, about both technology and the law, ergo “Authentic Necessary Collaboration” is shorthand for “Authentic Necessary And Legal Collaboration Using New Technology Systems.”
I have no idea why they felt it necessary to remove so many words, but I guess lawyers do that.
There seems to be significant correlation between lawyers who love technology and lawyers who are depressed, miserable and victims.
There is an even stronger correlation present in the picture of the SF event on their webpage.
I know, I know, off to the reeducation camp for a refresher on not noticing obvious things. Okay, okay, no need for the Taser, I’ll go quietly.
Perhaps they’re just more “mindful” and thus sad the singularity will render their advice sillily lacking.
On the upside, these organizations make it easier to vet lawyers when you need one.
I feel for your email. You understand even if no one else will.
Somebody tried to get me to go to that conference. I love me some tech, but when I saw the price tag, for what is basically a weekend of sales pitches, I politely declined. I don’t pay hundreds of dollars for the opportunity to learn why I should spend thousands. And I already know how stressed out I am.
Most of the people discussing these issues seem to be trying to get on the victim bandwagon, and incidentally making excuses as to why people who can’t deal with stress should still be allowed to be lawyers, but a large minority are selling something. This conference sounds like a giant speed-dating event for members of the two factions.
It’s funny you should say that. Most of the ATL outside contributors are there to sell some flavor of snake oil. But as long as they get eyeballs…
If only Clio had a cure for lawyerly depression; like a cloud-based website to make lawyering easy…I think there’s too much focus on trust account reconciliation and work timers, to such a degree they don’t even have a mindfulness button to make lawyers take “me” time. Forget about psychologists and peer groups, a web tech conference is the panacea for lawyerly malcontents.
Beat the sympathy out of them young with some literature?
Then soldier them through a mandatory apprenticeship that develops unsympathetic empathy via the heavy lifting involved in a terraced road with consequences?
Then give them a candy bar!
Or be a pussy and aggregate footings from afar.
The “quandries” of aggregating are best served with an eye twords those with a shovel in their hand and not to be confusion with the temptations of low hanging fruit.
P.S. And….if you really think the hill is going to give way, say so. Everything else is bark, bark, bark. Building what you are bitching about is going to take some beams and posts. Pen, shovel, and thread.
Go-ahead esteemed one, everyone is waiting for you to own the boilers’ hinges.
That does it. I’m paying for naming rights for a building at North Texas State’s Law School.
The Scott Not Mean Greenfield Mean Green Safe Space Building
His heart flutters, his mind creaks he wants nothing more than control.
https://youtu.be/KDCnFmNjGH4
Here you go:
https://youtu.be/IAKOifRFwxw