It’s not just the nature of practising law – the habits and beliefs which make lawyers miserable are instilled right here in law school.
3L should be a time of celebration. Most of us have completed at least 7 years of post-secondary education, sometimes a lot more. We’ve been assessed and prodded more thoroughly than even the finest steak. We’ve beaten the odds again, and again, and again, and are now on the verge of graduating with that unmistakable mark of respectability and success – the JD.
Yet, speaking to my 3L peers, the mood is not one of triumph, but of exhaustion, cynicism, and even resentment. Those of us who are taking stock of the last two years realize that, despite our own triumphs, law school exacted a very heavy toll on us, and this hasn’t all been for the better. It hasn’t been like a tough workout, where the pain is justified by the gain. Some parts of the experience are more like an injury.
In many ways, us law students are like the boiling frog, which doesn’t realize the water it’s in is getting hotter. We spend most of our time in this environment, and assume it’s normal, even the parts of it that are pathological. We’re surrounded by people who work into the late hours of the night, regularly consume energy drinks, and can barely remember the last time they made a meal, and we assume this is the nature of things. Workaholism is praised as a sign of dedication, rather than being seen for the psychologically corrosive addiction that it is. Slowly but imperceptibly, we become accustomed to an environment where, in a casual conversation, people will swap tips about the different sleeping pills they’re taking, where gossip about Who is Working Where is relentless, where individuals who would be considered successful by any normal criteria feel they’re inadequate. Slowly but imperceptibly, natural human empathy turns into judgment, a healthy sense of competitiveness turns into envy, and outrage at injustice turns into resignation.
I don’t intend to blame anyone in particular for this; if anything, I’ve been a part of this process as much as anyone. But let’s recognize that it’s fostered a culture that’s corrosive to happiness, health, and basic decency. I don’t need to rehearse the plentiful statistics on this issue, but law students and lawyers are a markedly miserable bunch judging by a few key metrics of well-being. Suffice it to say that you know you have a problem when you’re competing for indicators of psychological distress with army veterans and cops (i.e. people who faced the risk of being shot at while doing their jobs).
Although at Osgoode Hall, there’s finally a discussion about mental health and well-being, not enough is being done to train lawyers who can find joy in what they do.
A key source of so much law school misery is the prohibitive tuition, which is sustained by the illusion that law school is a ticket to opulence, when in fact only a small fraction of the profession is rich. This can price people from any but the top income brackets out of law school, and it necessitates increasingly crippling debt that limits options and becomes a constant source of anxiety.
Closely related to the high tuition is the perception that Bay Street is the be-all-and-end-all of law school success. In my brief encounter with the legal profession, I’ve had the privilege of meeting lawyers who can dispassionately hammer away at a complex legal issue on a bare desk amidst the din of a sweltering trial office during a Toronto heat wave, where the air-conditioning isn’t working and the Humidex is through the roof; lawyers who have worked in Canada’s North in order to maintain the integrity of the justice system in an isolated environment; lawyers who work in a field where a typical day may involve trying to convince a tenant with severe mental illness that keeping a pet raccoon is illegal, and just not a very good idea to begin with (rabies, anyone?). None of these lawyers fit the mould of the glamorous corporate lawyer, but they nevertheless represent the very best of our profession. We need to be introduced to more lawyers like this in law school. Their vision and integrity will show us how to redefine the meaning of success.
Lastly, we have to get a lot better at talking about vulnerability. Relationships break down; they begin anew; people change; people die; sometimes people are not well; dreams are thwarted or deferred. These aren’t signs of weakness or distractions from the end-game, they’re the very stuff of life, and they’ll take us down paths that won’t always culminate in the corner office and the cufflinks that cost more than a typical car. If we expand our vision, these winding paths don’t have to lead to “failure”, but to an invigorated legal profession.
Krum Dochev is a 3L. His vision of success involves gulping down a cup of watered-down coffee in less than 60 seconds while running around Old City Hall with a bunch of briefs during recess.