We received 1,274 responses to last week’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on attorney morale. And it looks like the glass is about half full.

In all, about two fifths of respondents were pretty happy:

* 25.8% of respondents said their morale was “good.”
* 11.5% said their morale was “great.”
* And 3.3% of respondents think their morale “couldn’t be better.”

Energy and investment management attorneys were the gloatiest, with two thirds of respondents in each field describing their morale as “good” or better. They were followed by tax (60%), bankruptcy (57%) and patent lawyers (48%).

But a smidge over two-fifths of respondents were pretty unhappy:

* 9.6% of respondents said their morale “couldn’t be worse.”
* 11.2% said their morale was “awful.”
* And 21% said their morale was merely “bad.”

Not surprisingly, structured finance and real estate attorneys were the most likely to feel down, with 66% of structured finance respondents and 56% of real estate respondents declaring their morale to be “bad” or worse.

More findings and discussion, after the jump.

Survey Results: How’s Your Morale?

Interestingly, the happy are getting happier, and the sad are getting sadder. Thirty percent of happy respondents reported that they were happier than they were a year ago, and another thirty percent said that they were “much happier.” A third said that they were “about the same.” But 42% of unhappy respondents said they were less happy than a year ago, and 35% said they were “much less happy.” Fourteen percent said they were “about the same.” So, the downturn is accelerating for our despondent respondents.

And while experience may bring wisdom, it doesn’t appear to bring much joy. Although 52% of Class of 2007 associates reported that they were “happy” or happier, that number dropped to 43% among Class of 2006 associates, and to 33% for the Class of 2000.

So, why so happy (or not)? Happy respondents pointed to their quality of work (27%), followed closely by their quality of life (25.5%). About 16% also credited relationships with their colleagues, while 14% attributed their good mood to good pay, and 10% said their job security was the biggest reason for their job satisfaction.

Gloomy respondents blamed their quality of life first (30%), followed by their job security (23.5%) and quality of work (19%). Only 8.6% of the unhappy respondents blamed their relationships with colleagues, while a mere eight percent cited poor compensation as the primary source of their disgruntlement.

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Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this survey.