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Nationwide Therapy Session

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Today’s National Law Journal takes an interesting look a the mental and emotional health of recently laid off attorneys. Quite obviously, people lose a lot more than a paycheck when they lose their job:

For the first time in their lives, many of these lawyers are struggling with a profound feeling of failure. And while they acknowledge that their troubles are just a part of the jobless scene nationwide, such perspective provides little comfort for these high achievers who are grappling with a loss of purpose and direction.

It’s important to keep perspective during these tough times. We are talking about temporary setbacks, not ultimate failures. But even “temporary” depression is difficult to deal with:

In October, [Scott] Chait was let go from New York’s Wagner Davis, where his work focused on real estate transactions. A 2006 graduate of Brooklyn Law School, he is collecting unemployment and has moved in with his parents in New Jersey. Without providing specific numbers, Chait, 31, said he is burdened with “a full debt load.” Rigorous workouts help keep his spirits up, he said. “It feeds the need inside me.”

He describes himself as competitive, with a “Type A” personality, and said that critical to his daily routine is not sleeping in. He spends much of his day looking for jobs on employment Web sites. He also goes to his synagogue every morning. “I get a lot of positive enforcement,” he said.

Are there good coping mechanisms out there unemployed attorneys should be looking at? A psychologist weighs in after the jump.


The NLJ found a psychologist who specializes in lawyer personalities:

Part of what makes layoffs particularly difficult for many young associates is that they come from a generation with a “trophy mentality,” said Larry Richard, a psychologist and consultant with Hildebrandt International. His work focuses on lawyer personality types and management issues.

Not only do today’s associates have the typical lawyer traits — risk aversion, skepticism and impatience — but they also are part of a generation raised on plenty of affirmation and rewards. And for people accustomed to earning gold stars, the pink slip hurts all the more.

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Yeah, ’cause people that had a brutal childhood full of beatings and derision are much more able to thrive under uncertain circumstances. Either that or develop a particular fondness for crack.

Still, it’s a fair point that at a broad, general level, lawyers dislike uncertainty:

The uncertainty of joblessness is a “corrosive acid” that raises the threat mechanism, or a sense of danger, among those who are laid off, Richard said. When the threat mechanism increases, people take a fight-or-flight approach, which means that they tend to make rash decisions and to think in all-or-nothing terms.

Laid-off lawyers may believe that they will never find employment again or that they performed badly at their previous job, Richard said, and he recommends that people make contact with other laid-off attorneys. “There’s safety in numbers,” he said.

Things are tough all over, but the world is not coming to an end. People have to get tough and get flexible. Things will get better. At some point, they kind of have to.

Laid-off lawyers find themselves adrift [National Law Journal]

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