Depression Makes You A Better Lawyer
A little while ago, we asked our readers to tell us if their jobs are making them sick. Over 51% of our respondents reported feeling some kind of depression.
I guess that means we have some fantastic attorneys reading Above the Law. A new study from Australia says that general unhappiness has a positive correlation with many of the the skills great lawyers posses:
The study, authored by psychology professor Joseph Forgas at the University of New South Wales, showed that people in a negative mood were more critical of, and paid more attention to, their surroundings than happier people, who were more likely to believe anything they were told.
So the happy idiot is actually a very smart person cursed with a pleasant disposition?
I always thought that being a miserable bastard was a symptom of Biglaw success, not the cause of it:
“Our research suggests that sadness … promotes information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations.”
More from bizarro world after the jump.
Okay, I’ll buy that sad people process information more rigorously. It makes sense. When you are unhappy everything feels like it is moving in slow motion anyway. But I’m not sure I can believe in all of the findings in this study:
People in a bad mood were also less likely to make snap decisions based on racial or religious prejudices, and they were less likely to make mistakes when asked to recall an event that they witnessed.The study also found that sad people were better at stating their case through written arguments, which Forgas said showed that a “mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style.”
So people who commit, say, hate crimes, are probably in a good mood when they decide to do it? I guess … that makes sense too?
It’s fascinating to think that there is a link between being in a bad mood and making a persuasive argument. And depressing. What kind of sick cosmic joke would it be if you had to be miserable in order to make a point?
Ultimately, I hope that this study is wrong. Work/life balance will be thrown overboard if somebody can prove that miserable associates make great associates.
Thinking negatively can boost your memory, study finds [Reuters]
Earlier: Work-Related Illnesses: Open Thread
(91) 
Comments
Comments hidden for your protection. Show them anyway!
firrrst
foist!
Mystal makes me moar depressed.
"I always thought that being a miserable bastard WITH a symptom of Biglaw success, not the cause of it:"
WITH = WAS
WAS
OMG
I look like that picture in my 8th sex tape. You should check it out. I will spend one percent of the proceeds to help US Americans buy maps so they can such as South Africans and Iraqis and such as.
xoxo
Carrie
At one point, there were studies that stated that smoking was actually healthy for you. You can get a study to say damn near anything.
I find that a week in the Seychelles on my Mochi Craft Long Range 23 usually takes care of any gloom.
If you do not have enough money to purchase this luxury vessel, I suggest you work harder.
"Thinking negatively can boost your memory, study finds [Reuters] "
WHERE'S THE PUNCTUATION??
PERIOD.
OMG
Why are black people always snarling at white people?
Stop picking on Elie. He's just happy.
Studies have shown again and again that depressed people are more successful. Some of the greatest thinkers and artists in history suffered from severe depression.
In one study I read, it said something like "most people think too highly of themselves, while people that are 'depressed' are actually right where they should be, so they have a better view of the world." Or something like that.
"So the happy idiot is actually a very smart person cursed with a pleasant disposition?"
Reading comprehension...FAIL
Logic...FAIL
This study may have some validity. For example, David is very happy but he would make a lousy attorney. He believes virtually everything he reads and thinks that makes him a more selective human than someone who doesn't believe anything at all.
9, becuase you are staring us. And and your furious little mind emits a visible, nuclear glow of hatred. So quit eyeballing sisters trying to enjoy a peaceful brisket at Brother Jimmy's and they will spare you the evil eye. Got it?
12 ftw
The only thing bizarro about the study is what Elie deduced from it.
Partner Emeritus has said that the practice of law breeds depression (perhaps it is the other way around?). He has also noted, based on observations of colleagues, that combining anti-depressants with other medications may correlate with the onset of dementia.
Clearly Ellie is an extremely happy person.
I love JaKe :)
Jake how do you spend a week on your boat when, as you have repeatedly mentioned, you take two vacation days per year, one of which is your birthday? Clean up these inconsistencies. This schtick, and your PE character, are falling apart.
Nancy Pelosi has nice jugs.
@20 - Your schtick is sticking out. Why don't you suck it.
19/22 = JaKe
Should I flush my Lexapro?
"bizarro world"
I liked that.
@24 - No take all of it at once and then fellate a donkey.
We walruses can't help it if we erroneously interpret a scientific study and arrive at a faulty conclusion. What does "logic" or "reading comprehension" have to do with skin color?
Temper your expectations, which were obviously built on a mound of white privilege anyway.
I should just punch you in the face. Racial justice has been served.
EQUALITY SECURE
Elie, if you got depressed, would it make you a better writer?
Suck my ass, Mystal, you race mongering, incredibly happy, baby eating, WALRUS!
If this is true, then why are gay lawyers so good. Gay, people. GAY!
Everyone who unhappily went into the office this morning did so for only one reason: in the hope that tomorrow will be better than today. Most of us think that the only way that will happen is if there's more money in the bank account. So it kind of makes sense that motivated people are a little unsatisfied. I don't think this study is saying that mentally unhealthy people are better workers. It's just observing the wholly unremarkable truism that human beings work to improve their situations.
Money definitely makes you happy.
Skadden Secure
ps: Suck it, Cravath!
None of you are human rights lawyers. You are therefore worthless human beings, contributing to the destruction of humankind and the economic rape of the poor across the world.
Bastards.
33
Bitter Latham Layoff
Affirmative Walrus, you are my new favorite shtick. And what ever happened to future Elie? Did present Elie nuke his IP address and/or ban him?
Yay! I'm going to be an awesome lawyer!
i would *most likely* do the lady pictured with this story. can't say for certain until I see what's below the shoulders.
Happiness is a warm gun.
These findings and PE's anecdotal observation arguably are consistent. If depressed--> mental acuity, then to the extent antidepressants alleviate depression or give people happy feelings, we could expect their use to correlate with cognitive deficits, at least in legal practice.
This post is addressed to Commenter #20:
Both your math and logic skills are faulty. I said that I take four vacation days. Additionally, I take many business trips--some of which include weeklong sojourns to the Seychelles with my clients.
This post is addressed to Commenter #40:
It is a violation of the ethics rules for you to have any clients at all. Please go back to your preeminent peer law review office.
"So people who commit, say, hate crimes, are probably in a good mood when they decide to do it? I guess … that makes sense too?"
This may be the most stupid conclusion I've ever heard someone draw from any study ... are you serious?! That's not even a good facetious conclusion. You went to a top law school, right?
"the the skills great lawyers posses."
Mystal, you have a way with words.
Emeritus, did mommy and daddy not pay enough attention to you when you were young?
Why doesn't Elie just get fired already? Everybody hates him. He's the worst thing to happen to ATL.
Got to agree with JaKe here. #20, you need to go back and work on your logic skills. Perhaps a Kaplan LSAT course may help you. JaKe can be on his boat 365 days a year and still be working. It's called telecommuting. Welcome to the 21st Century.
44 -- doesn't R. Lee Emory get wasted in the latreen by Pyle? Why are you here?
46,
except JaKe claims to be a student.
Student = no clients = no business trips = the reason why JaKe capitalized JK, as in, "just kidding, this is a schtick. Please respond to me as if I'm legitimate, and I win."
This post is addressed to Commenter #48:
Yes, I am a student at a preeminent peer law school (I also edit our preeminent peer law review). However, I also work 35 hours a week at my father's preeminent peer law firm. While it is true that I have not yet passed the bar, I am still able to deliver for the firm in countless ways, including wining and dining clients in the Seychelles on my Mochi Craft Long Range 23.
The fact that you are unfamiliar with this type of regaling suggests to me that you work for a non-preeminent, non-peer law firm, and are penurious.
Elie, you are a f**king race bating piece of sh**. Wow, that makes me feel better just by saying it.
49 - so you're on the law review and work 35 hours per week and attend a top law school and have time for this board? wow.
50, here again. illiterate and happy.
Commenter #51, it is called hard work.
53, it is called b.s.
I'm sure this study will be well remembered a year from now. I just hope it shows up on the Captivate Network in our elevators.
49, nice save. You advance to the next round. But verisimilitude still lacks. Tighten it up. I will say the schtick remains better fiction than that disaster published yesterday or Roxanna's wan efforts.
Depression makes you a better lawyer?
That makes me the best fucking lawyer out there right now, assholes!
-re-deferred
I attended this "Uni" of New South Wales a few years back. I wasn't really impressed.
ha, JaKe = unemployed and i'd say between 40 and 50 years of age. but I would love to know who that huge douche in the picture is. probably one of his gay nephews.
Actually, some of the symptoms for major depressive disorder include an inability to concentrate, a slowing down of mental functions, and insomnia, all of which would make for more mistakes at work and an inability to get things done on time. Anti-depressants improve neurogenesis and neuroplasticity. See Peter Kramer, "Listening to Prozac" and "Against Depression."
There's probably some correlation between happiness and a numbness to your surroundings. It would make sense therefore that some happy people would be less focused, attentive to detail, etc., in short relatively lacking in important lawyering skills.
If feelings of depression weren't helpful, human beings wouldn't have evolved to possess them.
sooo true, i never felt "happy" when I studied for my law school exams. depression was a tool of success!
Should it really surprise anyone that people drawn to the practice of law may have depressive symptoms or that those symptoms help them focus on details better? This sort of thing has long been observed and documented. The difficult issue is direction of causality. Are people who are already depressive disproportionately drawn to law, or does the practice of law do something to them? I think it's probably both.
One other thing, we lawyers tend to be stubborn by nature. Once we set a goal, we don't really think of letting go and trying something else. Healthy people do.
There was a girl in my first year law school class. After first semester she was number one in the class. She started interviewing for clerkships and summer programs and got to see how depressing the practice of law is. I saw this too, but I just felt sorry for myself that I was stuck in such a mess.
She took a very different approach. She just flat quit school and found a job. It really was as simple as that. She came back from a fly back interview and started her (non legal) job search right away. She didn't talk much about it but just said that she couldn't live like the people she had seen in the interview. She quit school before she even had a real job lined up.
The typical lawyer would never make a radical course adjustment like that. Look at the people you work with and for. Once they start down a path, they never reassess and if the road starts looking rocky, they lash out at anyone who points it out.
-- Self Hating Lawyer
"So people who commit, say, hate crimes, are probably in a good mood when they decide to do it? I guess … that makes sense too?"
What.
This manages to make less than zero sense somehow. Um, kudos?
As my shrink husband said to me when I forwarded this article to him: There are also studies that show that depressed people have more realistic views of the world than optimists....where exactly does that get them???? ATL, I don't know if you have been reading newspapers, or even your own comments. An associate who was at my table at last year's firm dinner killed herself after being warned she would be let go because her practice group wasn't bringing in new business. Try doing a serious piece on mental issues among lawyers.
We need to bomb all psychiatrists back to the stoneage!
-DOJ Secure
Depression, meh! nothing a little Rick's can't resolve.
Look folks, a lot fewer attorneys would be a great thing for America.
The study wasn't actually on depression; it was on "sad" moods--very different things. A little reading comprehension goes a long way.
See www.theatlantic.com/doc/200510/lincolns-clinical-depression
This is addressed to Elie's comment about hate crimes. People who commit such crimes are enraged, but they are not necessarily depressed. Anger and sadness are very distinct emotions. It makes perfect sense that a naturally depressive personality would be less inclined to racism. Depressives are natural skeptics and will tend to dismiss unsupported arguments about racial supremacy or sweeping generalizations about entire groups of people.
By contrast, a more "positive" person might be inclined to want to go along to get along with the people around him and if those people are racists then they to become racists.
This is dumb. People who BECOME depressed because of work are usually also very stressed. You don't need to find the one keystone study to show that stress and sleep deprivation stunt neuronal outgrowth, diminish potentiation, hijack hypothalamic networks. They are plentiful. Comparing people who are cynical and "depressed" to the post-lobotomic dolts that make up 90% of this country has no implications for work-life balance. The law student population is probably heavily saturated with the former type (with the exception of non-T20 schools). Within this set, further depressing them isn't likely to help at all.
60=psychiatrist talking his book
I am disappointed that Jake would be satisfied with a slow, glorified lobster trawler. Why would anyone want to be rolled by the waves when they could cruise in style with a Princess 23? Jake, Jake, Jake.
60 and 73 are right. any practical implications of the study are highly dubious due to the experimental design. show someone a sad movie and have them think about it? are you kidding? a good study would take two lawyers of equal intelligence -- send one of them to cravath and another to clerk for the CoA in Puerto Rico. ceteris paribus, see who makes better arguments
60 and 73 are right. any practical implications of the study are highly dubious due to the experimental design. show someone a sad movie and have them think about it? are you kidding? a good study would take two lawyers of equal intelligence -- send one of them to cravath and another to clerk for the CoA in Puerto Rico. ceteris paribus, see who makes better arguments
48 -- 46 here. Thanks I don't follow the JaKe schitck enough to know he also claimed to be a law student. The PE schitck is actually much funnier.
I'm pretty sure this study was funded by Wilson Sonsini.
I love the juxtaposition of preemeninent and peer. That is all.
The fact the JaKe is such a pathetic douchebag that he BRAGS about the benefits of nepotism, shows how pathetic he really is. First, just about every respectable firm in this country has anti-nepotism policies that would not allow such a hire. Second, how pathetic are you that the only place you could get a "job" (in quotes b/c you are full of shit) is at your daddy's firm. Most people I know try to make their own way in life and obtain success and happiness on their own merits, not riding the coattails of their family and then bragging about riding those coattails as if they have accomplished something special.
One final point, most people on here know that all JaKe does is talk about his immense wealth. I happen to know many people who are very wealthy and come from wealthy families, they all have one thing in common: they do not talk about their money, they do not brag about their money, and they absolutely never rub their money in people's faces; further proof JaKe is some retard douchebag undergrad student whose only success in life will come in the form of his internet persona.
74--60 here, and not a psychiatrist, just a lawyer afflicted with severe, recurrent major depressive disorder and a fan of those books for their distillation of the relevant science into something highly readable for the general public.
This article makes perfect sense. The crazy paranoid freaks in my firm are also the best associates. Crazy, boring, socially awkward people make damn good attorneys.
81 - trolled.
BS
Look at the bar suspensions, disbarments. A large %
have depression as a factor.
Silly lawyers with a silly study--
I have bought many so-called "wealthy" heathens, such as Jake and his father, for my personal use and for the use of my family and then disposed of them when they were no longer needed or wanted. People such as these are of no consequence when Allah has blessed you with a strong family and enormous oil reserves.
The Prince
I call nonsense.
Would Hasan be a good lawyer?
47:
1. It's called the head not "latreen"[sic]!
2. It's a movie, it's useful to think of as fiction.
3. Sure enough, I had many close brushes of death at the hands of charlie, but the ole' gunny is still alive and kickin'!
4. If you fuck with me one more time, I will unscrew your head and shit down your neck!
Will this study lead to more suicides among lawyers afraid to take antidepressants because they will dull their "information processing strategies"?
[URL=http://www.topuggshoes.com/ugg-classic-short-c-63.html] Ugg Classic Short Boots [/URL]
[URL=http://www.topuggshoes.com/ugg-classic-tall-c-46.html] Ugg Classic Tall Boots[/URL]
[URL=http://www.topuggshoes.com/ugg-classic-cardy-c-56.html] UGG Classic Cardy [/URL]