Familiar with the term “emotional labor?” I wasn’t. You know I live on Planet Oblivia, which bears a striking resemblance to Southern California. And you better hope that there won’t be three (count’em) separate Californias come November.
Essentially, emotional labor is managing our emotions to meet the expectations of the job. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild coined the term back in the 1980s in her book, The Managed Heart.
So, every service provider, from waiter to plumber to contractor to doctor to lawyer, and yes, we are service providers, must manage their emotions to meet the demands of the job. Sound familiar? What I found interesting about the Wikipedia article and we can stipulate that Wiki is not the be-all and end-all of information is that lawyers are not listed among the smattering of careers that Wiki talks about in its article. I would have thought that lawyers, as well as doctors, would be included in the list of those careers where regulating one’s own emotions in the context of work is paramount.
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However, Hochschild includes lawyers, along with others such as customer service reps, and bank officers, as “toxin handlers,” those who deliver bad news and bear the brunt of rage, frustration, and despair leveled at them by the clients/customers. Remember George Clooney in the movie Up in the Air, whose job it was to travel around the country and lay people off, as part of corporate downsizes or rightsizes, take your pick of terminology.
What Hochschild discusses in her book of 35 years ago is even more relevant today as our economy is more and more service oriented. We submerge our personal feelings and attitudes to conform to the dictates of the job and, if employed, by the particular corporate culture. We strive to get the result the client wants, as a satisfied client is not only a content client, but also a potential referral source.
So, for example, while we may feel, in an emotional way, for a family law client, we are trained to not let those feelings show, to be dispassionate and objective in sorting through the various issues to the way, hopefully, to resolution. Essentially, we have to wear an invisible shield. We have to detach. It’s the never-ending battle between what we do feel and what we must not feel. It’s often emotionally exhausting, which is why burnout, substance abuse, depression and similar issues make practicing law emotionally tricky and often the basis for discipline.
But it’s not just emotional labor with clients, although that is probably the place where the most critical evaluation by others takes place; it is also emotional labor with colleagues, staff, opposing counsel and others in the community. Guess who buys the birthday cards and birthday cake for the office? Gentlemen, here’s a primer for you on emotional labor. Whether it’s called that or “office housework,” guess who bears the burden? Women readers don’t have to guess.
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In an article several years ago in The Atlantic, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota said that “…the expectations for emotional labor in the legal profession apply to women working in every part of the field. In other words, while male attorneys—generally speaking—are allowed and even expected to be aggressive and domineering, that does not extend to female attorneys, who are frequently penalized if they attempt to conform to these emotional norms.” While female secretaries were expected to be deferential and caretaking to the mostly male attorneys, the same was not expected of male secretaries
One issue with “emotional labor” is that not only do we modify our emotions to conform to employer and client needs, we also modify our emotions in our personal lives, which is not the way it should be. You wonder, or at least I do, if the way some lawyers treat opposing counsel is duplicated in the home life. We all have encountered the screaming jerk on the speakerphone who lets loose. I always let him (it was always a “him”) rage on. Silence can be very effective in shutting those people down. Given what’s happened over the past year or so in terms of the import of “#time’s up?” and “#me too” are those indicia of the cost of emotional labor? I don’t think anyone would say no.
Emotional labor is especially prevalent in the gig economy and that includes a lot of us. (Tell that to anyone doing document review and who wonders what the next gig will be. Tell that to the solo who doesn’t have any pending matters and needs to take on some overflow work until the next matter arises.) While the article focuses on Uber (a prime example of the gig economy), there is advice there for anyone working in a gig economy, and that includes increasing amounts of lawyers who work on a contract or project basis, whether out of preference or necessity.
I think that in our haste to get the business, do the work, and bill the hours, we forget about the human component that goes into the practice, the emotional labor component, not the “what’s in it for me?” [Cue the lemming-like Biglaw firms matching first year salaries to make sure they’re not left behind.]
Clients want lawyers to understand their businesses and their business models. It’s not just understanding the one-off of a particular transaction or piece of litigation, but rather understanding the client’s needs and being proactive in attending to them. The emotional labor part of the attorney client relationship takes just as much work, if not more, than the actual work done.
The expenditure of emotional labor can’t be quantified until someone figures out how to quantify it and makes it part of the billable hour requirement. With all the innovation around us, that day can’t be too far off.
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for 40 years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at [email protected].