Lawyers Wonder: Is The Money Worth The Cost?

People want to feel as if what they do matters.

There’s a very famous bit (at least to dinosaurs and their parents) between the comedian Jack Benny and a thief. (If you don’t know who he is, Google him.) Benny, whose public persona was as a skinflint and who played that part very successfully both on radio and TV, is accosted by a mugger, waving a pistol, who says to Benny, “Your money or your life.” Benny hesitates for a good few seconds.

How would you answer that question? It’s a variation on what I call “is the juice worth the squeeze?” Some lawyers wonder whether the money is worth the cost in many ways.

How to count the various costs? Let’s see. How about these? Less time, or no time, with family and friends. Lousy health. Physical and mental stressors. Substance abuse. No free time to spend however you want to spend it. No time to travel or volunteer. No time to engage in activities that mean something to you. Hobbies? What are those? How about time to read a book for pleasure or lie on the grass and watch clouds scoot across the sky? Remember, dinosaurs, we did that as kids before video games? The world has changed dramatically since I entered practice more than forty years ago. Is the profession in a better place now? You tell me.

Charles Duhigg, a New York Times investigative business reporter and Harvard MBA, recently wrote an article about discontent and unhappiness among the “professional elite.” That group would include us. What Duhigg found, probably not to anyone’s surprise, and certainly not to mine, was that “….there’s no magic salary at which a bad job becomes good.” Can anyone reading this relate to that? Would anyone disagree?

The headline reads “Wealthy, Successful and Miserable.” Based on his conversations and research, Duhigg concluded that factors making us miserable include oppressive hours, political infighting (both backstabbing and what I affectionately like to call “frontstabbing,” when the shiv faces you rather than from the more polite rear), competition due to globalization, and the “always on” culture that the internet has wrought. But Duhigg found that it was more than just those factors that pretty much everyone will agree on are creators of today’s work environment.

So, what constitutes a “good job?” Research shows, says Duhigg, that once you can provide financially for yourself and family (and that depends on the standard of living you have imposed upon yourself), then additional salary and benefits don’t matter. “Much more important are things like whether a job provides a sense of autonomy-the ability to control your time and the authority to act on your unique expertise.” Environments of mutual respect and collaboration enhance the concept of a “good job.” Even in a corporate or law firm environment, a sense of autonomy and the authority to act knowledgeably are possible if you are not micromanaged, a pet peeve of mine and a topic for another time. 

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Meaning. People want their jobs to be meaningful. For example, when you’re slogging through discovery, it’s hard to find any meaning in reviewing a slew of responses objected to on boilerplate grounds, knowing that you are going to have to “meet and confer” and then file a motion to compel. How much meaning is there in that? And how often is there any “smoking gun” found in discovery? Maybe in a deposition from time to time (“were you lying then or are you lying now?”) but certainly not in written discovery, at least in the years I was doing that. I hated that part of my job. 

What is meaningful? It can be anything, any word, any deed that makes the world better. People want to feel as if what they do matters. Everything does matter, although people rarely take the time to tell others that. And maybe that’s a place to start. People perk up at a word or two of praise. How hard it is to say “good job” when that’s true?

Duhigg’s article should provide comfort and support to all of us who didn’t get into the elite law schools, who didn’t get offers from Biglaw, who often had to bump and fumble around for a while (and yes, I am definitely one of them, remember I went to Whittier Law School.)  Many of Duhigg’s HBS classmates were “also-rans,” who failed to get the jobs they wanted when they finished. What Duhigg learned was that these “also-rans” learned from their own rejections, from their own setbacks, that their failures did not preclude eventual successes, often on their own terms and in their own ways. Maybe we don’t make the most money or even close to it, but many of us “also rans” like what we do, do it well and take pride in so doing. Duhigg’s career is Exhibit A.

Hedging against risk (and we lawyers are notoriously risk-averse), that is, choosing professional degrees and careers that promise “stability,” Duhigg says, is short-sighted. Stability? What passes for stability in our profession these days? Just look at the wreckage of legal careers over the past decade, whether just starting out or being laid off at whatever career point and that’s not to say that there won’t be more pain ahead.  

I have friends who have made very respectable amount of money as lawyers, but who have hated every moment of it. I don’t know whether they’ve found any meaning in what they’ve done. As Duhigg notes, “finding meaning…is difficult work.” And we all know that you can’t bill for that.

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old lady lawyer elderly woman grandmother grandma laptop computerJill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for over 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 oldladylawyer@gmail.com.