The Legacy Project: 2011
| Publication year | 2010 |
| Pages | 14 |
A Nostalgic Touch
The Legacy Project: 2011
By Matthew Keenan, Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, Kansas City, Mo., mkeenan@shb.com
Lawyer surveys are the rage these days, and one recurring theme that's been getting the attention of the popular press is this conclusion — morale in the legal profession, along with the medical profession, is dropping like a stone. One article in the New York Times suggested that lawyers have a satisfaction level equal to dentists.
And then the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics, published its own article. It began with this paragraph: "In a country where the depression rate is 10 times higher today than it was in 1960, lawyers sit at the unenviable zenith of depressed professionals. Of all professionals in the United States, lawyers suffer from the highest rate of depression after adjusting for socio-demographic factors, and they are 3.6 times more likely to suffer from major depressive disorder than the rest of the employed population. Lawyers are also at a greater risk for heart disease, alcoholism and drug use than the general population." Todd D. Peterson & Elizabeth Waters Peterson, Stemming the Tide of Law Student Depression: What Law Schools Need to Learn from the Power of Positive Psychology, Yale J. Health Policy & Ethics No. 2 2009.
While these types of observations capture headlines and may influence doting mothers to steer their sons or daughters to what they perceive as more "happy" undertakings, it is my own experience, albeit anecdotal perhaps, that suggests our profession is just the opposite - lawyers love what they do and stick with it. Indeed, the professionals I've met in my 25 years of practice don't retire early. Their work is their life. And they love both. Many attorneys are still serving their clients and the profession well into their 80s.
The reality has intrigued me. And so I thought — this generation - men and often women who Tom Brokaw called the "Greatest Generation" deserve their own survey. A population of adults who defended freedom in foreign lands, returned to college on the GI bill, and began a practice often alone and frequently in the small communities that dot our fine state. Hanging out a shingle before all the conveniences we take for granted today — word processors, paralegals, even in some cases, the Rule of Civil Procedure.
For most, being a lawyer...
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