Book Review

• Citation: Vol. 50 No. 2
• Publication year: 2024

BOOK REVIEW Vol. 50 No. 2 Pg. 42 Vermont Bar Journal July 2024

How to Stop Hating the Law: A Path to Hope for Miserable Lawyers

By: Stuart Teicher

Publisher: BookBaby (2024)

118 pages

Reviewed by: Philip Back, Esq.

Wellness is important. When I first began practicing law, there were no wellness CLEs, and mental health was not discussed in law school. Things have changed.

Several years ago, I was a litigator, and I hated it. It consumed me and made me anxious. I didn't talk to any other lawyer about it for fear that it would affect my career. But my wife, a non-lawyer, knew, and she bought me a meditation book written for lawyers.^[1] I was at such a low point that I read it, and it helped. It made me hate my job a little less.

That is the point of Stuart Teicher's new book, How to Stop Hating the Law. Although meditation is a common component of wellness CLEs, it is not the focus of Teicher's book. Instead, Teicher describes a process, in a relatable style, with a modest goal: how to stop hating the practice of law. The book, and this review, are not criticisms of meditation and mindfulness. Those techniques and practices are important and useful tools in your attorney-wellness toolbox. But Teicher offers a different "tool" to help accomplish the same wellness goal. Teicher's technique can complement the other tools—meditation and mindfulness—or it can be used alone because it's not always necessary to use all the tools in a toolbox to accomplish a task.

Teicher's style makes the book easy to read. It is written as if the author, in his signature New Jersey style, is talking directly to you—a practicing lawyer. It is not written like a textbook, treatise, or even an instruction manual. The book comes across as a long essay (only 118 pages), not an impersonal academic text with citations to other boring academic texts.

The book starts out simple and explains its modest goal. The author assures you he cannot make you love your life or your job. He merely wants to help you better tolerate your job. That seems like a good enough start. For those who want to transform themselves into happy people who love working as a lawyer, this book offers few insights. But reading this book and following its instructions may put you in a better position to becoming a mythical happy lawyer if you ever find the elusive guide to true happiness. Given the epidemic of mental health problems in the legal profession, How to Stop Hating the...