Respice finem: law, regret, and the purpose-driven life in leo tolstoy's the death of Ivan Ilych

• Pages: 167-212
• Date: 01 April 2025
• Published date: 01 April 2025
• Author: Joseph Hummel

ARTICLES

Respice Finem: Law, Regret, and the Purpose-

Driven Life in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych

JOSEPH HUMMEL*

ABSTRACT

With surprising frequency, lawyers express regret over their decision to pur-

sue a legal career. Given the high incidence of depression, anxiety, poor mental

health, and thoughts of self-harm among members of the profession, it is per-

haps not surprising that many lawyers see the reality of their lives in practice

as very different from the idealistic, aspirational life in the law they entertained

and wanted when deciding to pursue a legal career. Both before and after law

school, various institutional, economic, and psychological factors risk imperil-

ing or derailing the meaningful and purpose-driven life that many lawyers

desire. This interdisciplinary article uses ethics and literature and the human-

ities—specif‌ically Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych—to examine

how lawyers might pursue a meaningful and purpose-driven life within an oth-

erwise challenging profession and in the face of certain mortality.

Though written nearly 150 years ago, Tolstoy’s novella, which addresses

themes and questions about suffering and death, as well as spirituality and

moral life—and specif‌ically a moral, purpose-driven life relative to one’s pro-

fessional life—f‌inds contemporary resonance with a modern legal profession

that is increasingly antithetical to lawyers’ happiness, health, and satisfaction

with their chosen career. Tolstoy’s protagonist, an accomplished judge by any

means, would f‌it well within the sobering statistics about contemporary lawyer

depression. As such, the story of his suffering, death, and ultimate redemption

offers much to lawyers, specif‌ically in its emphasis on service as a means of

fomenting a purpose-driven life. It also offers new ideas for revisiting and

amending existing institutional systems and ethical guidelines within the profes-

sion—specif‌ically the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the ABA

* Joseph Hummel. Assistant Professor of Law, University of North Texas Dallas College of Law, Dallas,

Texas. B.A. 2005, Boston College; J.D. 2008, Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. The

author wishes to thank Professors Natalie Brandt and Laura Bates for their insightful comments and attention to

this article. The author also wishes to thank the editors and staff at the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics for

their diligence and hard work in helping this article come together. © 2025, Joseph Hummel.

167

Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools—to help law-

yers f‌ind and maintain a meaningful and purpose-driven life in the law.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

I. A NEW FIELD OF PAIN AND DEATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

A. LAWYERS AND THE LEGAL PROFESSION IN CRISIS . . . . . 170

B. LAW STUDENTS, LEGAL EDUCATION, AND THE WELL-

BEING CRISIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

C. THE WELL-BEING CRISIS AND PROFESSIONAL REGRET. . 176

D. A NEW APPROACH? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

II. THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH AND THE LAW AND LITERATURE

MOVEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

III. TOLSTOY: A LIFE IN BRIEF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

IV. THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH: BACKGROUND, ANALYSIS, AND

CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

A. THE BEGINNING IS THE END. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

B. “MOST SIMPLE AND MOST ORDINARY AND THEREFORE

MOST TERRIBLE”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

C. THE END IS THE BEGINNING. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

V. THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH AND THE PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE:

A CALL FOR A RENEWED EMPHASIS ON SERVICE AND

PROPOSALS FOR CHANGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

A. THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYCH AND THE MODERN LAWYER. . 200

B. A MODEL FOR THE PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE. . . . . . . . . . . . 203

C. THE MODEL RULES OF PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT, THE

ABA STANDARDS, AND PROPOSALS FOR REFORM . . . . . . 205

VI. RESPICE FINEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

168 THE GEORGETOWN JOURNAL OF LEGAL ETHICS [Vol. 38:167

INTRODUCTION

With surprising frequency, lawyers express regret over their decision to pursue

a legal career.

1

Given the high and prevailing rates of depression, anxiety, poor

mental health, and thoughts of self-harm among members of the profession,

2

it is

perhaps not surprising that many lawyers see the reality of their lives in practice

as signif‌icantly different from the idealistic, aspirational life in the law they enter-

tained and wanted when deciding to pursue law school. Both before and after law

school, various institutional, economic, and psychological factors risk imperiling

or derailing the meaningful and purpose-driven life that many lawyers desire.

3

Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon, and much has been written about the well-

being crisis in the profession.

4

But this interdisciplinary article does not examine

the issue through the lens of medicine or psychology. Rather, it uses literature

and the humanities—and specif‌ically Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan

Ilych—as a vehicle by which to examine how lawyers might pursue a meaningful

and purpose-driven life within an otherwise challenging profession and in the

face of certain mortality.

Though written nearly 150 years ago, Tolstoy’s novella, which addresses

themes and questions about suffering and death, as well as spirituality and moral

life—and specif‌ically a moral, purpose-driven life relative to one’s professional

life—f‌inds contemporary resonance with a modern legal profession that is

increasingly antithetical to lawyers’ happiness, mental and physical health, and

satisfaction with their chosen career. Tolstoy’s protagonist, an accomplished

judge by any means, would f‌it well within the sobering statistics about contempo-

rary lawyer depression. Ivan Ilych’s story is our story—or at least that of a good

many of us in the profession—and as such, the story of his suffering, death, and

ultimate redemption has much to offer lawyers. It also offers new ideas for revis-

iting and amending existing institutional systems and guidelines within the legal

profession to help lawyers f‌ind and maintain a meaningful and purpose-driven

life in the law.

5

This article contains six sections. Section I examines the well-being crisis in

the legal profession. In assessing current data about lawyer well-being, this

Section connects the well-being crisis to legal education and legal practice, ulti-

mately showing how factors within both can contribute to lawyers’ sense of lost

purpose and professional regret. Section II explores the law and literature move-

ment and the place of Tolstoy’s novella within it. Section III provides a brief

background of Tolstoy’s life. It highlights select biographical, bibliographic,

1. See, e.g., Cheryl Ann Krause & Jane Chong, Lawyer Wellbeing as a Crisis of the Profession, 71 S.C.

L. REV. 203, 210–11 (2019); see also infra notes 71–82.

2. See id.

3. See infra Section I.

4. See infra Section I.A, C.

5. See infra Section V.

2025] LAW, REGRET, AND THE PURPOSE-DRIVEN LIFE 169