What we-re not telling law students - and lawyers - that they really need to know: some thoughts-in-action toward revitalizing the profession from its roots.

• Author: Krieger, Lawrence S.

1. INTRODUCTION

   The current state of the legal profession confirms my personal lessons as a law student, litigation attorney, and clinical law teacher:(3) students are not told in law school what they really need to know to have meaningful and healthful lives as lawyers. Unfortunately and to the contrary, it also seems to me that some of the things many of us do learn in law school--largely from the culture rather than the curriculum--affirmatively contribute to the many problems facing the profession and its practitioners today.(4)

   It is hardly debatable any longer that the profession and its practitioners are suffering broadly from many serious problems. Indeed, studies have concluded that lawyers and law students are much more likely than the general population to experience emotional distress, depression, anxiety, addictions, and other related mental, physical, and social problems.(5) These studies confirm the common experience of student distress during law school, the negative public perception of lawyers, and simple observation of attorney behavior: lawyers as a group tend to be stressed and relatively unhappy people.(6)

   A particularly striking study by psychologists Beck, Sales, and Benjamin found that, on a variety of psychological scales, from 20% to 35% of attorneys are "clinically distressed" (which the authors define as "in need of professional help").(7) These levels of distress are found in only about 2% of the general population,(8) and indicate that a very large number of attorneys are indeed living the appearance of a good life but the reality of misery.

   Many commentators call for law schools to address these matters directly.(9) This article offers a unifying, and hopefully clarifying, theory on many of these problems, my approach to presenting and reinforcing this theory for students and attorneys, and early indications that this approach is effective.

   Since becoming a law teacher, I have been struck by the number of law students I see exhibiting tension and personal malaise reminiscent of that which I, and many others I have known, have experienced as students and attorneys. After a few years of observing the particularly persistent performance anxiety in my classes, it struck me that Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Human Needs,"(10) commonly taught in undergraduate psychology courses, might explain the tension I was seeing. I also began to see that the Hierarchy, in combination with basic concepts from addiction theory, might help us understand many of the current problems in the profession. Could the dissatisfaction, distress, and lack of decent behavior among attorneys be understood, in essence, as manifestations of our collective inability to grow beyond the immature levels of psychological functioning which Maslow labeled "lower needs" in his motivation theory?(11)

   I sensed that this analytical framework could take my classes beyond the sense of lecturing and moralizing that attends much of our efforts to encourage professionalism, and prove practically useful to students and lawyers for a variety of reasons. First, it describes the natural process of human growth toward fulfillment--precisely the quality apparently most lacking in student and attorney life. Second, the theory can explain concerns of immediate relevance to most listeners--including anxiety, incivility, excessive competitiveness, and personal dissatisfaction--as reflections of immature levels of human development. I thought that the very nature of such a perspective would motivate students and practitioners to disfavor these negative qualities (rather than accept them as inevitable concomitants of their association with the law) and to "grow up" into the mature states of adult life described by Maslow's work.(12)

   Further study of Maslow's work brought another level of potential usefulness to my attention: his description of self-actualizing people--the healthiest and most mature subjects he could find--describes as well the highly professional attorneys we aspire to train or become. I began to emphasize in my work with students and lawyers this apparent synergy between high levels of fulfillment and the exalted human qualities characteristic of professionalism, in order to further convince listeners to move toward a more mature and balanced approach to their lives.

   I intend this article to stimulate thinking among students, law teachers, and lawyers, and do not suggest that it represents either rigorous research or an authoritative viewpoint(13) on the many complex concerns that are discussed. However, I have worked with this approach in my classroom curriculum, my law school clinics, and numerous continuing education programs for lawyers. My impression after a few years of teaching with this perspective is straightforward: the more that I incorporate it, the better are the results.(14) It seems to help both students and lawyers make sense of the many problems they typically experience personally or observe in the classroom, courtroom, or law office. And as I had hoped, by providing an understanding of how satisfaction is actually derived from the process of living and working, the material has enabled many students to recognize potentially problematic attitudes, perspectives, and priorities, and to amend them constructively.(15)

   There are important considerations that probably should have dampened my optimism by now. The foremost of these is Maslow's own recognition of the rarity of self-actualization in modern society.(16) But he and other leading humanistic psychologists(17) posit the very basis of human nature to be the drive to self-actualize, and I subscribe to this view. I therefore believe that consistent encouragement in this direction, particularly from a role model, combined with the innate desire to experience satisfaction, can lead many people to favor the more mature and adaptive attitudes and behaviors consistent with this psychological perspective. Student experiences thus far support that optimism.(18)

   I have also been undissuaded by the common observation that law student distress results from the current lack of employment prospects for new graduates, or from the grading system at the college, or from other designated stressors in the current educational and professional environments. After all, my classmates and I were saying the same things in 1971, in a time of completely different hiring opportunities, at a school with a different grading system. Research indicates that even during the 1980's, the purported "Golden Age" of hiring for new law graduates, law student and lawyer distress was inordinately high.(19) Furthermore, there is the persistence of distress among lawyers,(20) who are no longer competing for grades or for their first job. It seems irresponsible for us, perhaps the most powerful and intelligent group in society, to be looking "elsewhere" for the causes of our personal and professional distress. Certainly circumstances contribute greatly to one's life situation, but one's attitudes, clarity of thinking, level of self-regard, and capacity for choice and action are more determinative of one's quality of life.(21) Of greater importance, an individual has the capacity to amend these personal factors, making them a practical starting point for initiating improvement.

   Part I of this article sets forth a generally encouraging set of propositions about student and attorney life that I have found to be true.(22) If they are, law students and lawyers need to hear them repeatedly. They collectively represent an approach to life and law which, to the extent it is internalized, can increase life satisfaction, raise standards of professional behavior, and relieve many of the kinds of distress that law students and lawyers are prone to experience. Some students seem to bring much of this information with them to law school, and, based on their relatively pleasant, relaxed demeanor during their school years and after, do not lose sight of it. But many others either do not arrive so equipped, or are separated from their beliefs as their education proceeds.(23)

2. PART I: HOW LIFE AS A LAWYER CAN WORK WELL

   Much of our discomfort is a byproduct of assumptions and attitudes commonly shared within the law school and attorney communities.(24) These assumptions revolve in significant part around the notions that only the "best" will reliably find success in their lives, and that performance and appearances are crucially important. Such beliefs undermine the ability to have satisfying and healthy lives as lawyers by generating stress and anxiety as baseline life experiences for many of us. They facilitate our disconnection from a sense of ourselves as inherently worthwhile people, and encourage us to ignore our personal needs, feelings, and conscience in favor of seemingly more "practical" matters (such as production, performance, income or image). The following propositions contradict such attitudes, and are embedded in my teaching approach for both students and lawyers. They represent much of the happier reality of life as a lawyer that I have learned.(25)

   1. Law Students (and Lawyers) Really Need to Know that their Aspirations for Honors and High Achievement are Valuable Only in the Context of a Balanced, Happy Life

      If one is not happy, what is the point?(26) As law students are preparing for their legal careers, we do not sufficiently encourage them to balance their drive for honors and recognition, either with respect for personal well-being or with trust that life will actually be fine for the many who do not place at "the top". The summit is a great place to be, and no one should misconstrue this message as encouragement to hang back and do less than one's best.(27) The precise and complex nature of the law demands hard work, but students should resist the impulse to sacrifice health, comfort, or balance in the pursuit of their goals. The common, unyielding devotion to excessive hours...