Find Satisfaction In the Law:
Taking Control over Your Career and Your Life
Taking Stock: Evaluating Your Present Position
By
Mark L. Byers,
Ph.D. and
Ronald W. Fox, Esquire
In our last column, we raised some general issues about the search for career satisfaction in the legal profession and promised to carry on the inquiry with a closer look at the process of evaluating one's present position. To help us, we introduced a hypothetical attorney, Ruth, who stood on the brink of some important career decisions. We'll continue to keep company with Ruth, but as we hoped, we received comment and inquiries from what certainly sound like very real lawyers, and we are grateful to draw on their observations in what follows. (If you haven't the leisure for reflection just now, you might go to Take Control for a quick method of evaluating your position.)
W.C. Fields, in typically misogynistic language, once said, "there comes a time in a man's life when he has to seize the bull by the tail and face the situation." However, beyond general misgivings, it is not always so clear precisely what is the situation. Identifying the deficiencies in one's work will depend upon the complex expectations concerning professional rewards, personal goals and work conditions described in our last column.
One visitor to the forum (Tania Sourdin) suggests that increasingly negative working conditions such as longer hours are aggravated by feelings of having lost professional definition and purpose, i.e. the dissatisfaction in many jobs could be mitigated by a "reinvention" or "renovation" of lawyers' roles which would restore self-esteem and improve public perception of the profession. She implies that congruence between the individual's values and those of the job is closely tied to congruence between the individual's values and the basic goals and purposes of the legal profession, as that individual understands them. Hence, any evaluation of present position requires a three-way match between the values of person, employer and profession. One asks, in the immortal words of Ross Perot's erstwhile running mate, "Who am I; Why am I here?" Furthermore, one asks, "Where am I; Whom am I serving; Am I serving the profession?"
Daniel Evans, at the ABA web site for the Professional and Personal Satisfaction Interest group of the Law Practice Management Section of the ABA suggests changing our criteria for evaluating our work by adopting new values and perspectives that free us from irrelevant and unrealistic expectations of clients, employers, the public, and not the least, ourselves. "Unhappiness is caused by our perception of reality not meeting our expectations. In that case, we have two choices: we can try to change the world to conform to our expectations, or we can change either our perceptions or our expectations." (From " Unlearning Dissatisfaction" by Daniel B. Evans. This emphasis upon the individual changing his or her expectations and attitudes in not offered as a prescription of non-engagement or indifference to the needs of clients or employers. Rather, it attempts to put the locus of finding satisfaction in the "individual lawyer acting alone," i.e. to make satisfaction a matter of personal responsibility and control. Moreover, Evans considers professional satisfaction "to be a lawyering skill." In this he is taking a stand with the MacCrate Report, which asserts that a fundamental value of the legal profession is that a lawyer must take a position only if it is consistent with his or her personal values and professional goals." Thus, he acknowledges that finding job satisfaction and defining professional values is not only an individual responsibility but requires collegial support from the profession or some segment of it.
By Evans' standards, evaluating one's present position would require a rigorous effort to determine whether we should change the job definition to suit our requirements, change our attitudes toward the job, or leave. In particular, he would have us make sure that we were not allowing the job or the clients to define our practice in a way that feels inauthentic. One of us, in his book Lawyers in Transition urges against evaluating a job in the light of an obsession with what seem to be one's only opportunities. "Shifting your goals to conform to available opportunities causes you to lose sight of who you are and what you truly need. It is premature strategic thinking."
Another forum visitor to the forum is understandably less focused on his inner lawyer and more concerned how to evaluate the economic health and competitive position of his employer. The situation described sounds familiar: a firm which perhaps over-expanded in the late 80's and has since failed to stay competitive in some areas as the market has changed; now it is hard to tell if they are undergoing involuntary attrition or cunning downsizing. The writer seems to assume that this is the kind of employer which he seeks; he is only concerned with whether it is a safe and secure alliance. The question for this individual associate is whether his situation constitutes a career constraint or opportunity. To make a determination, he needs 1) to discover more about the competition between firms in his city and his firm's business strategy; 2) to make a separate analysis of his situation at the firm in terms of his training timetable and the viability of the practice areas to which he is assigned. Whatever the firm's fate, his personal growth might continue, perhaps with unusual responsibility, perhaps with the opportunity to be connected with a vital effort at renewal within the firm. For the former, he will need to read more, and especially to talk with friends at other firms to see how his firm is perceived by the others. (Maybe he should have a discreet chat with a headhunter.) For the latter, he needs to see if his opportunities for training will be affected by the morale and resources of the partners for whom he works. If he needs to relocate in the next year or so, he may be more marketable than the partners! We have seen well-trained young associates fare quite well when a firm has died on them.
In his job he must decide what he is trying to obtain from his work experience and to what purpose. Even here, where the focus is on the external working conditions, there is still necessity to undertake some self-assessment and introspection, asking "what do I seek from this position?"
What about Ruth? (As we would say if we were to view our creation as a new soap character.) What first step should she take to recognize her goals and values and then evaluate her present position in light of her criteria? Rather than developing her own list she might want to begin by using one we have compiled. Ruth took this exercise found at take control. If you're still with us, try taking the exercise and then return to this page.
Ruth felt that 10 of the 20 variables were very important to her and scored then as follows:
- 3 Provides intellectual stimulation and creativity
- 3 Allows self expression
- 9 Provides adequate Income
- 2 Provides time for family and non career pursuits
- 2 Provides the right legal specialties
- 2 Provides training and development
- 3 Provides opportunity for direct service
- 2 Contributes to the public good
- 8 Provides right geographical location
- 3 Provides chance to feel needed
She divided the total of 37 by 10 (the number of criteria chosen) and came out with a score of 3.7. What does this mean? On one level, Ruth is saying that she does not have autonomy, she does not like the environment, her mind is not stimulated and she is not doing anything that matters to her. She may be feeling that she is missing the essence of being a professional. For the first time, she is evaluating her employer rather than passively waiting to be judged and, simply put, the firm is not meeting Ruth's standards. Ruth is beginning to take control.
How would you summarize your own scores? Do our variables adequately cover your criteria? Why not drop the Forum a note and let others know what yardstick you apply to measuring your jobs?
Next Time: Interest and Personality Tests: What They Contribute to Self-Assessment and the Job Transition:
Or, as George Herbert put it:
By all means use sometime to be alone. Salute theyself: see what thy soul doth wear. Dare to look in thy chest; for 'tis thine own: And tumble up and down what thou find'st there.
Resources and Additional Reading
While not easily found, the media contains hundreds of articles where the topic is how lawyers feel about their work and their career. For guidance on finding them and for other suggestions, refer to the Section on " Resources for Taking Control of Your Career and Your Life" in our first article, which are included again below. Sadly, they are likely to have titles such as the ones we have collected over the years; i.e., "Practice of law loses its appeal", "Miserable with the Legal Life", "Have Law Degree, will Travel" "Taking the Plunge - To Practice Law or Not". More hopeful are the ones where satisfied lawyers talk about their previous positions; i.e., "Law the Old Way, Pass Bar, Hang Shingle", "Downsizing", "Spence, Again to the Rescue ". A recent article in the November 4 issue of Forbes Magazine contains excellent descriptions of lawyers who reassessed their professional needs and made radical changes in their work. Surveys such as the ABA Young Lawyers Division Career Satisfaction 1995 do not have extensive profiles but will usually have numerous brief observations by respondents. You may also want to look at the chapter entitled "The Roots of Career Dissatisfaction" in What Can You Do with a Law Degree, Chapter 3 "A Career Path" in Lawful Pursuit, and Chapter 3 of Lawyers in Transition.
Resources for Taking Control of Your Career and Your Life from column 1
Surprisingly there are few easily accessible resources which contain first hand descriptions of the lives of satisfied lawyers beyond a few sensational biographies. However, with some digging, and a willingness to interrogate friends and strangers, one can make some headway. Happily, there exist many good articles and surveys and practice descriptions which relate to job satisfaction in the legal profession. You may wish to begin by looking at the following.
Profiles of lawyers in many local, state, regional and national legal newspapers, newsletters and magazines, especially Section B of the Lawyers Weekly Publications. (We are partial to the article entitled "Passionate About Their Work" in the October 9, 1995, issue of Lawyers Weekly USA.) In addition search through back copies of American Lawyer, the National Law Journal, the ABA YLD Barrister.
Published and unpublished material compiled by law schools in which their alumni/ae describe their work and their lives; i.e., Yale Law Graduates at Work and Harvard Law School's Alumni/ae in Action.
Books about lawyers; What You Can Do With a Law Degree by Deborah Arron, Lawful Pursuit by Ronald W. Fox, Lawyers in Transition by Mark L. Byers, Good Works by Jessica Cowan; Soul of the Law by Benjamin Sells
Conversations and inquiries: Ask colleagues to give you the names of lawyers who appear to believe that the work they do is satisfying and meaningful. You could contact: the law school you attended and talk to the Dean, faculty, and staff in the career planning and alumni/ae offices; local and state bar association officers and staff; judges and personnel at your courts.
Make Use of FindLaw. From the home page, try any of the following:
1. Click on Legal Associations; then click on National Association for Public Interest Law, then to the NAPIL Connection and finally VISTA Profile: Myles Lynk.
2. Go to News and Reference section and look through some legal news publications, such as Court TV, Lawyers Weekly, or Spotlight from Counsel Connect Web.
3. Visit the FindLaw Bookstore, and find the link to Barnes and Noble. Consider reading profiles such as The Making of a Country Lawyer by Gerry Spence, Running from the Law by Deborah Arron, Women in Law by Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, My Life as a Radical Lawyer by William M. Kunstler, Justice in the Mountains: Stories and Tales by a Vermont Lawyer by Deane C. Davis.
4. Go to the Lawyers and Law Firms section and explore some Lawyers and Law Firms WWW sites.
5. Visit
REFLAW, which you can reach from the FindLaw
Other Indexes page, and explore.