tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post3413734775036836035..comments2023-10-30T08:41:06.178-07:00Comments on Inside the Law School Scam: Depression and denialLawProfhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05174586969709793419noreply@blogger.comBlogger139125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-15720933030233540702013-01-29T22:13:45.491-08:002013-01-29T22:13:45.491-08:00Of course law professors are "arbitrary"...Of course law professors are "arbitrary". There is no other way they could be. Any attempt to grade objectively would reveal the "law" for what it is: bullshit. <br /><br />One of the first things we discover is that "rule of law" is impossible. Indeed, there are (at least) two sets of laws - one for government employees, and one for everyone else. <br /><br />The purpose of law school really is to weed out those individuals who maintain any shred of morality, for such is systemically intolerable. Can you imagine? Saying the Emperor has no clothes?! So of course the professors beat us up on a regular basis. How else will we learn what real law is like in the real world? <br /><br />We don't have a justice system, we have a power system, and law school reflects that well. <br /><br />This is depressing. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-8678211601840667542013-01-29T21:57:33.117-08:002013-01-29T21:57:33.117-08:00Law students are depressed because they have coe t...Law students are depressed because they have coe to realize that there is no law. Many, like me, enroll with the quaint conviction that law is about "justice", that philosophy and ethics matter, that it is about "right" and "wrong, that there are such things as "legal principles". LOL. <br /><br />Instead, we are given hundreds of "rules", each with multiple exceptions, and sometimes exceptions to the exceptions. As we brief cases, we come to understand that any case could have been ruled either way, and that this is the WHOLE IDEA. We are trained to argue every issue from either side, and there is always "law" to make this possible. Our task as attorneys is to provide the court with the ability to rule any which way that serves its interest. <br /><br />This is depressing. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-85400117800736711682013-01-17T02:57:31.855-08:002013-01-17T02:57:31.855-08:00This site is awesome. I continually encounter some...This site is awesome. I continually encounter something new & different right here. Thank you for that data.<a href="http://vibraquil.com/" rel="nofollow">Natural remedies to treat depression</a>Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05042144689754841956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-31759968753278197272012-11-04T22:31:39.134-08:002012-11-04T22:31:39.134-08:00EDIT:
*The authors OF the study
* The pessimist vi...EDIT:<br />*The authors OF the study<br />* The pessimist views bad events as pervasive, permanent and UNchangeable.<br />*Excerpt taken from pp. 152-154 of "The Motivated Mind" by Dr. Raj Persaud (Bantam Press, 2005).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-50173892951296655322012-11-04T22:23:16.642-08:002012-11-04T22:23:16.642-08:00Part 2 (excerpt from "The Motivated Mind"...Part 2 (excerpt from "The Motivated Mind" cont.):<br /><br />Pessimism is seen as a plus among lawyers because seeing troubles as pervasive and permanent is a component of what the law profession deems ‘prudence’. A prudent perspective enables a good lawyer to see every conceivable snare and catastrophe that might occur in any transaction. The ability to anticipate the whole range of possible problems and betrayals that non-lawyers are blind to is highly adaptive for the practicing lawyer who can, by so doing, help his clients defend against these eventualities. The best lawyers are probably those most deeply pessimistic about human nature and who don’t trust their own clients any further than the opposition. This scepticism helps them to be best prepared for any eventuality.<br /><br />Unfortunately, a personality feature that makes you good at your profession does not always make you a happy person.<br /><br />The key to solving lawyer unhappiness – and, given pessimism probably is at the heart of the success of many other professionals where prudence is a key factor, a key to helping many of us to be happier at work—is not to take home the pessimism that helps us to do our jobs well.<br /><br />It is vital to understand that gloomy views of others are helpful in getting your job done well but to take these views home and maintain them of your spouse, family or friends is likely to make you depressed about life in general.<br /><br />Pessimistic lawyers are, according to Prof. Seligman, also more likely to believe that their spouses are being unfaithful and this might explain why lawyers have the highest divorce rate compared to other professions.”<br /><br />------<br /><br />Persaud goes on to discuss helpful techniques for preventing such otherwise useful pessimism from contaminating other areas of your life (e.g. self-esteem and relationships) where it is not welcome and can only do harm. Pessimism can be a very useful cognitive trait in a lawyer's toolkit, but as a human being, optimism and resilience are what you require to thrive. Self-awareness and balance are the secret of success here. (But not if you want to succeed in biglaw in the status quo, however; that requires a fundamentally skewed and imbalanced life. Or maybe that's just my pessimism talking ;-)<br /><br />I'll just add that 10 minutes of daily meditation can be miraculous and transformational for any student or professional dealing with depression. "Search Inside Yourself" is an easy and incredibly powerful crash-course in meditation (and other happiness tips) by Google engineer and wellness author Chade Meng-Tan.<br /><br />Good luck everyone with your challenges. Keep looking up and stay strong.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-6559169693848233112012-11-04T22:21:31.816-08:002012-11-04T22:21:31.816-08:00Part 1:
Such a great discussion here.
Dr. Raj P...Part 1:<br /><br /><br />Such a great discussion here.<br /><br />Dr. Raj Persaud addresses this exact question in his excellent book, “The Motivated Mind” (Bantam Press, 2005).<br /><br />Persaud says that stress and even 'status anxiety' by themselves don't necessarily lead to depression, and this is supported by the fact that many other stressful and hierarchical fields do not have depression rates anywhere near to what we see in the legal field. Rather, he attributes the depression susceptibility of lawyers/law students to: (1) a specific type of stress, which is the kind arising from a perceived lack of control over what you do at work; and (2) personality disposition towards pessimism. Law school and biglaw culture (particularly the early years) definitely involve the former. The second is more controversial as it suggests that lawyers/law students at least to some extent self-select into the field out of a distinctly pessimism-prone personality type; this would appear to at least partly support the hands-off view of some law schools regarding law student depression, which is that "they come to us that way".<br /><br />For those who do not have easy access to "The Motivated Mind", I am providing the following excerpt (for the purpose of educational discussion and commentary) from Dr. Raj Persaud's excellent book. I strongly encourage anyone interested in the subject of lawyers (and other professionals) struggling with mental and emotional health issues, or those interested in the general topics of life management, self-improvement, focus, motivation, goal-setting, happiness and fulfillment, to pick up a copy of Dr. Persaud's eye-opening, compassionate and helpful book.<br /><br />“One of the largest surveys ever conducted to investigate which jobs are the most stressful involved interviewing over 3,000 people and concluded that the job most associated with major mental health problems was being a lawyer… Lawyers, according to this research, are almost four times more likely to be depressed than the average working person. The study was conducted by doctors at America’s top medical school, Johns Hopkins, where I worked for a while as a psychiatrist. The authors to the study, led by Dr. William Eaton, were puzzled as to why [this profession] should be associated with the most depression of all and suggested that perhaps it was down to the lack of control the individual working in [this area] had over their workload.<br /><br />Much research into occupational stress has found that it’s not so much the workload you suffer that determines your stress levels as how much control you have over the way you do your job. The more individual autonomy you have from nine until five, the more protected you seem to be from developing emotional disturbance, or even the physical consequences of stress, like high blood pressure. Even if you have a lot of work to do, as long as you have some say in how it’s done, this seems to buffer you from the effects of occupational stress.<br /><br />However, psychologists have long been puzzled by why lawyers were the most depressed profession of all, given, for example, that lawyers in the USA long surpassed doctors as the highest paid professionals. Yet 52% of practicing lawyers in a recent survey there described themselves as dissatisfied.<br /><br />The latest theory to explain this odd result comes from top American psychologist Professor Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania. Seligman argues that the key thing about lawyers is they tend at heart to be pessimistic personality types. When bad things happen in life, pessimists tend to assume these negative life events are permanent and global—they are going to last forever and are going to undermine everything. The pessimist views bad events as pervasive, permanent and changeable. While pessimism is maladaptive in most endeavours, Prof. Seligman found, surprisingly that those entering law school get better grades the more pessimistic they are.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-39297927147560035282012-11-04T06:15:15.795-08:002012-11-04T06:15:15.795-08:00I'm a 2nd year law student studying in the UK,...I'm a 2nd year law student studying in the UK, and all I can say is that law students all over the world face the same problems, with dwindling employment prospects and insurmountable levels of stress. <br /><br />Many of my seniors are actually actively considering not entering the legal profession after graduating, as it's simple clear that whatever misery we suffered in law school, it'll only continue once we enter the industry. <br /><br />Please, don't say that you're a failure. It may be a blessing in disguise. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-3132819062374842962012-10-24T23:57:04.268-07:002012-10-24T23:57:04.268-07:001. Expect to lose half of your cases.
2. The rig...1. Expect to lose half of your cases.<br />2. The right person doesn't always win in court.<br />3. Judges can be jerks. They are nothing like the TV shows. Just remember, always bow and scrape no matter what.<br />4. The biggest problem is that companies like to hire the big law firms and get raped by the bills because they think they have some sort of magic bullet to win cases. They don't. Too much testosterone in the brain leads to this fallacy. They should hire new grads for peanuts and get the same results. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-41477884344039284032012-10-14T13:38:47.560-07:002012-10-14T13:38:47.560-07:00you're lovely. right on.you're lovely. right on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-91103977366161832532012-10-10T14:24:41.349-07:002012-10-10T14:24:41.349-07:00I'm one of the law grads who look fairly toget...I'm one of the law grads who look fairly together on the outside. I graduated from a top 20 school before the recession, did main journal, landed a moderately respectable clerkship, and then got a legal job in government. (BigLaw loved my resume, but we never "clicked" in interviews and I knew it as well as they did.) I was hurting for money for the first few years, but now I'm doing okay and have no major financial problems. I expect to be able to pay off my loans, buy a house, and eventually retire.<br /><br />But I still became clinically depressed in law school, and I've had another bout of the illness since getting out. I don't put it down to the competition of law school itself. I enjoyed the academic challenge, and at some level I enjoy the adversarial nature of litigation. But law school is where I lost my faith... not religious faith, which I still have to some degree, but faith in institutions and progress and, really, the legitimacy of everything. <br /><br />I found most of the curriculum after first year ridiculous, and my professors so alien (in both social class and generational experience) that I couldn't connect to them. The faddish fields my classmates wanted to work in (mortgage-backed securities?????) were obviously absurd. Pretty much everything in the public policy realm made me want to punch holes in walls. It's that thing about how people who like sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made. <br /><br />It's very hard to go through life when you think all the institutions around you are corrupt, incompetent, or otherwise hopeless. Maybe it's just the general fall-of-Rome malaise that everyone in the U.S. seems to have these days, but I think being in law school at the peak of the financial bubble intensified this to the point that I can't look at the world in a positive (or even neutral) way anymore. I'm sympathetic to those who want to drop out, become religious cultists, or otherwise not grapple with the modern world. I don't want to. It's awful.<br /><br />I don't know if I would have come to feel this way if I didn't go to law school. I worked in a lab and never thought about any of these things. I wish I could get that back, but that isn't going to happen. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-73218727465861381312012-09-28T20:35:29.806-07:002012-09-28T20:35:29.806-07:00This is a well-worded post that deserves a reply. ...This is a well-worded post that deserves a reply. <br /><br />We are taught that hard work and discipline will pay off in the long run. All we have to do is play by the rules, get an education, get a degree and all is good.<br /><br />This is a lie.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03196838706642671908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-71143846631329879772012-09-28T20:26:42.591-07:002012-09-28T20:26:42.591-07:00I graduated from law school 2 years ago and I have...I graduated from law school 2 years ago and I haven't found a law-related job yet. I work as a bellhop in a hotel carting bags around and parking cars. I think we need to get the word out and shut down as many law schools as we can. That way we can prevent other from getting scammed and save the taxpayers a lot of money in the future.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03196838706642671908noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-63247434081642629832012-08-21T10:22:23.230-07:002012-08-21T10:22:23.230-07:00Hello,
Attorney Dan Lukasik is currently writing ...Hello,<br /><br />Attorney Dan Lukasik is currently writing a book on depression in the legal profession for the forthcoming ABA book publication "A Terrible Melancholy: Depression in the Legal Profession."<br /><br />Dan is currently interviewing law students, lawyers, and judges nation-wide who suffer from depression.<br /><br />Dan is looking for 15-20 minute law student contributions (open or anonymous) to be included in his book. The contributions will offer suggestions for healing, help and hope, as 40-51% of law students suffer from depression. Compelling stories of perseverance as well as coping strategies would be very helpful.<br /><br />Are there any law students willingly to make a contribution to the book?<br /><br />Please check out the website below to get a better idea of the book as well as the great things Dan is doing for our legal community.<br /><br />You can contact Dan directly via his site: http://www.lawyerswithdepression.com/contribute-book/<br /><br />Thanks,<br /><br />JoeAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06399540942472154667noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-86109926568154607102012-01-14T15:08:25.889-08:002012-01-14T15:08:25.889-08:00Hey !:25,
not sure if you'll see this but ema...Hey !:25,<br /><br />not sure if you'll see this but email me at itlss@temple.edu if you want to chat / If I can give you any advice or words of inspiration. <br /><br />-2:01Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-75458365170738070522012-01-13T13:25:06.483-08:002012-01-13T13:25:06.483-08:002:01,
Thanks for those words of inspiration. Eve...2:01,<br /><br />Thanks for those words of inspiration. Even though I know I made the right decision, I'm kind of down in the dumps right now as you can probably imagine. I'm sending out job apps left and right and doing everything possible to get something ASAP. But I know something isn't just going to magically drop out of the sky. It's going to be a full-time job finding a job, but I ultimately think I'll be OK since I have a decent undergrad degree that is marketable in the area I live in.<br /><br />Talking to you, someone who literally made the exact decision I did at the same point in their LS career, has made me feel better. Thanks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-80398499219573622732012-01-13T12:20:25.995-08:002012-01-13T12:20:25.995-08:00@4:02, 2:01 here.
I don't feel like it was th...@4:02, 2:01 here.<br /><br />I don't feel like it was the worst decision I ever made to go to law school, because I was on that path for a long time. Obviously a huge mistake in retrospect, but consider us lucky for not pouring more money down the path to misery. I of course should have cut losses after 1L. I was unemployed for 3 months after I dropped out of law school, fyi. I found my place though, and you will to.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-69273966313727377862012-01-13T08:35:55.179-08:002012-01-13T08:35:55.179-08:00Good for you 8:11. You're a model of life mana...Good for you 8:11. You're a model of life management.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-55414331705557327932012-01-13T08:11:28.611-08:002012-01-13T08:11:28.611-08:00This is going to sound weird, but...
I have suffe...This is going to sound weird, but...<br /><br />I have suffered from depression all my life--recurring, at-first debilitating depression that is genetic in origin, and which is not susceptible to cure by drugs (I've tried. They don't work for me.) But after years of therapy, I have discovered things that do make a measurable difference: <br /><br />* making sure that, no matter how busy I am, I eat right<br />* making sure that, no matter how busy I am, I take the time to exercise<br />* going to bed at 10 PM and getting up at 6 AM.<br />* when faced with uncertainty in my future, I plan what I'm going to do under any option: that way I am never out of control.<br />* making sure that every day, for at least one hour, I do something because *I* want to do it, not because my job demands it or someone tells me I must.<br /><br />If you are suffering from depression--and if you're suffering from depression in law school--a big part of the reason is the complete loss of control that is law school. <br /><br />You don't control when you get called on. The amount you work, and your understanding of the material, doesn't have any impact on the grades you get. You don't get to choose the classes you take, the professors you have, the books you read.<br /><br />For me, getting through a depressive episode is entirely about creating control: giving myself choices, fall-back plans, assurances, creating pockets of my life where, no matter what is happening elsewhere, I'm in control.<br /><br />When I went to law school, I mapped out scenarios. If I absolutely hated it, I planned to leave at the end of the first year. I figured out what jobs I would look for, how I would go about getting them, and planned to cover the "resume gap" that year would create.<br /><br />It took me years to figure out that I had a problem, that the problem had a cause, and that there was something I could do about it.<br /><br />In some ways, I think the reason I got through law school (relatively) unscathed is that I was already familiar with what was happening, and I knew what it was I was facing. "Oh," I remember thinking in law school, "this feels like the onset of a depressive episode. I've got to take care of myself."<br /><br />Whereas most people who are unfamiliar with depression think: "Oh, what the fuck is happening to me? I had better work harder, and stop being such a pussy." <br /><br />Which is what I was doing to myself in the beginning.<br /><br />Depression is something that can be dealt with and managed.<br /><br />All of that being said, the one sure-fire thing that is bound to send me into depression is this:<br /><br />* not being financially solvent<br /><br />I graduated in 2006, and what I had then is rare as unicorns now.<br /><br />If I had gone to law school today, I hope to hell I would have left after the first year. I don't see any other way that I could have managed to stay in the profession without suffering from serious harm.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-52075842797575121322012-01-13T06:25:42.951-08:002012-01-13T06:25:42.951-08:00@10:08 that's a bold statement. I made the exa...@10:08 that's a bold statement. I made the exact same point regarding government subsidies three posts ago (or so). I was promptly attacked as an unemployed loser that knows nothing of economics by multiple commenters. Not everyone gets it.OhLatenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-22943035561890985632012-01-13T05:53:05.434-08:002012-01-13T05:53:05.434-08:00@10:08, you said: "Any moron understand that ...@10:08, you said: "Any moron understand that government subsidy for demand = greater prices by supply."<br /><br />Actually, most people don't understand basic economics. There are still a lot of people that blame Cooley and TJLS for the ills in the legal world when the fact is that it's the government subsidies, in the form of unlimited students loans, that are the root of the problem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-53700379585338861572012-01-13T04:02:52.189-08:002012-01-13T04:02:52.189-08:00@ 2:01 A.M
Thanks for the words of inspiration. ...@ 2:01 A.M<br /><br />Thanks for the words of inspiration. I like knowing that there are people out there who have made a similar decision and who have succeeded in doing so.<br /><br />I had little employment prospects given where I was sitting in the class and finally realized that spending 50K to finish this degree would have just been pouring money down the drain. Like I said, people at the top of the class where striking out at OCI at this "decent" regional T2 school.<br /><br />Right now, I can tell that family and friends think I made a dumb decision by dropping out. But they just don't understand. They thick law school is an automatic ticket to paradise. If I can just find a decent job making OK money and be happy then people will eventually forget that I was in law school. It's not their life.<br /><br />If there's any advice I can offer to people in law school/going to law school, it's this: If you don't do well in 1L, cut your losses and move on! Odds are things won't get any better in your 2L year. If I had just cut my losses after 1L I'd only be 18K in the hole. Instead, I came back for the first semester of 2L (was afraid to admit failure) and poured another 18K down the drain (lost scholarship after 1L). The worst decision I've ever made was attending law school. The second worst was not cutting my losses after 1L. Hopefully the best is deciding to drop out midway through 2L.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-85778116549935995532012-01-13T02:01:51.959-08:002012-01-13T02:01:51.959-08:00@ the guy who dropped out midway through 2L. I d...@ the guy who dropped out midway through 2L. I did that as well. I was in a similar situation (scholarship, T2, $30k in LS debt), best decision I've ever made in my life. You might have a hard few months in front of you, but you no longer have a hard rest of your life. Best of luck to you. I dropped out a little over a year ago. I have a job I like, that pays well, and I've learned a lot. I'm on a good path now.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-28797433162757431712012-01-13T01:22:40.223-08:002012-01-13T01:22:40.223-08:00There are a huge number of people practicing law i...There are a huge number of people practicing law in the vast window between DUI and representing Fortune 500 companies. This might be called small law or midlaw, and the pay is ok. In most cases it is probably enough not to justify $150K in debt, but it's there. They just are not the type to go on a blog like this or Abovethelaw.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-24682774950885590212012-01-12T23:30:47.753-08:002012-01-12T23:30:47.753-08:00On the subject of depression: I suspect some of it...On the subject of depression: I suspect some of it is baked into our adversarial system's cake. As a lawyer you're simultaneously: (1) completely responsible for your case and your client's welfare and yet (2) the ultimate outcome is completely out of your control.<br /><br />You have to work hard and constantly because mistakes can lose a meritorious case: missing a deadline, failing to raise an argument, failing to be persuasive, missing relevant legal authority in your research, failing to track down documents and evidence, etc. You can lose your case.<br /><br />BUT<br /><br />You don't have ultimate control because, even if you're right and you do everything right, the Judge can destroy your case. Sometimes its because your opponent is also really good. Sometimes the case is genuinely close. But, often enough, it's because the Judge has an agenda or is sloppy or is slammed or any number of other things that can lead to mistakes. And, even if your client wins, the Judge still had control over it. So, you can't win your case (the Judge or jury can win your client's case, but you don't control it).<br /><br />You can lose, but you can't win (even if your client does). You have tons of responsibility/stress and yet little control.<br /><br />Finally, on top of it all, the growing trend of legal nihilism can leave one losing faith in the law and the rule-of-law. It seems that some Judges and prestigious members of the bar are more and more comfortable with viewing themselves as politicians and feel less and less constrained by he law. For someone who thinks that the law has some meaning and that it is generally possible to identify a better outcome under the law, this can be devastating on two bases. First, the law is being disregarded by the powerful people who have been entrusted to protect it--they feel unlimited by it and comfortable pursuing their agendas. Second, you still feel bound by it and want to comply with it, so you're tied in knots of the law while others disregard it. You get the worst of both worlds: less faith in the rule of law, and yet limited in pursuing your own ends regardless of the law.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5164886390834386622.post-6960741361403246372012-01-12T23:17:01.166-08:002012-01-12T23:17:01.166-08:00As to Federal Government Lawyers working long hour...As to Federal Government Lawyers working long hours: I'm a federal government lawyer, and I just got home (at 2:00 am) after billing over 15 hours today. In one of my fiscal years, I hit over 2,300 billable hours without trying to bill (though trying very hard to do good work). <br /><br />After the last few years, I've become more skeptical about private firm lawyers regularly billing 2,000+ years, because that year REALLY beat me down. I suspect a lot of private firm lawyers are fibbing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com