THE HAPPY LAWYER

Vol. 21 No. 8 (August, 2011) pp.495-499

THE HAPPY LAWYER: MAKING A GOOD LIFE IN THE LAW, by Nancy Levit and Douglas O. Linder. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010. 304pp. Hardback. $19.95/£12.99. ISBN: 9780195392326.

Reviewed by Patrick Schmidt, Department of Political Science, Macalester College. Email: schmidtp [at] macalester.edu.

At its core, the concept for THE HAPPY LAWYER, by Nancy Levit and Douglas Linder is noble and deserving: to provide lawyers and prospective lawyers with a tour through the research on happiness, tying it together with a tool-kit of tips for making happiness possible in the context of legal careers. That book may not need to be very long, but since lawyers are an analytical lot, an author could indulge the reader with a bit more detail than other consumers of the self-improvement genre.

In their execution of the concept, Levit and Linder, both law professors at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, have produced a book that offers glimmers of insight, some of which could be empowering. Few, though, will want to read this book cover to cover. From their inability to select just one audience (perhaps inherent to the project), to the difficulty maneuvering between the general and the specific, to the surprising twists in its message, it has left a volume that will be easier to recommend in parts.

First, a caveat. It is reasonable to think I would be a perfectly appropriate reviewer for THE HAPPY LAWYER. I wrote a dissertation about lawyers and for the past fifteen years have tried to keep current with the research literature on lawyers and legal work. I teach a course entitled, “Law, Lawyers, and Litigation” that includes units on the structure of the bar and the experience of being a lawyer. I have reviewed numerous other books about lawyers for the LPBR. I have advised scores of undergraduates about law school and careers in the law, and some of them ended up going to law school anyway. And, as it happens, many of my best friends are lawyers.

Full disclosure requires one vital acknowledgement, however: I’m not a lawyer. Perhaps this book is exactly what today’s lawyer needs to find in the self-improvement section of Barnes & Noble. But my reviewing this volume is like having a teetotaler review the latest guide to the 12-step method.

The first three chapters work together as portions of the argument. Since this book targets those who may regret having sipped from the Juris Doctor cup, Chapter 1 opens with the logical first question: are lawyers unhappy? If the authors weren’t academics, they might just assume the answer and get on with it. Their commendable diligence with the research actually muddies the water, as they note the finding that among all occupations lawyers are in the middle of the pack. “It is clear that portrayals of a profession in crisis are somewhat exaggerated” (p.6), they note, but Levit and Linder finesse the exculpatory evidence with recognition of [*496] demographic cleavages in the profession’s satisfaction with their careers. They retreat to the claim that “most law careers could be better” (p.17, emphasis in original), a weaker but plausible starting-point. Perhaps the aerial view isn’t important here: the person picking up this book likely is an unhappy lawyer or knows someone who is.

Chapter 2 speaks to all audiences. Titled “Happiness: A Primer”, it provides a key step in how Levit and Linder approach the task of helping lawyers: by putting in lawyers’ hands an argumentative synthesis of research and perspectives on happiness. More than a soppy journey of self-discovery and salvation, the authors aspire to provide a systematic survey of what it means to be happy and how the decisions lawyers make in their career shape the likelihood of being happy. It has been difficult to miss the burgeoning emphasis on happiness in academic and policy circles, but Levit and Linder survey this work more systematically than most readers will have known. They use this chapter to set out some key boundaries for happiness, such as the problem that the significant genetic component and circumstances beyond your control leave you with roughly a 40% component in your control. That tour also opens up discussion about the things in your control that can affect your happiness, such as relationships and autonomy.

Chapter 3 keeps the discussion at a general, structural level by rehearsing well-known debates about the stresses and strains on the profession. Academic research mixes with anecdote and impression in speaking to the size of law firms, pressures toward specialization, increases in billable hours, and the incivility that accompanies adversarialism. Additionally, how can you be happy when lawyers are unloved by others? In a discussion yearning for a bit more critical distance, the authors repeat some classic lawyer jokes and explain that “lawyers are merchants of misery” (p.65), later echoed by a similarly uncritical passage accepting as proof the complaints of “older attorneys” who yearn for “days gone by” (p.161). The general critique may be valid, but the reader will have to accept an awkward blend of cool academic discussion with the folksy analysis expected in the self-improvement genre.

Following these foundational chapters, the book then turns to a series of chapters seeking to rehabilitate the lives of lawyers. Chapter 4 merits recognition as the best in the book, offering a wise synthesis of general observations about living a healthy, well-balanced professional life. “The Happiness Toolbox,” as the chapter is titled, flows easily and thoughtfully in praise of control (over one’s work life), relationships, commitments, perspective, self-knowledge, values, and other fundamental concerns. “It’s a toolbox, not a recipe,” they caution (p.109), and this chapter doesn’t get specific, but that may be its charm. If you accept Samuel Johnson’s view, famously cited by C.S. Lewis, that “people need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed,” then Levit and Linder’s approach to this chapter hits the nail on the head.

Chapters 5 and 6 take a rather different approach, offering instruction, sometimes quite specific. Chapter 5 is a manual in how to make the most of the [*497] law school years. Chapter 6, plainly titled, “What Law Firms Can Do to Make Lawyers Happier,” frequently speaks to associates, partners, and even managing partners. For example, “As a managing partner, you may use emotional contagion … to foster a ‘can do’ atmosphere” (p.182). These two chapters revel in the nitty-gritty details of life in the law, suggesting in the former what questions to ask when you visit a law school and how to avoid debt while in law school. In the latter, their list of suggested improvements for law firms stretches much longer in the form of “Ten Steps That Could Make Your Law Firm a Happier Workplace.”

The entire way, Levit and Linder link their suggestions to lessons established in “the happiness literature”. I don’t know that the specific advice always flows inexorably from the principle; some readers may find it easy to disagree with their suggestion. I know that I would never choose these exact words when advising an undergraduate:

Law school is often the default graduate program for smart college students. You’ll have three years to make a decision – and even after that there is time for career correction. But go in with your eyes open. And yes, there are worse things that can happen than learning a thing or three about the law while falling short of a degree (p.114).

But it isn’t the contestability of their views on firm compensation structures or what-not that threatens to undercut their project. Nor is it even that the tool-box of Chapter 4 looks more like a recipe, best exemplified by their nugget of interior design guidance: “If staying put [in an unattractive office building] is the only viable option, well placed mirrors can sometimes be employed to create improved office views” (p.202). Instead, the problem is that they try to speak to the entire profession, so that in one chapter “you” is the prospective student (“You may want to consider other factors as well in choosing your law school” (p.117)) and in the next “you” is a partner in a Top 100 law firm. Even within chapters Levit and Linder must write conditionally, such as when they followed one section’s advice with, “Maybe you are already in law school and as you read the above wish list, you realized that your law school was missing a few key features” (p.124). This may be the nature of the beast given the size and diversity of the potential audience, but the effect is dizzying.

After all of this, Chapter 7 introduces an entirely different approach, inductive in nature. Drawing on two hundred email interviews, an unknown number of oral interviews, student papers, and secondary sources – the methodology is summarized in one brief footnote – Levit and Linder pull together the stories of lawyers who found both happiness and unhappiness in their careers. It wouldn’t be surprising if these interviews had helped the authors identify the themes for the earlier chapters – the theme of billable hours appears early in these stories, for example – so the material may have felt less redundant had it been woven into those discussions.Even standing apart, the stories presented through the chapter’s twenty-seven block quotes are engaging and the quasi-ethnographic approach lends some weight to the “wise advisor” posture of the prior two chapters. Not every lawyer can follow Dahlia Lithwick into legal [*498] journalism as an escape from the routine of private practice (she is cited as an example of someone who parlayed their work as lawyers into a more satisfying direction) but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded that is possible to escape unhappy circumstances.

Those critical of the fad that happiness research has become could poke at this book and ask if happiness is really the goal or vision of the good life. How, even, do we define it – is it pleasure, contentment, or some other state of consciousness? The skeptical reader does not need to make these objections, however, since Levit and Linder have done so with a concluding eighth chapter that introduces twists and turns to match Agatha Christie. The first twist is to write in praise of boredom, sadness and melancholy. “The path to happiness often runs through, not around, those often unappreciated emotional states,” they write (p.235). The next surprise comes when Levit and Linder challenge the premise of the book:

We’ve saved for this last chapter one of the most important messages we want to convey: happiness isn’t everything. In fact, as odd as it may seem for the authors of a book called The Happy Lawyer to say, happiness isn’t even – for everybody – the most important thing (p.235).

Odd, indeed. But then, Levit and Linder are well-read academics, who find it useful to challenge a frame of thinking by historicizing it. Doing so, they suggest that the pursuit of happiness is an artifact of the modern condition. So they offer the reader that caveat, the kind that a superficial self-improvement author for a trade press would never make, and then return to the program in a fit of self-scolding: “But, hey, you bought this book because you wanted a happier career as a lawyer, not because you want to be told that it’s okay if that doesn’t happen” (p.236). Once back into character, they stick to the form and finish out the book with a set of big picture, pep-talk ideas under the section heading “Getting Ready for Happiness,” ending it all with a note on – what else? – love.

Overall, THE HAPPY LAWYER is an uneven effort. The research they cite suggests just how hard it must be to wade into these waters: if happiness depends so much on the individual circumstances and genetics, how can you provide a general yet useful set of advice to such a wide audience? Either you must try to mimic the advice that a good friend would provide or you will be limited to flowery abstractions.. The former is exceedingly difficult, leading Levit and Linder to provide encouragement that seems either naïve or dangerous:

Of course, achieving a work-life balance is easier said than done. If your job makes such a balance impossible – well, do something. If you are in a larger firm, you might try to convince the powers-that-be that more concern about work-life balance issues is in the firm’s long-term interest. If you are in solo practice or a small firm, perhaps you can learn to say ‘no’ to some potential new clients, even if it means a loss of income. (p.238)

The latter option isn’t attractive either. Some years ago, in the LPBR, I somewhat critically noted the concluding [*499] advice of Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado (2005) who encouraged unhappy lawyers to “slow down and read, or even write, a poem sometimes” (see, Schmidt 2005). As noble as the cause may be, and however eager publishers may be to tap the large market of lawyers, writing a compelling self-improvement book for lawyers may be one of the great challenges of our era. Is it possible to be all things: conversational yet sophisticated, general but specific, elegant yet thorough, pastoral but humble, sympathetic but direct? Levit and Linder accomplish much, and do so with a colorful and quirky chattiness, as befits a book in the genre. But if THE HAPPY LAWYER misses on any of these counts, it is the cause of elegance.

The problem at its heart must be one that the research on the legal profession confronts repeatedly: there is no such thing as “the bar.” Even the notion of “two hemispheres” of legal practice (Heinz and Laumann 1982), accounting for lawyers with corporate/organizational clients and attorneys representing individuals, has since given way to highly contextualized discussions of legal practice by specialty area, demographic group, practice setting, or jurisdiction. The problems lawyers face are richly nuanced in the context of their lives, where their experiences are also filtered through personality and the complexity of human emotions. It will be an extremely special book that can speak to all, or even a large segment of American lawyers today.

REFERENCES:

Heinz, John P., and Edward O. Laumann. 1982. CHICAGO LAWYERS. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Stefancic, Jean, and Richard Delgado. 2005. HOW LAWYERS LOSE THEIR WAY. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Reviewed by Patrick Schmidt, Law and Politics Book Review, Vol. 15 No.5 (May 2005), pp.425-428.

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