The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50832
L EGAL E THI CS BY PHILIP SLAYTON Are you happy now? T Job satisfaction could help fend off the 'dark side.' here's a general belief that a lot of lawyers don't enjoy what they do. Their work makes them unhappy. The empirical evidence tends to support this suspicion. In a recent American Bar Association survey, for example, only 55 per cent of lawyers who responded said they were satisfied with their job. In a 1998 study of Michigan lawyers, 60 per cent said they would not become lawyers if they could start their careers over. It is reported that half of all law- yers don't want their children to follow in their footsteps. There are a number of surveys like this, particularly in the United States, all showing much of the same results. What's this sad information got to do with professional ethics? I think that work happiness and work ethics are connected in at least two ways. First, the unhappy lawyer, just like any other unhappy person, is more likely to aban- don his or her moral compass. Personal misery encourages a devil-may-care, to- hell-with-it attitude. It is fertile ground for rule breaking. Nothing seems to matter very much, including what you do, or don't do. Second, the lawyer with strong values, who lives by them, is much more likely to be happy than his or her rudderless counterpart. Such a lawyer is content within themself and considers their life and work to have value. This gives peace. Happiness, of course, is complex, inef- 18 NO VEMBER / DECEMBER 2010 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com fable even. It is subjective; one person's meat is another's poison. It may be transi- tory, and depends partly on circumstanc- es that can easily and quickly change. Happiness (or lack of it) can be driven by embedded personality and body chemis- try. It is often said that the sort of person attracted to legal practice may well have been prone to unhappiness in the first place. Law didn't make the person unhap- py; he or she was unhappy to begin with; his or her embedded pessimistic and combative nature may have been what attracted the person to legal practice. The idea of happiness is elusive alright, but that doesn't mean it's not worth grappling with. It's central to our existence. Nancy Levit and Douglas PASCAL ELIE