Unhappy Catholic Lawyers

[Yeoman]

You’re speaking my language, believe me. I feel the same exact way. And if you simply cannot afford to make a switch to that area of law or any other career, then I’m out of suggestions.

It does help just to know others are pondering the same problems.

And one thing I think is that it’s really hard to see solutions to our own problems.

That’s the irony of being a lawyer, in a way (and probably some other “helping” profession). It’s often crystal clear what others should do. We work all day advising and counseling people, and strategizing for their problems. We spend hours pondering problems and figuring out the solutions. But it’s really darned hard to figure out our own.

 

[LionsDen66]

It does help just to know others are pondering the same problems.

And one thing I think is that it’s really hard to see solutions to our own problems.

That’s the irony of being a lawyer, in a way (and probably some other “helping” profession). It’s often crystal clear what others should do. We work all day advising and counseling people, and strategizing for their problems. We spend hours pondering problems and figuring out the solutions. But it’s really darned hard to figure out our own.

Indeed. And yet that’s where our faith really steps in. We’re called as Christians (and more profoundly as Catholics) to trust in God, to be in the world and not of the world and to submit to His will for our lives. If that means that we’re to forego worldly pleasures and ‘things’ in order to follow His lead in a career path, then we must earnestly consider that option. I realize that you feel trapped financially to ‘carry on’, but have you really prayed about, and talked about with your wife/family, what it means to take up your cross daily and follow Him? I get it. And I struggle with the same issues. But I’ve also had these conversations with my wife and have thrown out questions like “are we trusting God enough to provide for us should I change careers?” “Is God revealing to me that He wants me to do something different, such that He has burned me out of the calling I’m now in?” We mustn’t so quickly dismiss these questions or the answers which might flow from their statement. Maybe you need to take a really hard look at your lifestyle and whether you can ‘simplify’ it in a manner so that you can pursue another calling, like teaching or non-profit work or even perhaps estate planning. Do you trust that God will provide for you and your family if you are seeking first His kingdom in your life/lives? I understand the difficulty in asking this question, but this is where the rubber meets the road in our spiritual walks. I so often feel that I’m really only a nominal Christian because I worry so much about 'what I will eat or what I will wear." Christ had no place to rest his head. Am I, and are you, brave enough (and perhaps humble enough) to follow His lead?

 

[Tampa_Dave]

I’ve been a lifeguard myself (great job) and a soldier, but an enlisted man (which I also liked quite a bit). I’d have to say that having worked quite a few jobs, having started pretty young, lawyer is the second to worst job I’ve ever had (fast food worker was the absolute worst).

So to happy lawyers like yourself, why do you like it? I don’t find hardly any lawyers who will admit to liking the practice, so I’m curious what it is that you actually like about the real nuts and bolts of it, having practiced so long.

I like the game. It feels really good to win a tough case. After so many years as a prosecutor and defense counsel, however, I admit to getting a little tired. Next year, I’ll hit my 30th year as a member of the bar.

 

[Yeoman]

I like the game. It feels really good to win a tough case. After so many years as a prosecutor and defense counsel, however, I admit to getting a little tired. Next year, I’ll hit my 30th year as a member of the bar.

Having done this almost as long as you, I wish I understood that, but I don’t. I guess my problem with that is that it’s not a game, or at least it isn’t to the litigants actually involved, or to our society at large. When we personalize it in the nature of a sort of challenge of that type, it seems to miss the point to me.

And deep down, I don’t believe that anyone actually really believes that. I suspect people’s actual motivations are deeper, or at least I hope they are. And I suspect they nearly always actually are. In my observation, even lawyers who claim they like “the challenge” or things of that type actually don’t. It’s a personal rationalization. They may, or may not, like what they do, but of every courtroom lawyer I’ve ever seen who claimed that, nearly none of them, if I knew them fairly well, actually exhibited behavior that would demonstrate that belief.

I wills say that even now, about the only pleasure I derive from litigation are the rare instances when somebody approaches me later and says something like “I really appreciate all you did for us.” That’s rare in my experience, but it does occur.

 

[Tampa_Dave]

I’ve developed a bit of camaraderie with many of the Assistant US Attorneys and the judges. We all work hard, play fair, survive our courtroom battles, then move on to the next cases coming up on the docket. I enjoy the people.

 

[Yeoman]

I’ve developed a bit of camaraderie with many of the Assistant US Attorneys and the judges. We all work hard, play fair, survive our courtroom battles, then move on to the next cases coming up on the docket. I enjoy the people.

I can understand that. Indeed, I’ve had many courtroom battles against people I like.

I’ve had a few with people who were truly disagreeable, and some whom I thought had some species of personality disorder a bit. With them, I’ve always tried to remain decent. Usually it doesn’t matter much, but I have had one occasion where the opposing lawyer came to show a decent and human face by the end, and was a much more humble person, and openly so.

 

[Yeoman]

One of the things that I wonder, in regards to the happy lawyers, and which was perhaps just answered a bit above, is that if any of you ever faced a crisis in your practice. That is, did any of you ever “burn out”, or whatever the correct term may be, and recover from that and resume satisfaction with your careers? If so, how did that work?

Or did you ever reach a point in which the career seemed to lose its value you to in some meaningful way, and you recovered some meaningful definition of it?

 

[PolarGuy]

Yeoman, I respectfully detect patterns in your posts that suggest you may not be sick of the law, so much as just a bit burned out as you suggest in your last post.

I say that because some of your posts seem like you want to leave the present position you are in, but a) I suspect you’re past the point where you can “go to a new firm” as many young lawyers can; and b) you comment to the effect that whatever you go into you’ll fail at.

That’s not dislike of the law; it’s burnout IMHO.

Could you sell your practice, if it’s your own practice? I think some states forbid sale of a law practice.

Also, when people think they hate where they are, I often point to the old movie, “Mister Roberts,” with Henry Fonda (not a lawyer movie). Fonda portrays an officer on a backwater navy cargo ship in WWII, who wants nothing more than to leave and go to the “shooting war.” He’s basically the one man keeping the ship moving and doing a necessary job, but he desperately wants to get out. He does – and eventually is killed in the shooting war. The takeaway of that for me is that very often “the right place for us” is not necessarily “where we want to be.” Many of my legal jobs were VERY challenging personally, even to the point of creating crises for me: But looking back, all of those places were “where I needed to be,” and perhaps it may be comforting to consider whether maybe sometimes you were where you needed to be, even if those places seem to have been not where you wanted to be.

 

[Yeoman]

Yeoman, I respectfully detect patterns in your posts that suggest you may not be sick of the law, so much as just a bit burned out as you suggest in your last post.

I say that because some of your posts seem like you want to leave the present position you are in, but a) I suspect you’re past the point where you can “go to a new firm” as many young lawyers can; and b) you comment to the effect that whatever you go into you’ll fail at.

That’s not dislike of the law; it’s burnout IMHO.

Could you sell your practice, if it’s your own practice? I think some states forbid sale of a law practice.

Also, when people think they hate where they are, I often point to the old movie, “Mister Roberts,” with Henry Fonda (not a lawyer movie). Fonda portrays an officer on a backwater navy cargo ship in WWII, who wants nothing more than to leave and go to the “shooting war.” He’s basically the one man keeping the ship moving and doing a necessary job, but he desperately wants to get out. He does – and eventually is killed in the shooting war. The takeaway of that for me is that very often “the right place for us” is not necessarily “where we want to be.” Many of my legal jobs were VERY challenging personally, even to the point of creating crises for me: But looking back, all of those places were “where I needed to be,” and perhaps it may be comforting to consider whether maybe sometimes you were where you needed to be, even if those places seem to have been not where you wanted to be.

I’m not sure if I can see a real difference between being sick of the law and being burned out with it, but I’m sure that I probably fit into both groups.

I won’t say that I chose wisely at all, and there’s no excuse for it as I put myself in this situation, but unlike some others here, I’ve never liked being a lawyer. I liked law school a lot, which I thought was a breeze (at least compared to my undergraduate degree) and which was very interesting, but I’ve never liked practicing. The question from there is why would somebody do something stupid like that? For that, I have no good answer. At first I thought it might be the situation I was in as an associate, and then after that I thought I needed to stick with it for awhile as I was getting married. Then kids came along, and I always hoped that I might be able to get into farming, and I haven’t been able to. 25 years later, here I am.

That’s just flat out dumb on my part. I can’t say its unique, as there are a lot of people’s careers that work that way, but when I look back on it, I know that I wasted a lot of my life, as we spend a lot of our life at work. I wish I’d never stepped foot in a law school, but I did, and now here I am, trying to find a way out or at least find a way to choke down the next decade and a half before I retire (and I’m retiring even if it means living on Social Security).

Mister Roberts is a great film. In a way, I suppose, its theme is somewhat similar to Its A Wonderful Life, although I like Mister Roberts better.

 

[Tampa_Dave]

Burnout is almost inevitable for trial lawyers. The stress can be difficult. For me, its been a thirty year with seemingly unending battles along the way. The pressure of performing well in front of judges, juries, and your peers while trying to win your case is tough, just plain tough. I guess I could have pushed papers around on a desk instead. But that would have been boring (but probably more lucrative). :

 

[Yeoman]

Burnout is almost inevitable for trial lawyers. The stress can be difficult. For me, its been a thirty year with seemingly unending battles along the way. The pressure of performing well in front of judges, juries, and your peers while trying to win your case is tough, just plain tough. I guess I could have pushed papers around on a desk instead. But that would have been boring (but probably more lucrative). :

So have you suffered burnout then, or managed to avoid it?

On lucrative, it seems the lawyers tend to believe other types of lawyers make more than those doing whatever we do. A natural human inclination, I suppose. By and large, lawyers generally make less than people suppose, with a few exceptional instances that we all tend to be aware of…

 

[DAML72]

Let me throw out a suggestion for you which might resonate. Consider estate planning. If you’re math inclined, enjoy finances and taxation issues and enjoy the ‘counseling’ part of being counselor, this could be a great transition for you. There’s an organization called Wealth Counsel which provides high-level education, training and resources to help a newbie or seasoned trial lawyer (like you) who wants to change careers within the law. If you’re a trial lawyer, you’re good speaking in front of people. You can put on seminars in your community to educate people about the need for modern estate planning, offer some cookies and coffee and build some good will. Offer free consultations and just sit and talk with people about what’s going on in their lives, their kids lives and help them prepare for not only their inevitable death, but for the more likely scenario of their incapacitation. I did this exact thing for a year (last year in fact) and I saw a great deal of potential both from an income standpoint and also a job satisfaction standpoint. Do some research in your area as to how many lawyers are doing elder law or estate planning and if there is room for your talent, you could escape the prison of trial work. Wealth Counsel has some testimonials from lawyers who did the same thing – went from trial work to estate planning and were very content. Thoughts?

Agreed. As mentioned previously, I have always had my eye on estate planning/administration, etc. since law school. I’ve also gotten strong signals from God that it’s the work I should be doing. I just took on my first client - a 55 year old man with stage IV throat cancer with two kids - one in high school and one in college. The whole thing is a very sad story, and I won’t get into it, but I was able to help his brother get a decent amount of money out of his estate to his kids before he either spent it all down on nursing home costs or it got paid out through his estate for medical bills. It’s not a tremendous amount of money, but it’s something for his kids at a time when their mom (the client’s ex-wife), who had been the primary breadwinner, just lost her job. The doctors give him only days, if not hours left, and I had about four very stressful days this week re-tooling, moving money around, doing tax-planning on the fly, and making sure everything was in order. I’m glad I could help the family through a very difficult time.

 

[DAML72]

Burnout is almost inevitable for trial lawyers. The stress can be difficult. For me, its been a thirty year with seemingly unending battles along the way. The pressure of performing well in front of judges, juries, and your peers while trying to win your case is tough, just plain tough. I guess I could have pushed papers around on a desk instead. But that would have been boring (but probably more lucrative). :

I don’t know. My great-grandfather practiced law in some form or another until the day he died at 90 years old. He thrived on being a trial lawyer. I think that’s what’s inspired me to go into it - but I am nothing like he is!

 

[Yeoman]

I don’t know. My great-grandfather practiced law in some form or another until the day he died at 90 years old. He thrived on being a trial lawyer. I think that’s what’s inspired me to go into it - but I am nothing like he is!

I frankly think the pressures today are greater than they once were. In former days there was very little discovery and accordingly a higher degree of acceptance of trial results. From speaking with older lawyers, they often went into trial knowing next to nothing about their opponents cases, and didn’t worry about trying a lot of cases with no discovery. Cases on a nearly monthly basis, with no discovery, and rarely an appeal, were very common.

Modern litigation, in contrast, features years of development of a case in which single mistakes can prove critical. Much more pressure.

 

[Yeoman]

I want to thank everyone who put up with my posts on this thread, and more particularly everyone who said a prayer for me. I greatly appreciate it.

Since posting on this thread I have felt compelled to keep thinking on this topic, and to keep hoping for a solution. Then, Sunday morning about 1:00 in the morning, I woke up and what I think to be the solution was right in front of my eyes. It actually had been for some time.

I’ll not go into it now, or even soon, but I think that now I can see, thanks to the Grace of God, a way I can wrap up my association with the law this year, and be done with it. I’ll never quite get to do what I’d hoped for as a living, but I can get close enough, I think, and not have to be worried by the burden and stress of this job.

Now, what I need is the fortitude to keep plowing in the direction that’s been set before me, and not loose heart. I am, however, a lot further along than I thought I’d be, and with a lot more hope for the future. It may go wrong (nothing is ever certain), but it may not, and I have a direction and goal.

I’ll probably abstain from adding much here until I know if this worked out, which could be months. But again, thank you all so much, and if you remember this, continue please to add me to your prayers from time to time.

 

[LionsDen66]

I want to thank everyone who put up with my posts on this thread, and more particularly everyone who said a prayer for me. I greatly appreciate it.

Since posting on this thread I have felt compelled to keep thinking on this topic, and to keep hoping for a solution. Then, Sunday morning about 1:00 in the morning, I woke up and what I think to be the solution was right in front of my eyes. It actually had been for some time.

I’ll not go into it now, or even soon, but I think that now I can see, thanks to the Grace of God, a way I can wrap up my association with the law this year, and be done with it. I’ll never quite get to do what I’d hoped for as a living, but I can get close enough, I think, and not have to be worried by the burden and stress of this job.

Now, what I need is the fortitude to keep plowing in the direction that’s been set before me, and not loose heart. I am, however, a lot further along than I thought I’d be, and with a lot more hope for the future. It may go wrong (nothing is ever certain), but it may not, and I have a direction and goal.

I’ll probably abstain from adding much here until I know if this worked out, which could be months. But again, thank you all so much, and if you remember this, continue please to add me to your prayers from time to time.

Godspeed, my friend. Remember, trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding. May God bless you in your new endeavor and don’t look back – it didn’t work out so well with Lot’s wife (forgive the loose hermeneutics).

 

[seakelp]

I want to thank everyone who put up with my posts on this thread, and more particularly everyone who said a prayer for me. I greatly appreciate it.

Since posting on this thread I have felt compelled to keep thinking on this topic, and to keep hoping for a solution. Then, Sunday morning about 1:00 in the morning, I woke up and what I think to be the solution was right in front of my eyes. It actually had been for some time.

I’ll not go into it now, or even soon, but I think that now I can see, thanks to the Grace of God, a way I can wrap up my association with the law this year, and be done with it. I’ll never quite get to do what I’d hoped for as a living, but I can get close enough, I think, and not have to be worried by the burden and stress of this job.

Now, what I need is the fortitude to keep plowing in the direction that’s been set before me, and not loose heart. I am, however, a lot further along than I thought I’d be, and with a lot more hope for the future. It may go wrong (nothing is ever certain), but it may not, and I have a direction and goal.

I’ll probably abstain from adding much here until I know if this worked out, which could be months. But again, thank you all so much, and if you remember this, continue please to add me to your prayers from time to time.

Good luck, and God bless!

 

[DAML72]

I frankly think the pressures today are greater than they once were. In former days there was very little discovery and accordingly a higher degree of acceptance of trial results. From speaking with older lawyers, they often went into trial knowing next to nothing about their opponents cases, and didn’t worry about trying a lot of cases with no discovery. Cases on a nearly monthly basis, with no discovery, and rarely an appeal, were very common.

Modern litigation, in contrast, features years of development of a case in which single mistakes can prove critical. Much more pressure.

That’s all very true. Lots more work goes into litigation these days.

 

[Tampa_Dave]

Good luck! God bless!

 

[mommyof4]

I just thought I would check on everyone here who was contemplating making a career change. Any changes made yet, or still just contemplating changes?