Unhappy Catholic Lawyers

[mommyof4]

Thank you so much for these pearls. My biggest challenge is letting go of the notion that I must be the financial provider in our house. I do consider myself the spiritual leader, but letting go of the financial reigns would be very challenging. Are most women as understanding as you are on this issue, or do many still consider it “the man’s job” to provide financially?

I want to make it clear- just because I make more money than he does right not does not mean I am in sole control of the money. We both sit down several times a year and go over the budget and make adjustments as needed. We both have equal say in financial decisions, and no one has the upper hand on the other one. I happen to be somewhat OCD about bill organization and I am a good organizer, so I take administrative control, if you know what I mean (household checkbook is balanced, pay quarterly bills, etc), but it’s not like I make all of the big decisions on how and where the money is being spent. I think my husband is glad I handle a lot of that stuff, because he gets bored with keeping track of details, and I enjoy it. We just play to each others strengths- I’m good at organizing and keeping track of paperwork, etc. He is good at keeping up the farm (we have a small acreage), takes care of taxes, (I know nothing about that stuff), and makes most of the farming decisions.

 

[LionsDen66]

I want to make it clear- just because I make more money than he does right not does not mean I am in sole control of the money. We both sit down several times a year and go over the budget and make adjustments as needed. We both have equal say in financial decisions, and no one has the upper hand on the other one. I happen to be somewhat OCD about bill organization and I am a good organizer, so I take administrative control, if you know what I mean (household checkbook is balanced, pay quarterly bills, etc), but it’s not like I make all of the big decisions on how and where the money is being spent. I think my husband is glad I handle a lot of that stuff, because he gets bored with keeping track of details, and I enjoy it. We just play to each others strengths- I’m good at organizing and keeping track of paperwork, etc. He is good at keeping up the farm (we have a small acreage), takes care of taxes, (I know nothing about that stuff), and makes most of the farming decisions.

I understand, and I wasn’t talking about control. It was more about the scenario whereby I leave the practice of law and change careers while my wife becomes the main breadwinner. I just might be stuck in the past when gender roles were much more clearly defined (and accepted). I’ve had many male friends say – “hey, times have changed.” But my wife is traditional like me and would probably prefer me to be the “provider.” Does that make sense?

 

[mommyof4]

I understand, and I wasn’t talking about control. It was more about the scenario whereby I leave the practice of law and change careers while my wife becomes the main breadwinner. I just might be stuck in the past when gender roles were much more clearly defined (and accepted). I’ve had many male friends say – “hey, times have changed.” But my wife is traditional like me and would probably prefer me to be the “provider.” Does that make sense?

Yes, and I don’t think there is a “right” way to think about it. For my husband and myself, it just hasn’t been a big issue. It may be for other people, just not for us. It all goes into the same “pot” so to speak, so we both benefit from each others income.

 

[AnneTeresa]

It is true you can get into academia, but you had better gone to a top law school, and practiced several years at a prestigious law firm, or published in several law journals. Oh yes, you can always get into the legal placement side of things (career services/temp agencies), if you have practiced for a few years and live in a big city. But I would warn people, that you are still looking at long hours or at least being wedded to your phone/email while at home.

You may have misunderstood me. I was not suggesting you go into academia (just citing an example of one person who made a career switch and it happened to be in academia where he was very happy). Rather, I was saying that law schools have career offices which have people trained to help lawyers figure out how to get a job that fits them. (Granted, some of them have staff who are not as well trained as they could be and in that case, I would suggest finding a highly qualified career counselor (not a temp agency or placement agency contact.)

Again, I reiterate that lawyers who have poured years of time and thousands of dollars into their education, still have options other than law. That is what the whole field of career development is about–helping you figure out how to use those very skills that made you succeed in law school and practice. There are trade-offs and that is very hard for someone who is used to a high income and prestige. But again, I see that in many people who have high-powered careers, and decide they have to make a change.

 

[PazzoGrande]

If one is interested in nationbuilding for a developing country via nonprofits, would you consider a law degree to be helpful in understanding that country and coming up with ways to create better lives for people?

Note that I do not intend to have to argue endlessly with other lawyers. It’s not for the purposes of having the typical career in law we’re all familiar with.

This does seem providential. I am happy to share my experiences and thoughts with you, my friend. I enjoyed the novelty of being in law school and learning the Socratic method of analysis. But it wore off pretty quickly and the egos and arrogance of those in the profession became apparent to me early on. I had always been a good student and law school was no different from that standpoint. Just more learning/memorizing and adjusting to the styles of the teachers. When test time came around, I just did what I always did – read/memorized and tested well. What’s important for you to understand is that law school resembles the practice of law as much as a dog resembles pasta. Don’t conflate enjoyment of the one with enjoyment of the other. Also, the myth of going to law school “just because you can” or because “you can do anything with a law degree” is truly a myth. You can “do anything” with an accounting degree or a philosophy degree too – that doesn’t mean you should spend 3/4 years and a boatload of money getting one. I’m happy to answer any other specific questions you might have. Please don’t adopt my cynicism without doing your own searching. Go online and read blogs/sites from lawyers who have left the practice or are struggling to enjoy the practice. It would be time well-spent for you. I pray that God reveals His will for you and that you let go of the reigns. Peace brother! (I am assuming you’re a brother and not a sister because I’ve never heard a woman say “squat” like you did)

 

[LionsDen66]

If one is interested in nationbuilding for a developing country via nonprofits, would you consider a law degree to be helpful in understanding that country and coming up with ways to create better lives for people?

Note that I do not intend to have to argue endlessly with other lawyers. It’s not for the purposes of having the typical career in law we’re all familiar with.

Candidly, I would recommend that you obtain a masters degree in public management if you desire to “nation build.” If you want to learn about tort law (personal injury), contracts, taxation, corporations law and civil and criminal procedure, then by all means go to law school.

 

[mommyof4]

Candidly, I would recommend that you obtain a masters degree in public management if you desire to “nation build.” If you want to learn about tort law (personal injury), contracts, taxation, corporations law and civil and criminal procedure, then by all means go to law school.

Before getting a law degree, my husband got a MA in Public Administration. He said it was the biggest waste of time EVER. Just his opinion, though!

 

[LionsDen66]

Before getting a law degree, my husband got a MA in Public Administration. He said it was the biggest waste of time EVER. Just his opinion, though!

Of course it was – he became a lawyer!

 

[mommyof4]

Of course it was – he became a lawyer!

LOL! He said most of the program consisted of comparing and contrasting the Canadian model of government to ours. Apparently, his profs thought that Canada had a much better handle on administrative techniques than we did.

 

[LionsDen66]

LOL! He said most of the program consisted of comparing and contrasting the Canadian model of government to ours. Apparently, his profs thought that Canada had a much better handle on administrative techniques than we did.

… so do my Canadian friends …

 

[PazzoGrande]

A question about schooling, if I may.

Do you think that someone who spent most of his life in a foreign country would struggle taking up a JD in this country? Or will the concepts be the same nomatter what country you study in?

As I noted previously, I’d like to get a JD in the Philippines. But I wonder if it’ll be extra hard on me if most of my schooling and life was in the US.

Former Preaident Corazon Aquino got her Bachelor’s in the US, and only finished one year in law school in the Philippines. Whether or not it has to do with not being in tune enough with Philippine custom, I don’t know.

But the schools there, they actually cut the bottom half of the class the first year, then they do it again the second year. They have four years in all, and in the third and fourth years they have a policy to keep you on no matter what. By the time you graduate, most of the people who started off with you aren’t there anymore, it’s that tough. So since it’s that hard, I must ask if coming from the US will only make it that much harder. Their constitution, I should note, is based off the American one and they do focus a lot on how things are in the US.

 

[AnneTeresa]

J “Why in the world would you quit doing something you have finally learned to do well, in order to go to something about which you know nothing?”

The reason is that you are very unhappy where you are. Having a lot of money and prestige isn’t everything. Being unhappy every single day takes a toll on your mental and physical health, and on your family. This is a place where discernment comes into play. We all (not just lawyers) need to figure out our priorities and do our best to line up our lives with them. But it is also true that there is a price to pay from going from being the “expert” at something to being the newbie. I’ve experienced this in my own life and it can be a challenge.

My father, who was a lawyer, seemed to be always unhappy. I have a lawyer relative who is at the top of one of the major corporations in the world and absolutely loves it. There needs to be a good fit with your interests and personality with what you actually do day-to-day. I encourage anyone thinking about going to law school to do some job shadowing with lawyers in various settings before they enroll in law school. Some of the problem we are discussing comes, as someone mentioned, from people liking studying the law but not actually practicing it.

I also want to mention something that I heard many years ago and which has stuck with me to this day. And that is that people never lie on their deathbed and say they wish they had worked more.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The reason is that you are very unhappy where you are. Having a lot of money and prestige isn’t everything. Being unhappy every single day takes a toll on your mental and physical health, and on your family. This is a place where discernment comes into play. We all (not just lawyers) need to figure out our priorities and do our best to line up our lives with them. But it is also true that there is a price to pay from going from being the “expert” at something to being the newbie. I’ve experienced this in my own life and it can be a challenge.

My father, who was a lawyer, seemed to be always unhappy. I have a lawyer relative who is at the top of one of the major corporations in the world and absolutely loves it. There needs to be a good fit with your interests and personality with what you actually do day-to-day. I encourage anyone thinking about going to law school to do some job shadowing with lawyers in various settings before they enroll in law school. Some of the problem we are discussing comes, as someone mentioned, from people liking studying the law but not actually practicing it.

I also want to mention something that I heard many years ago and which has stuck with me to this day. And that is that people never lie on their deathbed and say they wish they had worked more.

But doesn’t one have to ask whether it is the particular occupation that makes one unhappy or something else? I don’t for a minute doubt that the practice of law is difficult. Is it the difficulty, and is the person considering a change of profession fully aware of the difficulties and stress involved in the alternatives?

Is it imaginable that perhaps at some point the lawyer could become “disengaged” from the process in his mind? I know there are executives and doctors who are so engaged in their professions that they’re miserable. Probably there are plumbers and all sorts of people who fret and sweat and can’t disengage. I sometimes wonder whether money is the very same way. People have financial goals and some get desperate to meet them. It never occurs to many that they simply ought to change their goals or to mentally disengage from the goals and concentrate instead on the process alone, trusting to Providence to shape the outcomes.

Easy to say. Harder to do. I suspect that’s one of the hardest things for human beings to do. Jesus talked about it a lot. That’s what the play “MacBeth” is really all about; the human tragedy of fixating on an outcome rather than on simply dealing with what comes, as it comes.

The practice of law might be unusually difficult in that way. The lawyer is simultaneously working on rather short-term solutions to difficult probems, and always has an adversary, or does most of the time. There are the goals of pleasing the client, of winning the case, of generating business, of making enough money to live in a way the lawyer pictures as proper for himself and his family, of staying out of trouble himself in a context of hair-trigger trouble. And there is the goal of keeping one’s sanity through it all.

Frankly, I’m not sure shadowing a lawyer would tell a person very much. The “shadower” would see the lawyer talking to clients and going to court. He/she would not see the lawyer at midnight going through evidence trying to figure out just how it all fits together in the best way. It wouldn’t show him/her what it’s like to be 200 hours short of the “required” billable hours in a big firm without sufficient time to get them in. But it might help some.

 

[jilly4ski]

A question about schooling, if I may.

Do you think that someone who spent most of his life in a foreign country would struggle taking up a JD in this country? Or will the concepts be the same nomatter what country you study in?

As I noted previously, I’d like to get a JD in the Philippines. But I wonder if it’ll be extra hard on me if most of my schooling and life was in the US.

Former Preaident Corazon Aquino got her Bachelor’s in the US, and only finished one year in law school in the Philippines. Whether or not it has to do with not being in tune enough with Philippine custom, I don’t know.

But the schools there, they actually cut the bottom half of the class the first year, then they do it again the second year. They have four years in all, and in the third and fourth years they have a policy to keep you on no matter what. By the time you graduate, most of the people who started off with you aren’t there anymore, it’s that tough. So since it’s that hard, I must ask if coming from the US will only make it that much harder. Their constitution, I should note, is based off the American one and they do focus a lot on how things are in the US.

It somewhat depends. I looked it up and it seems the Philippines has a mixed law system. Unfortunately in the US, they teach an almost complete common law system (though that is not really what we have). “Foreign students” in general seem to have worse bar pass rates than domestic students, and foreign educated students seem to be at an even bigger disadvantage. (Of course if you aren’t considering taking the bar in the US, then that wouldn’t be a problem. Only a handful of my classes looked at reading and interpreting statutes.

My particular law school had a particularly nasty grading curve (and you were kicked out if your GPA fell below 2.5, I think). 10% had to get a C- (a 1.7) and below, 10% had to get a B+ and above, and the average had to be a B-. But not all schools have such tight grading curves. I went to a tier 1 school and we ended up losing over 50 students (of a 249 starting class) to drop outs, academic drops, and transfers to even more prestigious schools. (There was also a cheating scandal at the end of my first year and several people didn’t come back in the fall from that incident).

 

[Yeoman]

But your questions assume that knowledge leads to happiness and fulfillment. For me, it hasn’t lead to that at all. Just burnout, depression and longing for something different.

Indeed, something I’ve noted.

What I’d also note is that, contrary to what is often supposed, many people are capable of doing something they dislike very, very well. We frequently hear the canard that “you have to love at something to succeed at it.” No, you don’t. If success means respect in that occupation, or money. If it means personal acceptance that you are a success, that’s another matter.

 

[Yeoman]

Not saying it should, pardner. But it is generally true that we most enjoy those things we do well.

Having said all of that, I also found myself wondering why some of the discontented lawyers don’t find themselves a little acreage somewhere and raise cattle part time, or buy a piece of junk woods somewhere and turn it into a sylvan wonderland. Sometimes it isn’t the task itself that irks, but the lack of anything else.

I know a lawyer who has a little acreage and has built a major pond, in which he raises fish. When he doesn’t want to listen to some client whine, he goes out and fishes in his pond. He can tell a person all there is to know about the types of fish, the water plants, nutrients, all of that. He has planted things with an eye to reflections they make in the water; the artistic effect.

I don’t know. Sometimes people need something like that. I know another who raised buffalo. Finding them too hard to work with, though, he sold them and bought cattle. Gave him an excuse to wear cowboy boots to court with manure on them, or so I suspected. Kind of an irritant to the other lawyer, maybe.

Finding a few acres somewhere to raise cattle is exactly what I want to do. But that too is a dream in this modern world. A few acres and a few cattle will no longer support a family. If you are familiar with real farming now days, it’s almost impossible to afford the acreage at even the break even level.

Its funny you mention this, as that’s what has always been closest to my heart. The inability to get into that is what lead me to other professions, but the desire has never left me. I’m not much closer to being able to do that today, than when I started out.

 

[Yeoman]

One curious thing I have observed. At least around here, the practice of law is practically becoming an inherited profession. I can think of numerous firms, mostly small ones, in which the son or daughter (or both) of one of the major members walked right into the firm and had a ready-made practice, building, equipment, you name it. I can think of two firms in which it’s now the third generation. I realize that’s anecdotal, but it is really, really common here.

That used to be common everywhere, but is much less so now. I’m observing the opposite here, the children of lawyers are now less and less likely to take up the profession.

Some do, of course, but I’ve also noted that its sometimes over the objection of their lawyer parent. One good friend of mine who is a fellow litigator strenuously objected to one of his children going to law school, but failed to dissuade the child. I’ve known several others who tried the same. I’ve also known a few who were proud that their child took up their career as well.

 

[Yeoman]

I haven’t been able to check this thread for awhile, so I"m amazed, and appreciative, of how it has continued to develop. I wish I had checked, so that I could have jumped in when some of the comments had just been made.

 

[mommyof4]

I haven’t been able to check this thread for awhile, so I"m amazed, and appreciative, of how it has continued to develop. I wish I had checked, so that I could have jumped in when some of the comments had just been made.

It’s never too late to resurrect a thread- we do it all the time here!

 

[Yeoman]

But I found myself asking one of them one time “Why in the world would you quit doing something you have finally learned to do well, in order to go to something about which you know nothing?”

A question I’ve been asked by my family a lot.