Professor Frank Wu of the University of California Hastings College of the Law remarks on LinkedIn upon the woes of the law profession:
In any event, studies suggest that lawyers making more money report less, not more, career satisfaction. My hypothesis is that those attracted to law for the lucre are disappointed, because they wake up to find themselves toiling for clients who, as businesspeople, make an order of magnitude more. (I have nothing against a young person declaring that they wish to make money — of course they do. My point is if that is the primary consideration in your career choice, there are better methods for doing so. Joining a profession in which you represent someone else entails making a sacrifice in the name of principle.)
The bulk of law school graduates will end up, as they always have, in solo practice or at small to medium firms; or in government, usually state and local rather than the coveted clerkships with federal judges. The figures paid to their peers at the elite end of the bell curve, or those whom they considered peers prior to matriculating in law school, symbolizes nothing. Perhaps it tastes of the bitterness of the contemporary economy.
I’ve been told that a youngster I grew up with, by which I mean someone 6 or so years younger than I, ended up as an investment banker for a few years, then spent some time sitting on an island beach. I’ve always wondered if he was enjoying his Wall Street earnings, or if he was regretting his path in life. I may never know.
Professor Wu’s remark about going to school to make money is the salient feature from the article for me. There are many reasons to go into any profession, from greed to passivity to nobility. Personally, I went into software because of a great lack of confidence in my capability – programming seemed to be easier for me than for many people I saw working on it (for two weeks) in high school. Fortunately, as some readers know, I stumbled into a hobby facet of the industry which led to great personal satisfaction, a chance to contribute to the happiness of many people, to meet them, to know them. Many professions can be greatly satisfying; and some not so much. An inverse correlation between salary and job satisfaction certainly does not correspond to the great American mythic element that money will make us happy; the rumbling counterpoint tends to be ignored, I notice, by the great mainstream. So what should one say?
It’s so tempting to say follow your passion! But I have an odd bias towards finding observations and encouragements which are insensitive to eras, and I fear this is not one of them. Only recently has it become possible for anyone outside of the top 1% to really follow a passion successfully; generally, if you’re mining coal, it’s because it’s the only way to survive, and then it’s usually a slow death.
But what of my bias? Was the coal miner of the 19th century really happy? It’s probably an irrelevancy, but still, follow your passion has its problems. I would say, if money and wealth are your passion, perhaps you should reconsider. Perhaps (American) society should reconsider the reigning mythos. Chunks of it certainly have – simply ask most of the clergy. Perhaps we should recall the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Not the pursuit of wealth, but of happiness. Wealth is measured and present in many systems, but regardless of context brings a set of problems, some unique and some common. Still, it makes some happy. And I do not wish to make the mistake of homogeneity, the idea that the same thing makes all people, even within a comformist society, happy; it just ain’t so.
So what does an unhappy eloquence of lawyers do?
