Careers in Law and Satisfaction Levels for Lawyers

How do lawyers feel about their careers in law?  A study of graduates of the University of Michigan Law School (the "Michigan Study") revealed a strikingly widespread and increasing career dissatisfaction among lawyers in private practice.  The Michigan Study also found that for members of the class of 1991, those who were no longer practicing law within five years after graduation were much happier with their careers than those who worked for law firms.  One study from the Maryland Bar Association revealed that approximately a third of the responding lawyers were not certain that they wanted to continue practicing law.  [See Patrick J. Schiltz, "Lawyer Well-Being in Large Firms: Choices Facing Young Lawyers: On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession," 52 Vand. L. Rev. 882, n. 78 (May 1999); Mary Ann Glendon, "A Nation Under Lawyers: How the Crisis in the Legal Profession Is Transforming American Society" at 85 (1994).]