Careers in Law / Lawyer Lifestyles Sometimes Cause Discontent

General career descriptions for lawyers do not always prepare individuals for the lifestyle challenges many encounter in a large firm environment.  Discontent sometimes causes lawyers to leave the practice of law. The head of an editing department for a charitable organization once told me that he marvels at the number of lawyers who consistently apply for non-legal, editorial jobs with his department.  To many lawyers, the grass often seems greener outside of the legal profession. 

In Law v. Life: What Lawyers Are Afraid to Say about the Legal Profession, Walt Bachman describes the feedback that he received from fellow lawyers when he announced that he was resigning from his partnership with a large law firm in Minneapolis to teach, write, and engage in service.  On numerous occasions, high-powered partners who were at the height of their careers would telephone Bachman or go to his office (generally shutting his door so as to ensure privacy) to tell him that they secretly wanted to escape the practice of law.  With emotion, these lawyers would reveal their dissatisfaction, disillusionment, and unhappiness with the practice of law.  High-income law firm partners would express their fantasies of leaving their firms to teach in inner-city schools, run a symphony orchestra, or operate a bait shop.  Some of these lawyers confided that they were currently saving money to finance such dreams.  Most of these partners, however, believed that they were stuck practicing law and trapped by the lifestyles supported by their large salaries.  [See Walt Bachman, Law v. Life: What Lawyers Are Afraid to Say about The Legal Profession  at 12, (1995).] 

Such sentiments are routine among lawyers in law firms when their colleagues leave the firm to pursue interests outside of the law.  It is common to hear lawyers lament that they are envious of their partners, associates, or colleagues who decide to leave the law in order to become an editor, an entrepreneur, a businessperson, or a professor.  One of the sentiments that many lawyers in law firms feel when their colleagues leave the law firm environment is a sense of jealousy that their colleagues will no longer be subject to the merciless demands of billable hours.