Is the legal profession in decline? Are the pressures for
more billable hours, higher profits-per-partner, and ever-more-massive
global firms leaving lawyers demoralized and unfulfilled? Arnie
Herz thinks so, and has just started "legal
sanity," to
provide a forum for discussing these issues:
By all reports the American legal profession is in trouble, plagued
by elevated rates of substance abuse and depression, rising incivility
and decaying courtroom environments, client dissatisfaction, and
discernible attrition as more and more burnt out lawyers leave the
career they idolized – and idealized – when they started law school.Relatively unnoticed is the work of many practitioners and educators
who, although aligned with different movements and organizations,
believe it’s still possible to revitalize the law as a noble
calling through which lawyers can gain a sense of fulfillment without
sacrificing savvy client representation or financial gain.legal sanity’s purpose is to raise public consciousness
and facilitate discussion about our distressed legal profession and
the ground-breaking work that’s being done to move it in a
saner direction.
Certainly the pressures of mega-firm life are not for everyone;
my own surmise is that a fair proportion of those professionals who
are disappointed with where they find themselves began their careers
in a smaller, more collegial firm (for example, my alma mater, the
late Breed, Abbott & Morgan) that evolved into a juggernaut (Winston
& Strawn). In
other words, they may feel they did not get what they bargained for.
