Washington Lawyer - January/February 2025 - 22

FEATURE
Honoring Your
Humanity
While Practicing Law
By Libbey Van Pelt
I
n January 2023, The Washington
Post published an op-ed titled
" Want to be happy? Then don't
be a lawyer. " The article came on
the heels of a Post analysis that
found that being a lawyer is the
most stressful, least happy job.
Sadly, I ask, is anyone surprised?
Numerous studies have shown that lawyers are at high risk of mental illness
and substance abuse, prompting well-meaning people and organizations
to advise various wellness initiatives, including yoga, mindfulness,
and meditation; healthy eating and physical activity; and programming
on how to achieve the near-mythic " work-life balance. "
I am a supporter of all these things - they have positively influenced my
life. However, I don't think the things you do outside of work are a full solution
to making you happier and more satisfied at work. After all, what's
an hour of yoga in the morning if you then have to go be unhappy at
work for 10 hours? You simply cannot erase a full day of behavior incongruent
with who you are as a person with a temporary restorative act.
Many lawyers may be unhappy at work because lawyering requires them
to be someone they are not and act in ways that are discordant with
who they are. In other words, their work strips them of their humanity.
Somewhere along the way, in law school or thereafter, we took off our
" human " hat and put on our " lawyer " hat and, in the process, stopped
deeply connecting with ourselves and other people.
A 1986 report titled The Role of Legal Education in Producing Psychological
Distress Among Law Students and Lawyers found that law students begin
their legal education with mental health markers similar to those of the
general population, as reflected by rates of anxiety, depression, hostility,
and irritability. However, over the course of law school, psychological distress
symptoms such as obsessive-compulsive behavior, interpersonal
sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation,
and social alienation/isolation dramatically increase. These symptom
elevations do not abate - rather, they follow students into their careers
as lawyers, resulting in psychological problems, substance abuse,
depression, anxiety, and job dissatisfaction.
In part, I attribute this shift to us forsaking a part of who we are as humans.
In law school, we are trained to ignore our own values and to write
and speak words we don't necessarily believe because they are mismatched
with who we are. We are hollowed out to become vessels for
our clients' needs and interests. The inherent insincerity, it's been posited,
can cause moral tension and ethical stress. Moreover, the adversarial
legal system can breed cynicism, leading us lawyers away from the best
22 WASHINGTON LAWYER
* JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2025
Illustrations by Amalia Restrepo
Washington Lawyer - January/February 2025

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