It’s hard to generate sympathy for lawyers – especially when the group of people you’re milking for sympathy is other lawyers.
At first glance, that seems counter-intuitive. I’m writing about your fellow attorneys, after all, and they’re in miserable straits. I feel sorry for them. I want to help. But then, I’m a bleeding heart psychotherapist. I even felt sorry for them back when I was a lawyer, too – incontrovertible proof I was never “cut out” for the profession.
With lawyers, it’s not a question of “compassion fatigue” – they never show enough compassion to develop fatigue. It’s more like a birth defect – compassion deficiency.
My solution? The same trick Jerry Lewis used for his telethons. I’ll fabricate a poster child – a Jerry’s Kid – a cute, lovable little spokesperson for suffering, misunderstood, mistreated lawyers!
What would my Jerry’s Kid – ahem – Will’s Kid – look like?
Let’s call him Tim – Tiny Tim. (Cue violin music.) (Cue photo montage.)
Okay. Here’s the narration:
Tim’s parents aren’t well off. They’re plain-spoken, hard-working American middle-class folks who aspire for something better for their oldest child – little Timmy. That translated into a lot of pressure on Tiny Tim to go to the best college he could – and the best law school, too. That’s why Tim – who only ever wanted to play his trombone – ended up attending Harvard, then going to Columbia Law School.
(music swells)
And that’s how Tiny Tim – “T.T.” to his friends – ended up $240,000 in debt.
Timmy did well at Harvard – and held his own at Columbia Law, too. He counted himself among the lucky 50% of the kids in his class who managed to find a job – and at a great big white shoe law firm! Timmy was proud to be accepted at Nasty, Vicious & Ruthless LLP. Even after they deferred his start date, Tiny Tim wasn’t discouraged – he stuck with his dream of devoting his heart and soul to commercial litigation.
(music turns quieter, introspective)
Then, only four months after T.T. arrived at the firm, his dreams came crashing down. NV&R announced they were imploding – half the partners were leaving, the remainder merging with another firm. Tiny Tim was “let go” after a fabricated “bad review.”
(cut to image of Tiny Tim, smiling bravely through his tears)
As a first year lawyer with four months experience, Timmy found it impossible to locate another law firm job. Headhunters averted their gaze when he asked for help – other lawyers never returned his calls. His loans, all the while, grew and grew and grew. T.T’s parents – rock-solid Americans who believe if you work hard, you’ve earned a right to a fair chance – don’t understand how America changed during the Bush years. Now – as little T.T. has learned – you’re either born rich, or you’re essentially fucked.
(cut to long shot of Old Glory, flapping in the wind)
In desperation, T.T. did hourly contract attorney work for a mid-size firm. It was mindless doc review, and would have paid about $65k per year. But now that work has dried up.
(camera pans across rows of empty cubicles at a deserted law firm)
Tiny Tim knows he’ll never pay off the loans – that’s a pipe dream. But he’d like to keep making payments so he won’t have to go underground to avoid the police. A friend has a lead on a gig doing insurance defense in Baltimore. It’s drudgery, and pays $55k. But now it looks like that might fall through, too.
(cut to mid-shot of Tiny Tim, trudging home through Jackson Heights in suit and tie, carrying his pitiful little lawyer’s briefcase.)
Tim is living with friends in Queens, sleeping on a sofa in their living room, but he’s struggling to make interest payments, and the bank calls every day. Timmy’s girlfriend finally broke up with him last month after he spent too many evenings weeping. For the past few weeks, he’s been selling blood to raise cash. Now, to make loan payments, he might have to pawn his trombone – the last thing in the world that provides him joy.
(cut to a close-up of Tiny Tim, playing a long, sad note on his trombone)
Can you help Tim? He cries all the time. He hates his life. He hates law. He really, really hates law.
You know what that’s like. Open your heart. Support Will’s kids.
(end of infomercial)
Did it work? Is a tiny little spot in your heart beginning to defrost?
I doubt it. And even if you were thinking – heck, poor little loser, I’ll send him a hundred bucks…there’s another problem with “poster children.” They’re unfair to the people they’re trying to help.
This issue arose around the famous Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethons, which featured “Jerry’s Kids” – adorable tots battling motor disorders and other disabling ailments. The cute kids helped Lewis – and the MDA – raise millions for research and services. But there were problems.
First – most people with muscular dystrophy (actually a range of muscular diseases) are adults, not kids. It’s misleading to think the battle is to help adorable little children – it isn’t.
Second – the telethon was framed around “finding a cure” when finding cures for all these diseases might not happen for generations, if ever. What’s needed now is support and services for real people – help with their symptoms and with mobility.
Back to lawyers.
First of all – as commenters never tire of pointing out – lawyers, even young ones, are not helpless children. They’re adults. They got themselves into this mess. Most of my clients rightfully see themselves as victims of a scam – and I agree with them. People make mistakes. Lawyers who got suckered into massive school loans before the recession struck made a mistake. You can blame them – or pity them. Neither does them a lot of good.
Secondly, they’re not looking for a “cure” any more than most folks living with muscular disorders. They’re looking for a little help taking care of themselves. That might start with a bit of support from their fellow lawyers.
In “No Pity,” his book on the movement for civil rights for the disabled, Joseph P Shapiro writes that people living with disabilities are tired of being presented as either Jerry’s Kids or “super-crips” – those paraplegic guys who run marathons in wheelchairs or blind dudes climbing mountains. Most disabled people, like most lawyers, are neither poster-kids nor super-heros – just regular folks dealing with a tough situation. As Shapiro writes “…people with disabilities want neither pity-ridden paternalism nor overblown admiration.”
The same thing is true of lawyers. Tiny Tim doesn’t need your condescension – he’s not a child. He can own his bad decisions. But he can’t turn into some sort of superman, either. How would you propose he pay down $240k in debt on $65k/year?
What Tiny Tim – and a lot of other lawyers in his situation – could use, is your support – even if it’s only symbolic. For starters, how about knocking it off with the “blame the victim” comments – the whole “it’s your own damn fault, nobody made you do it” school of crank attacks? Yeah, it’s his mistake – but we all make mistakes, and have to do our best to put the worst of them behind us.
And another thing – let’s all gather, collectively, and admit the government’s decision to make school loans bankruptcy-proof was a monumental blunder that’s damaged a lot of lives.
People have a right to do stupid things. They sometimes fall for scams and lose all their money – or worse, end up deep in debt. But the law scam is different. If you fell for Bernie Madoff, and lost millions – lost every cent you earned over a lifetime – at least you could file for bankruptcy protection, walk away bruised but intact, and get a fresh start.
Tiny Tim doesn’t have that luxury.
I work on a regular basis with kids in their twenties who are nearly a quarter million dollars in debt because of one mistake – they wanted to make their parents happy and fell for a scam that the trusted adults around them – their own professors – encouraged them to buy into.
Now they’re trapped beneath a mountain of debt, with no hope of paying it off. Just finding a job is next to impossible in this climate, and many of them were never interested in law anyway, they just thought it might be a ladder to success. They want to play trombone.
It’s not only the unemployed lawyers who make great candidates to be “Will’s Kids”. Some guy – he said he was young and heavily in debt – cancelled on me three times in a row last month – three early morning appointments – because he had to work all-nighters each time. He works at a firm notorious for under-staffing cases and working associates to death and said he needed the morning slots because he has to be in early. The cancellations always came in around 2 am. I’ve never met the guy, so the Will’s Kid poster would have a blank silhouette. But I feel for him. There are plenty of guys like him out there, at big firms, hating their lives.
If you can’t open your wallets to help Will’s Kids – at least knock it off with the hard-ass routine. It could have happened to you. Maybe it did happen to you. Maybe it’s happening to you.
So have a heart, huh?
========
This piece is part of a series of columns presented by The People’s Therapist in cooperation with AboveTheLaw.com. My thanks to ATL for their help with the creation of this series.
If you enjoy these columns, please check out The People’s Therapist’s new book, Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning
I can also heartily recommend my first book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy
(Both books are also available on bn.com and the Apple iBookstore.)
The People's Therapist 
My clients already think I’m their therapist.
I need a letter to send to them…”I am not your therapist and neither are my assistants. We can’t help that you made poor life choices and are now losing your house and/or have become homeless and/or are behind on your child support.”
I’m not really sure of the point of this article. It seems like you’re saying that if we all just “support” these poor disadvantaged attorneys, that it will make things better. It will not. Even if we collectively admit that our government is an active part of many of our society’s problems (creating the mortgage meltdown, guaranteeing that these poor grad students never get out from under their crushing debt, and ignoring the oncoming fiscal catastrophe brought on by unfunded entitlements), it will not change anyone’s situation. Granted, if enough people pushed their representatives and senators, something might change, but when our government is currently insolvent, the thought of writing off large portions of accounts receivable appears particularly impossible. Regardless of our “support,” these folks are still drowning in debt, and that will not change.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am an attorney who went to a state school for both my undergraduate degree and my law degree. I came out with significant debt, but nowhere near what this article described. I do sympathize with other attorneys, who like me, truly dislike a significant part of their jobs. I found that starting my own practice gave me enough freedom to minimize the parts of my job that I really dislike.
Will, to call it a scam is a bit too far – especially since you focus on BigLaw and have BigLaw clients. If people had bothered to research the legal profession – and I don’t even mean reading ‘scamblogs’ – I mean talking to lawyers, emailing them, reading ABA Journal, talking to their university pre-law adviser (who are usually former attorneys) about something other than “how good is my personal statement?”, etc., they would’ve quickly found out law, especially BigLaw, was a miserable deal. Failing to do so is on them, it wasn’t a mistake, it was recklessness and inexcusable immaturity.
Will, this is the best post I’ve seen here. Nice work.
Not entirely accurate to say that lawyers don’t suffer compassion fatigue – there’s an interesting study that just came out about how common it is among public interest types: http://www.wisbar.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Wisconsin_Lawyer&Template=%2FCM%2FContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=107395.
To your larger point, totally agree. It would be nice if people could work up a little more sympathy (dare I say empathy?) for lawyers who hate where they’ve ended up. In most cases, they were naive, at worst, and really believed all this crap about how law was a stable, prestigious profession that would make their parents proud. Having been there, we know that’s not true, but it’s tough to see that when you’re 22 and wondering what the hell to do with your life.
So, as my public service for the day…if you’ve applied to law school, please do all ten of these things before you commit: http://thegirlsguidetolawschool.com/12/prelaws-10-things-to-do-while-you-wait-for-law-school-acceptance-letters/.
Will: I feel bad about it, but the article made me feel better about only having $100,000 in non-dischargeable debt from law school!
This guy got “Lathamed” but he still has excellent credentials. harvard and Columbia Law.
At least he didn’t go to expensive private college to study lib arts and then double down with a $45k a year tuition shocka at soemwhere like Suffolk law.
And you know what, there is no way in hell bankruptcy will ever be restored for student loans…it’s not happening. The fact is that most Mmericans are “pesonal responsibility” Nazis…Just read the comments sections when such a suggesiton comes up on CNN.com or ABC.com…..they are probably 80% against giving anyone a break.
Usually the logic is, “I paid my loans back, screw you” or “you voluntarily took on the debt, screw you.”
“personal responsibility Nazis”? As someone whose forebears were murdered by the Nazis I take offense to that term. I have plenty of sympathy for the unemployed and others who are down on their luck through no fault of their own. Lawyers and law students are, by and large, not one of these people. I was utterly shocked in law school how nearly everyone wanted to go work at a big firm but almost none of these same people knew lawyers at big firms work 90 hrs a week. This was easily discoverable. I researched the legal field before law school and decided BigLaw was not for me. Nor did I assume I would be in the top 10% or that I would get a great job. Also, I did, in fact, take the school’s statistics with a grain of salt. Reason: as a 22 yr old I was an adult and adult’s don’t take out $150,000+ loan without engaging in some research on the investment first. In the past 2 yrs I have seen a few fbook status updates of fellow graduates saying things like “I can’t believe I’m still in the office at 10 pm on a Friday night!” If they can’t believe that, that means they put themselves deep into debt without bothering to learn about the legal profession and the job they were about to undertake. I don’t feel sorry for them. That makes me a Nazi?
I don’t particualrly care if you take offense.
As for the rest of your comments: I would have to know more about your personal finances. How much did you take out? Did you have any savings? Parental help? Did you live at home? Did you have a scholarship? Did you go in-state?
People who like to paint themsleves as so damn smart that they “chose” not to take out alot of loans are usally failing to disclose some rather imprtant things.
If you predicted the crash, good for you.
Even those who had modest aspirations have been crushed.
You know, start at $50k, get a 5k raise per year for 5 years and make $75k, maybe lateral to a mid size firm etc..many of those people have been laid off though no fault of their own, or have not had even a COL raise for 3/4 years.
Again, that’s not their fault. The whole situation is compunded by just terrible public policy of governemnt provided student loans with no control of tuition costs.
America loves to talk about how education is the “key to success”…..it’s a dogma that is pumped out by the media and is accepted wisdom. It’s just not true anymore.
Is it good policy to have people who could be productive, having a debt that will never be repaid (taxpayers on the hook) and that they can never get out from under? Is that what we want?
“I have plenty of sympathy for the unemployed and others who are down on their luck through no fault of their own. Lawyers and law students are, by and large, not one of these people.”
This makes no sense. You know, lawyers do get laid off through no fault of their own….and thousands did during the recession.
So why would lawyer be less deserving of sympathy than say a construciton worker or a teacher for example?
Wispa, of course many lawyers got laid off through no fault of their own. I do feel sorry for them. I feel empathy for them. It is a terrible thing to have loans and other expenses and then be out of a job.
Who I don’t feel sorry for are those who either (a) have jobs and hate them because it isn’t as prestigious, fun, and/or stimulating as they had thought it would be (because they didn’t bother to do even a bit of research) when they entered law school; or (b) those who went into law school, particularly lower tiered ones, and voluntarily put themselves into debt, all on the assumption that they would get a job AND that said job would be marvelous and exciting.
I may be naive, but I think quite a few lawyers would be willing to offer some financial support. When the sky came crashing down for a lot of junior associates 2-3 years ago, I emailed the Dean of my law school and asked if there was a way that the school could set up an “emergency fund” and solicit contributions from alumni who are still employed in well-paying jobs and who may want to help classmates who had the misfortune of working at, say, Latham. Perhaps some sort of “solidarity” fund that would help these folks continue to make payment on loans so that at least the hole they’re in isn’t getting deeper.
In the email I received in response, the Dean (or whoever types these communications on his behalf) suggested that I make a donation to the law school and noted that the law school has a repayment plan for graduates who work in public interest. Sigh…
OK, now imagine you are Tiny Tim (from a TT law school) and the girlfriend that dumps you (who went to the same law school as you and was way down the class) somehow laterals into NYC Biglaw after 2 years of shitlaw, and then laterals into another Biglaw position and then into a hedge fund! (the pussy pass)
So not only do you have to deal with your failure, you have to deal with the success of your ex while you are a career and financial wreck. In the meantime your ex has made hundreds of thousands of dollars and is jet setting around New York, Singapore and Zurich. Sickening…
It’s kills self time folks!
And the the thing is: apart from being a shoulder to cry on, what can Will really do for this guy?
Nothing.
Will cannot erase his debt or get him a job.
I think the point of this article is that a little compassion never hurt anyone. Stop being an asshole and you’d be surprised how much of a positive effect it can have.
@ Adult in the Room – maybe your advice is applicable for people who are going to/applying to law school during the recession but it wouldn’t have helped much for those who started in 06 or 07 (like myself). I’m a first-generation college graduate and had never even met a lawyer until I was nannying at 22. The father was a very successful attorney – like his sister and his father before them – so he was the only person I had to talk to about the realities of a legal career. Of course he and his fellow attorneys had only great things to say – the economy was booming and they had very successful, lucrative careers. Not everyone has the access you’ve described and, for those who do, it’s often very limited. I did the things you mentioned but the economy was great in ’06 and all signs pointed to a successful career. Then the bubble burst and things became a lot more difficult for young attorneys. No matter how much prep work you do, some things are just not in your control.
Yes some things are out of one’s control. Those people deserve sympathy. But knowing how many people had no clue what they were getting into – not just in terms of unemployment – but the actual job of an attorney, it is hard to be sympathetic with them. How can I feel sorry for all those lawyers who cry and moan about working till 10 or 11 pm on a Friday night? They had the exact same ability to do what I did prior to law school. Google searches, email associates at big firms, talk to college pre-law advisers, etc. or just have some humility and not assume they’d all get fabulous jobs. Being naive is an excuse for a teenager, not a college graduate.
Things are a lot more difficult for new attorneys, no doubt about it, the state of the economy and job market is not their fault (at least those who went in prior to 2008). But getting a job outside the best schools was a struggle even before 2008, and for anyone especially in the lower tier 2 and below to have assumed they’d get a six figure job out of law school was foolhardy. This waving of the finger does not apply to those who, for example, wanted to be ADAs or ACAs or go the JAG Corps and now find themselves shut out because of budget cuts or more cutthroat competition. I definitely feel sorry for those that knew exactly what kind of law they wanted to do and were not in it for prestige or money. A lot of these people have gotten the shaft, and I feel very sorry for them. My experience though is that such people were in the minority of law students.
Glad to see someone giving credit to the crowd who had DA/PD/JAG aspirations in law school. I think most of us in this group at my school knew how precarious our situation was, even before the economy turned. A few lucky ones have managed to get one of the few openings in with these agencies that have cropped up (which we are no longer competing amongst ourselves for), but otherwise those who found work ended up with crap paying jobs in family law or PI.
If Tiny Tim’s a smart kid from a poor background, wouldn’t he have gotten scholarships, grants and financial aid to offset his tuition? Especially at Harvard, since they’re supposedly need blind? $240K sounds pretty steep for tuition debt, unless the student is so naive that they just blindly sign one loan after another.
I think you might be the one who’s being naive. I see cases like Tim’s all the time. The Ivy’s might be “need-blind” but they ain’t givin’ nothing away, neither. $240k in school debt is not unheard-of. I have heard of it on several occasions. $180k is run-of-the mill – I see it every week.
Sure, if you factor in undergrad debt as well.
My roommate at Duke Law managed to max out the student loans he was able to get. He had about $180K back in 2000 if I recall. At some point, they won’t let you borrow any more money.
That was two years of Harvard + three years of Duke at retail prices during the late 1990s.
The borrowing cut-off reminds me of the NYT story from about 2 years ago – the guy from a third or fourth tier school with something like $300,000 in debt who was not allowed by a state bar to sit on character and fitness grounds (the argument being IIRC “who the hell has such bad judgment? is he ever going to work and pay this off?”).
I wonder how often this happens.
Obviously, by the time a person is denied sitting for the bar due to excess borrowing and no chances, the situation is WAY out of control. Really too late to address or hand slap at that point – but $150,000 earlier it would not have been too late.