Law People : Law Practice Management, Organizational and Personal Dynamics; Talent Management : Ronda Muir of Law People Management, Inc.

Lawyers suffer from a high rate of depression--the highest of all professions--and the peak time for depression to hit is around the holidays.  Add to that the stress that many are feeling now over the economy and whether they will have a job come the first of the year, and you have a recipe for poor performance, strained relationships and general year-end blues. 

Positive psychology is the study of what drives optimal functioning.  It focuses on the positive emotions, individual traits and institutions that improve productivity and satisfaction and that also have been determined to lengthen longevity by 20%.  But lawyers are world-class pessimists, a trait so clearly aligned with their profession that law students who score the highest on pessimism also have the highest grades.  So practicing positive emotions seems sentimental and unrealistic to many lawyers.

The proof, however, is in the pudding.  Don't let moping through the holidays be your "realistic" approach.  Here's a list of things that positive psychology research has found can help you beat back the depression demon. Even though it may sound too much like kittens and flowers and light, you might just find that one or more things on this list can help make your holidays happy. 

1. Keep a gratitude diary.  Spending even 5 minutes a day writing down what you are grateful for has a demonstrated positive impact on satisfaction, physical health and energy levels. For a bigger kick, send a note to someone you are grateful to.
2. Start the day with a smile.  If you can maintain a positive attitude through the first hour, you have a much better chance of keeping it all day.  Research shows that even if you don't feel positive at first, the positive feelings will follow that physical smile.  Laughter is good for you too, And a positive mood is contagious.
3. Perform an act of kindness.  One daily act of kindness, regardless of how small--like complimenting a coworker, bringing someone coffee, or large--volunteering at a food bank, mowing an elderly neighbor's lawn, builds strong connections and adds a sense of purpose and meaning to life.
4. Spend time with friends and family.  Plan regular time together.  And even if a late brief or closing keeps you physically away, phone calls and emails can keep you connected in the meantime. 
5. Replay those special moments.  When you're stuck in a conference room late at night, give yourself a break to replay those special memories you have--visualizing the moment and exactly how it felt.  It's a mini-vacation in the mind.
6. Manage your physical health--eat well, sleep well, exercise and stretch daily. The positive effects of good physical health--on your immune system, heart and dopamine levels--is the foundation for high functioning and lasting satisfaction.
7. Just minutes of meditation daily for as few as 6 weeks, using music or chanting to further the relaxation, has proved powerful in developing the ability to cope with stress and lighten mood.
8. Visualize!  Imagine vividly your goals and aspirations. Write down the specific details of your ideal life and incorporate them wherever you can into the life you have now.
9. Upgrade your self-talk.  Stop trash-talking to yourself--remember to congratulate yourself for your accomplishments and remind yourself of your strengths.
10. Release yourself from responsibility for what you can't control or change. Keep a discerning eye on what those things are and don't beat yourself up over what you can't do.
11. Forgive. Staying angry is like trying to kill someone else by drinking poison.  It only hurts you in the end.  Unburden yourself from the weight of resentment and anger over what others have or haven't done. Forgive their weaknesses, their bad intentions, their failure to be who you thought or want them to be.  Then embrace your lightened life.

 Happy holidays!

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The rate of depression among lawyers is widely recognized as a multiple--in some studies a double-digit multiple--of the rate of depression in the general population and also in other professions.  This rate is high by the second semester of law school and only escalates over time.

There has been speculation as to whether depression in lawyers is a condition that is coincident with their predominant attribute of pessimism or is itself a separate attribute that might be a career enhancer in its own right.  Swiss watch makers have for generations piped downbeat music into their work rooms to produce a higher rate of accuracy in work that is technical and painstaking but also repetitive. Are lawyers naturally better suited to do the personal services equivalent of master watchmaking because of their inclination towards depression?

A recent study seems to provide at least a partial answer.  In "Performance benefits of depression: Sequential decision making in a healthy sample and a clinically depressed sample," by Bettina von Helversen et al, published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, the following conclusions were reached:

"Previous research reported conflicting results concerning the influence of depression on cognitive task performance. Whereas some studies reported that depression enhances performance, other studies reported negative or null effects... [W]e studied the performance of individuals - in a complex sequential decision task - who are nondepressed, depressed, and recovering from a major depressive episode. We found that depressed individuals perform better than do nondepressed individuals. Formal modeling of participants' decision strategies suggest that acutely depressed participants have higher thresholds for accepting options and make better choices than either healthy participants or those recovering from depression."

So exactly how were these depressed people functioning better? 

"[D]epressed participants accepted options less readily, which led to longer search and better choices. These results suggest that depression, by fostering greater persistence, may improve performance in certain tasks."

In other words, depressed people persist by passing up okay alternatives for a longer time and therefore eventually find a better choice than non-depressed people do.  The implication is that the depressed feel less pressure to come up with a solution quickly.

There are some other, less dramatic advantages to management to having a depressed work force--depressed workers are more likely to agree to what would otherwise be perceived as an over-reaching schedule and other onerous work conditions. Depressed workers are less likely to demand higher compensation or promotions.  They are also less likely to insist on using their own approach to managing a matter or staff.  Most of these advantages stem from the fact that the depressed don't have the psychic energy to devote to these peripheral matters--they are intent on getting the difficult meat of their work done and need all that they can muster to do that alone.

Lest we sound like we are glorifying depression, also note the long-standing disadvantages to depression.  Again, quoting the above article: 

"Depression modifies eating and sleeping habits, changes psychomotor patterns, and impedes cognitive functioning (for a review see Levin, Heller, Mohanty, Herrington, & Miller, 2007). Moreover, depressed people find decision making challenging (Monroe, Skowronski, Macdonald, & Wood, 2005; Radford, Mann, & Kalucy, 1986; Saunders, Peterson, Sampson, & Reardon, 2000) and tend to ruminate about problems (Ewards & Weary, 1993). In addition to these challenges, depressed individuals perform poorly in memory (Jackson & Smith, 1984), reasoning (Sedek & von Hecker, 2004), and choice tasks (Conway & Giannapoulos, 1993; Gillis, 1993; Murphy, et al., 2001)."

That list gives us some insight into why, if depressed lawyers are making better decisions in at least certain circumstances and offer other advantages to management, we aren't embracing the depressed lawyer model in recruiting and advancement. In short, a depressed work force doesn't perform at its highest level.

But to quote further the authors of the study: "Despite these findings, recent work has attempted to detect whether depression offers benefits that offset its negative consequences and, thus, explain its evolution (Andrews &Thompson, 2009; Hagen, 2002; Keller & Nesse, 2006; Nesse, 2000; 2009). These investigations have found that negative affective states can promote analytical reasoning, which facilitates systematic and thorough information processing (e.g., Schwarz & Bless,1991). In this vein, Andrews and Thompson (2009) contend that depression may be an adaptation that enables complex problem solving, suggesting that depression may improve performance on tasks that demand rumination and persistence. This resonates with literature suggesting that negative affect promotes more systematic and thorough processing of information (e.g., Schwarz & Bless, 1991), and it also dovetails with investigations showing that depression inhibits goal disengagement, increases persistence (Andrews & Thompson, 2009), and leads to difficulties in decision making (Radford et al., 1986; Saunders et al., 2000)."

These depressed ruminations may also challenge managers trying to motivate their lawyers to work more quickly in a fixed fee environment.

All in all, isn't depression as a career advantage a bummer for the industry?

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One can’t review the data showing the magnitude of mental illness, substance abuse and other indices of distress in lawyers without thinking of the lawsuit that, with apologies to Lord Alfred Douglas, no one dares speak about but is certain to come. 

There are all sorts of scenarios that could prompt it.  An associate will commit suicide or a partner will kill his domestic partner or a staffer will be attacked.  An in-house counsel will shoot one of her colleagues or friends or abuse a child or her boss will stalk a judge or threaten an outside lawyer.

There may be a criminal proceeding, but certainly a civil one will follow. It will point out that, according to expert opinion, management's policies and practices conspired to create a toxic environment that ignored particularly vulnerable lawyers, both as a group and individually, and that those policies and practices either neglected (possibly criminally) to stop the lawyer in question from committing his/her heinous acts or even pushed him/her into it.

Or, for a milder version, a malpractice suit will be mounted with an additional allegation that the lawyer primarily working on or overseeing a matter that was mishandled was and should have been known by firm or department management to be compromised by substance abuse, mental illness, etc. 

We have regularly seen fact patterns that resemble these scenarios in the various media reports of lawyers acting badly, and any senior partner has stories s/he could tell.  There's the drunken arson of a 9/11 memorial by a biglaw associate, or the lawyer facing criminal charges after shooting a hunter  So far, the publicized cases rarely have involved firms of note or suits against the firms themselves.

Perhaps the most notorious case over the last few years was that of Robert Wone, who left Covington & Burling to be General Counsel at Radio Free Asia only a month before he was gruesomely sexually assaulted and killed in the townhome owned by his college friend Joseph Price, an attorney at Arent Fox, and his gay partner. The lengthy investigation that followed is not something any firm would want to be involved in, let alone as an accused or defendant.  Price's law office was searched. The case dragged on for years.  All three defendants living in the townhouse were eventually dismissed, if not completely cleared.  Wone's widow proceeded to file a $20 million civil suit against attorney Price and his roommates.

It would be a fairly short distance to a similar suit against a firm if one of its lawyers had been identified as the killer.

The legal professionals in your firm have thoughts of suicide at a rate 4-20 times greater than the general public, depending on the source of data, and also have highly elevated levels of substance abuse and mental illness and other indices of distress. They are under extreme pressure to perform in a brutal market. and they have well-documented deficiencies in adaptability and stress management.  Levels of anger and frustration are off the charts. 

Most law firms would fail miserably the recognized assessment which determines workplace environments that literally make employees crazy.  

What can your firm do to avoid being one of the headliners when these lawsuits do occur? 

A number of precautions can be taken. Interviewing protocols can be toughened up so that you have a higher assurance that incoming lawyers are entering with relatively stable coping skills and mental health.  Reporting protocols can be set up within the firm to make sure that struggling attorneys are identified and supported.  Firms can offer coaching and psychological services (confidentially) to help their lawyers cope with both the professional and personal stresses that make them vulnerable to debilitation. Guidelines can be established as to what behaviors constitute grounds sufficient for requiring lawyers to take a break or leave the firm.  And you might check your insurance policy.

This is admittedly moving into the touchy area of ADA concerns about discrimination, but starting to explore these issues before the lawsuit arrives will put your firm on the best footing.

Remember, in these lawsuits, plaintiffs will not try to convince a jury there was a workplace environment like in those movies with Tom Cruise, where evil, even satanic partners work their maleficent intent on their own lawyers. What they will show is the indifference of management to clear and convincing data on the vulnerabilities of its lawyer population, the thoughtless promulgation of requirements like unreasonable performance measures likely to destabilize such a vulnerable population and the failure of management to attend to clear signs that the lawyer in question is in distress—absences, family problems, mistreatment of staff or subordinates, irrationality, emotional imbalance, substance abuse. Just the sort of things most firms and law departments would rather not know about their lawyers--and studiously ignore when they happen to find out.

We offer expert assistance in selecting attorneys, improving their coping skills, providing individual and on-site coaching and psychological assistance, identifying and intervening in problematic situations and developing protocols to sustain a productive workforce and reduce potential liability.

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How stressed-out are you feeling today?  A UK study has concluded that 10 AM on Tuesdays is the peak period of stress during a lawyer's work week, and that 47% of lawyers carry their stress home from work, "leading them to drink (every now and then)."

That may be an understatement.  Data from around the world demonstrates that lawyers are arguably in the most highly stressed profession, unfortunately coupled with some of the weakest coping skills, resulting in dysfunctional self-medicating behaviors such as addictions. 

Hence, Hazelden recently announced that they are opening an initial 50-bed rehabilitation program specifically for legal professionals struggling with addiction, staffed by 3 former attorneys who have overcome their own substance abuse.

"The Legal Professionals Program incorporates the typical month-long inpatient Hazelden program with several added elements specifically for lawyers. Lawyer-patients meet several times individually with the counselor-lawyers, and they also meet each week for group sessions with other patients who are lawyers. They also attend an outside, all-lawyer 12-step meeting in the Twin Cities. Volunteers from the area's local Lawyers Helping Lawyers program also visit Hazelden to offer counseling. Once attorney-patients leave Hazelden, the program offers career restoration assistance such as writing letters to the bar on behalf of clients and helping them get their practices back in order."

LawCare, a UK health advice line for the legal profession, has reported that the recession has led to record numbers of lawyers suffering from stress and depression.

"LawCare opened 517 new case files in 2010, making it the second busiest year in its 13 years of operation. In addition, there were over 1,000 additional calls relating to carrying matters forward and to ongoing cases from earlier years. Staff also found that many of the calls that they dealt with in 2010 were more lengthy and complex than had historically been the case. They also required more time-consuming follow-up. 74% of calls related to stress. During the latter part of 2008 and much of 2009, a large percentage of calls (up to 28% in some months and 26% in 2009 as a whole) related to the economic downturn."

In response, UK firms Denton Wilde Sapte (now SNR Denton) and Herbert Smith offer stress recognition and management training to all attorneys in an effort to reduce the costs associated with on-the-job mental illness and substance abuse.  While Herbert Smith is still in the implementation phase, extending the program to all employees, SNR Denton says it has seen reductions in those costs for its professionals in the UK as a result of the program.

Here in the US, a number of different approaches help lawyers lead more productive and satisfying personal and professional lives.  One enlightened example is Day Pitney's arrangement with Dr. Mark S. Braunsdorf, of The Avalon Psychological Group in Hartford, CT, which gives Braunsdorf regular access to the firm's offices, allowing him to get to know the entire legal staff and therefore provide meaningful confidential individual advice as well as highly targeted group presentations on topics such as stress and civility.

Lawyer distress is an issue that will not go away.  The stress will only increase as clients and firms struggle to find the right balance of cost and performance; the incidental support of colleagues and non-lawyers will be inadvertently whittled away by staffing reductions; and the individual attributes that make lawyers burrow into dysfunction instead of asking for help will remain.  The result is that clients and culture suffer and the firm is put at risk.

Do your clients and your colleagues a favor by taking a serious look at how your firm or department can affirmatively tackle this boulder rolling downhill.  We are here to help you build an effective, informed program.

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The Grant Study is an extraordinary longitudinal study undertaken in the late 1930s to shed light on "the urgent question of how to live well."  As participants, a group of 268 (male) Harvard College sophomores, including John F. Kennedy and Ben Bradlee, were chosen for showing particular promise.

An article interestingly entitled "What Makes Us Happy?" in the June 2009 issue of the Atlantic explores what we might learn from 72 years of following that gifted group.

The biggest surprise may be how unreliable those evaluations at a formative age turned out to be for purposes of predicting future success and happiness. Or perhaps, that in spite of those evaluations, how inevitable stumbling is.

As David Brooks, in his May 11, 2009 editorial "They Had It Made" in The New York Times relates: "Their lives played out in ways that would defy any imagination save Dostoevsky's.  A third of the men would suffer at least one bout of mental illness.  Alcoholism would be a running plague.  The most mundane personalities often produced the most solid success."

Almost as interesting as the study is the man who has been overseeing it for more than four decades, George Vaillant.  Vaillant doesn't hesitate to arrive at a familiar yet profound conclusion:  relationships are the key to happiness. 

Yet the difficulty of putting that dictum into practice is evident in Vaillant's own life.  At work, he has proved to be a valued colleague and mentor.  On the personal front, things are much more challenging.  His father committed suicide, which his mother never acknowledged, his three marriages all ended in divorce and his children describe their home as being a "civil war" and their father as having a problem with intimacy.

There are some other interesting takeaways from the study, which Brooks points out.  All the men tended to cope better as they aged.  Those who suffered from depression by age 50 were much more likely to die by age 63.  Those with close sibling relationships proved much healthier in old age than those without them.

What is not clear is why these particular young men were chosen to participate in the study in the first place.  All we really know about them is that their admission to Harvard College at that time meant they were at least reasonably bright and probably the sons of influential and wealthy families. And that someone at  Harvard College had a high opinion of them. 

Of course, in the 1930s they didn't have access to the bundle of assessments available to us in the 21st century.  The "science" of head size and phrenology (the study of bumps on the head) had had its heyday during the prior century. The concept of an assessable intelligence quotient had only recently been introduced; the Wechsler Intelligence Scale would appear a few years later.  

What did the Grant Study originators think success in "living well" meant?  And what did they think it took to accomplish that?   In other words, what specific attributes were they looking for?  Might the many different paths that the participants eventually took reflect a lack of a clear vision on the part of the originators as to their concept either of success or its antecedents?

Perhaps Brooks' note that "the most mundane personalities often produced the most solid success"  informed another editorial, "In Praise of Dullness," that appeared a week later.  There he cited a recent study that seems to point to "relentless and somewhat mind-numbing commitment to incremental efficiency gains" as the critical attribute of successful CEOs.  Even if that correlation is in fact relevant (see the comments on Richard Edelman's "Dull Advice," which question its relevance as a broad-based indicator), it seems unlikely that it was young men with that attribute whom the Grant Study originators sought to identify.

Knowing what you are looking for in any selection process is critical.  Organizations around the world use sophisticated assessments to choose candidates for employment and advancement based on the competencies, attributes and traits that they have found predict success in their organizations.

Yet we recruiters of legal talent often don't know what we are looking for.  At a roundtable two weeks ago on legal hiring, David Van Zandt, Dean of Northwestern University School of Law, entreated law firms to develop a better model for selecting their summer associates.  "I've long advocated that firms really need to look at their data... and identify the characteristics that they're looking for in their candidates," Van Zandt said. Now, "you just go out and throw a wide net and pull people in." 

In fact, as we've suggested (see our entry "The Outliers of Law--Embracing Heresy "), the single attribute--high class standing--that firms do look for may be the one that could well be jettisoned--or at least modified--with little impact on the quality of legal services.

What the Grant Study does show is that predicting the future course of even a bright young person with a shiny veneer of promise can be difficult.  And that regardless of their credentials or intelligence, many are likely to fall to the various vicissitudes of man--mental illness, addiction, relationship breakdown. 

So then, what can one do to be happy?

Valiant knows: "Happiness is love, full stop." 

Now it's just a matter of implementation.

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In the current stressful marketplace, the rate of lawyers' incidence of impairment has been ratcheting up from high (see, for example, our September 5, 2008 entry "The Depression Demon Coming Out of the Legal Closet") to even higher.  See "Employment Woes Fuel Uptick in Lawyer Depression."  Firms suffer losses in productivity, morale and recruitment because of impaired lawyers, and also risk client desertions, losses to their reputations and malpractice liability. 

Firms can take several approaches to both assist their lawyers and protect their bottom line.  Thomas & Knight attorney Peter Riley, as managing partner, instituted an extensive program to address lawyer stress caused from depression, substance abuse, anxiety, etc. in order to provide help fast, without worrying about insurance authorization or long waits for appointments, and with complete confidentiality.  Even with the costs of the program, Riley finds it cost-effective to the firm.  "When a lawyer or lawyer's child or spouse is in crisis, that is going to be the focus of their attention," he says.  "If we can provide assistance for them quickly, we have not only done the right thing for our lawyers, we have done the most economic thing.  It's the perfect intersection of what is right and what is profitable."

Let us draw from our extensive experience in this area to help you spot and support critical talent confronting personal distress.  We can assist on an individual-by-individual basis or by helping you set up a confidential, effective program attuned to your goals and budget.

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This is the time of year when many of us take stock of our direction and goals and make plans to step up our effectiveness.  This particular year, 2009, many lawyers are facing an extremely difficult once-in-a-century marketplace for which no one has been truly prepared.  So we may also find ourselves questioning our ability to successfully grapple with the challenges ahead.  

How to acquire the skills that will improve your practice and advance your leadership in such a disorienting environment?

The old adage of two heads being better than one is born out by the data available on the results of coaching.  According to a January 13, 2009 article by Susan Letterman White in The Legal Intelligencer, "a research report by Diane Coutu and Carol Kauffman in the January Harvard Business Review found that coaching is a business tool most often used to develop the capabilities of high-potential performers or facilitate leadership transitions," and one which produces quantifiable benefits. "The Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology has reported that coaching leads to higher interview ratings for individuals. Telecommunications Weekly reported in November that a change program, which included coaching, improved customer satisfaction by 10 percent and call resolution rates by 56 percent at Motorola. And according to a 2008 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, coaching of university faculty improved the writing process of professors who were under pressure to publish."

As Ms. White states, "coaching is to a lawyer what organizational development is to a law firm; they both foster intentional change toward particular goals through a collaborative process. The goals are those that move the client to a higher level of professional effectiveness...Most importantly, a good coach is paid to ask the right questions."

In addition, a good coach is one who listens.

Sheryl Axelrod of Hepburn Axelrod & White, a Philadelphia firm, was quoted in the article as extolling the benefits of coaching in a law firm context. "We worked with a coach who had an uncanny ability to not only listen to our needs, fears and desires for our firm, but our own internal dilemmas and concerns about each other."

Of course, after listening, a coach must also be able to help coachees arrive at and implement beneficial changes.  And those changes are sometimes unexpected.  In the Hepburn Axelrod case, "one of our partners...reach[ed] the difficult decision to leave the partnership."

But the proof is in the pudding.  "The result of the coaching is that our firm, on our own, and our former partner, on his own, are each thriving in a market in which most firms are doing worse, not better, than the year before, " Axelrod said.

Quantitative evaluations of coaching are rare, but those that have been done demonstrate conclusively its effectiveness and bottom-line contribution.  In an evaluation by MetrixGlobal of an executive coaching program provided by the Center for Performance Excellence in 2004 to Booz Allen partners and principals, results indicated that "all leaders readily applied what they gained from their coaching experiences to make significant strides in self-development, while over half (53%) made significant improvements in their relationships with peers and team members and some  leaders (19%) went on to significantly improve client relationships; gaining greater clarity about how their behavior impacted clients and being better able to respond to client issues."

Of eight business areas senior leaders expected executive coaching to impact, "two were found to be positively impacted by at least half of the leaders who were coached: teamwork (58%) and team member satisfaction (54%). Three other areas were selected by 31% of the leaders as having been impacted: quality of consulting, retention and productivity."

Monetary benefits were rigorously documented in this evaluation. "The total monetary benefits were $3,268,325 with four impact areas each producing at least a half million dollars of annualized benefit to the business: improved teamwork ($981,980), quality of consulting ($863,625), retention ($626,456) and team member satisfaction ($541,250). Given a total, fully loaded cost of the coaching of $414,310, the ROI was 689%."

Coaching can provide to all lawyers the simple but valuable assistance of a supportive yet out-of-the-law-firm-box perspective that can be critical when steering through dangerous waters--and that can positively impact the bottom line. That perspective can help you become a more effective  partner, develop individual business, expand your expertise, master management responsibilities and otherwise plan and implement the next step in your career (whether you are motivated to do so proactively or reactively).

At RRR, we offer confidential high-performance coaching programs of six to eighteen months that are tailored to your objectives and your schedule.  Contact us for a consultation on how we can help you achieve your goals in 2009.

Happy new year!

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Give yourself the advantages that insights from sophisticated behavioral science tools and informed collaboration can produce.  Out of ideas for how to motivate your team?  Can't take another day with a difficult boss or colleague?  Strung out from too many committments and not enough time?  Looking for a meaningful way to both practice law and live your life?

Achieve improvements in your professional and personal life, including progress in leadership and management skills, work/life balance, conflict management, business development and time and resources management. 

Our experienced lawyer coaches use their expertise and assessments to give you the tools to maximize your strengths, raise your emotional intelligence and social IQ, as well as benefit your bottom-line results.  You choose the program that best suits your needs and schedule.

For further information, contact RMuir@RobinRolfeResources.com. 

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The Center for Work-Life Policy’s latest research, titled “Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek,” published in the December 2006 Harvard Business Review, reports that 35% of high earners work more than 60 hours a week and 10 percent work more than 80 hours a week.  Their conclusion is that 20% of high earners in the US have “extreme” jobs, that is: 60 hours or more of work a week that often includes unpredictable work flow, tight deadlines, work events outside of regular work hours, availability to clients 24/7 and/or a large amount of travel, among other things. And 48% of extreme workers say they’re working an average of 16.6 hours more per week than they did five hours ago.

Sound familiar?

The reasons for such long hours?  Among the external drivers: globalization and the round-the-clock availability it requires; vastly improved technology, allowing same-day delivery everywhere around the world; enhanced communication; increasing competition; and decreasing job security.  Among the internal motivators: stimulating work, high quality colleagues, high compensation, power and status.

Sound familiar?

Noted were the sacrifices that these schedules require in personal and family life.  More than two-thirds (2/3) do not get enough sleep, half don’t get enough exercise, and a significant number use alcohol, drugs, or food to alleviate their stress.  The sleep deprivation alone can work havoc on professional and personal lives:  a week of sleeping 4-5 hours a night induces an impairment equivalent to a blood alcohol level of .1%, which is legally equal to being drunk.  Forty-two percent (42%) of extreme workers take 10 or fewer vacation days a year and more than half regularly cancel vacations. This in spite of data that shows that regularly taking vacations lowers the risk of death by nearly 20% among men between the ages of 35 and 57, often your most valuable age-range.

More than half say their sex lives have suffered; and nearly half say their work has interfered with their ability to have a strong relationship. According to the report, it is physically impossible to have a meaningful conversation with your significant other after a 12-hour work day.  The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers identifies a preoccupation with work as one of the top four causes of divorce. 

Extreme workers also note the negative impact their work has on their children.  The study pointed out that women, 20% of the extreme workers, are more likely to feel personal responsibility for these down-sides, particularly with respect to their children  Three-quarters (3/4) of the women said their work interfered with their ability to maintain their homes (66% of men said the same thing),and 57% of women (and 48% of the men) do not want to continue their work pace for more than one year.

The part that doesn’t sound familiar is that two-thirds (2/3) of high earners in a range of professions and three-quarters (3/4) of top managers in multinational corporations say they love their jobs. “The big surprise of the data was just how much these extreme professionals love their work,” said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president and founder of the Center.

Surprise, indeed.

Many doctors, lawyers and candlestick manufacturers may fall into the extreme category based on many of these standards but one thing is for sure:  loving their jobs is not usually part of the extreme lawyer package.  Attrition rates and simple "expressed dissatisfaction"--whether in surveys or on-line-- that have reached astronomical levels attest to that. 

The take-home is that we can not blame the hours alone on lawyer dissatisfaction.  There could be such a thing as an extreme lawyer who loves his/her job.  And there are steps that can be taken to move your extreme lawyers towards that happier (and ultimately more profitable) place.  Are you taking them?

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