The Making of Docile Lawyers

Originally published December 26, 2007 - republished in Remembrance of Saint Thomas Moore.

That lawyers are among the most miserable of men – and women – is well known

While the Ghost of Christmas past is still stored in our short-term memories, we are reminded that Blue Christmas is all too familiar to a number of people, but perhaps no more so than lawyers.


Harvard-trained, UCLA Law professor Sharon Dolovich, while a student at Harvard Law School wrote a piece titled "Making Docile Lawyers: An Essay on the Pacification of Law Students.", The piece is a "social psychology analysis of what happens to students at HLS to transform them from enthusiastic, engaged first year law students into fatalistic and pacified upper year students."

Maura A. Flood at Gonzaga Law School comments on Dolovich’s piece “I am certain that the effects she describes are felt by nearly every law student in nearly every law” and asks a rhetorical question: “Do law professors set out to create docile and demoralized lawyers? Of course not, but somehow it happens anyway…Could it have something to do with the fact that "justice" is a word that seldom makes its way into the first-year curriculum? I think it might. So many of the articles on first-year malaise, or law student angst, mention that students end up feeling set adrift from their values and beliefs, or made to feel that those values and beliefs are irrelevant”. A brief look at any university catalog clearly indicates that something similar happens in any field of study – that is, the first couple of years are replete with general education subjects that lead some students to ask something along the lines of “….why do I have to study art, my major is Engineering..!”, for instance.

“That lawyers are among the most miserable of men – and women – is well known”, writes WSJ columnist Sue Shellenbarger in the December 13, 2007 issue of the Wall Street Journal, citing widely quoted statistics from leading researcher on the subject, University of Ariozan’s Connie Beck: “Some 19% of lawyers suffer depression at any given time, compared with 6.7% of the population as a whole”, while Ronda Muir, Esq., a senior consultant with Robin Rolfe Resources and with law-practice experience in the US and Europe and an advanced study in psychology and conflict resolution has the following words of wisdom:



In general, lawyers score below the national average in emotional intelligence

Consider reverse psychology “You probably won’t….” might be a challenge the lawyer takes, Ms. Muir suggests

Lawyers are highly sensitive to criticism and likely to be defensive.

Do not play devil’s advocate, unless you can do so tactfully

Avoid emotional plays

Shellenbarger’s piece describes how “chronic anxiety over his work as an attorney snet Dan Lukasik skidding into a clinical depression”. Since then, and against friend’s and colleagues advice, Lukasik has come out of the closet by posting Lawyers With Depression, a website to help depressed lawyers. In his own words, “When I searched on-line for materials to read that would support me in my attempt to cope with depression and my law practice, what I found was sometimes helpful, but in the end, not sufficient” The site contains a number of bird of a feather articles and a number of tools to battle depression, including links to test for depression: Questionnaire, Treatment


Now that the closet is wide open, let us all have a prosperous 2008!