Boston lawyers, like others across the nation who
have expressed dissatisfaction with their legal careers, may
find recommendations from a new Boston Bar Association
report a useful tool for enhancing their professional
fulfillment.
The Report of the Boston Bar Association Task
Force on Professional Fulfillment: Expectations, Reality,
and Recommendations for Change discusses advancement,
mentoring, discrimination and other issues that may stop or
stall a career and affect a lawyer's level of satisfaction.
Released in August, the report emphasizes that dissatisfied
lawyers must examine their own interests, priorities and
expectations. Professional fulfillment is ultimately an
individual responsibility, it states.
"We hope this report will be a beginning, and
present a challenge or create interest where lawyers are
employed so they can discuss these issues," says Joel Reck,
the bar's immediate past president who created the task
force in September 1996.
More than 100 volunteers, including 17 task force
members, participated in focus group sessions and explored
issues facing partners and associates in large firms; solo
and small-firm lawyers; in-house counsel; government
lawyers; academics; senior lawyers; law students; women
lawyers, and lawyers of color.
Among the findings:
Lawyers who control their professional lives seem
to have higher levels of career satisfaction, which
includes solo and small-firm practitioners who often
face greater financial burdens.
Lawyers who had the least amount of satisfaction
were associates in large law firms because they lack
control over their work, had a decreased opportunity
to make partner and experienced deficiencies in
training and mentoring.
Women lawyers and lawyers of color say lack of
full recognition as professionals, institutional bias,
isolation and limited mentoring are impediments.
Women lawyers report difficulties in balancing
demands of the profession and their family.
Although the task force findings were not shocking,
they confirmed many important issues that must be
addressed soon, Reck says. After all, if lawyers are not
satisfied with the profession, the profession will not attract
the brightest and most competent, he adds.
Money did not appear to be the coveted route to
professional fulfillment, the survey revealed. The most
intriguing finding was that solo and small-firm lawyers
were among the happiest, yet made the least amount of
money.
"This is a compelling fact that money does not buy
happiness. It is the control over one's life and the ability to
regulate one's work which are factors that are more
important than money," Reck says.
Suggestions offered
Besides exploring issues, the task force offered
recommendations for addressing the concerns of
dissatisfied lawyers. The recommendations include:
Law firms should address tension between
increasing revenues and the personal lives of their
lawyers.
Law firms should shift revenue production away
from the billable hour.
An honest assessment of an associate's partnership
potential should be provided during annual
evaluations, and opportunities to enhance
management skills should be available for partners
and associates.
The bar should revitalize its mentoring program and
utilize the resources of its senior lawyers.
The bar should also continue to reach out to
minority and women's bar associations to ensure
diversity in bar leadership positions and activities,
and continue to educate and sensitize the legal
community to lawyers of different racial and ethnic
backgrounds.
These recommendations should stimulate serious
dialogue for those who care about the health of the legal
profession, says John Curtin Jr., task force chair and past
president of the American Bar Association. The report and
its recommendations should also help close the gap
between expectations and reality, he adds.
"The law is evolving in a variety of ways that we
never expected. It's not so clear that things will go in a
particular direction as we once thought," Curtin says.
One of those directions involves the longstanding
assumption that partners will remain with a law firm until
retirement or death. That's no longer the case, yet the report
still addresses the special needs of senior lawyers and their
retirement concerns. It also encourages matching senior
lawyers who want to offer their experience with younger
lawyers seeking a mentor.
"If we get the bar to talk about these issues, we will
have accomplished what we had planned," Curtin adds.
The Boston bar report reflects views from other
similar bar association surveys, including the ABA's 1990
survey that found 20 percent fewer lawyers were "very
satisfied" with their job as compared to a 1984 survey. (See
"Career dissatisfaction increases--Survey says lawyers are
stretched to breaking point," Bar Leader, November-December 1990, page 8.)
The ABA survey noted that changes in the
workplace triggered this negative trend, along with a lack
of a warm and personal atmosphere, waning respect from
superiors and time pressures.
A similar Maryland State Bar Association survey in
1989 found one-third of members wished they had not gone
into law. (See "Survey reveals disturbing truth: lawyers
unhappy with profession," Bar Leader, March-April 1989,
page 22.) The survey also suggested that overly adversarial
relationships between lawyers, a negative public image,
discrimination and other concerns added to the pressures
lawyers experienced.
Other studies have been conducted by the New
Jersey State Bar Association in 1990, the Alabama State
Bar in 1992, the ABA's Young Lawyers Division in 1995,
and the State Bar of Michigan in 1996.
