Do You Miss The Law?

I had breakfast with my friend T, who was something of a good-natured nemesis of mine in law school.  I quit law review in disgust; he became the Editor in Chief.  I butted heads with lots of people, things, and concepts in law school, and he was always placid, wise, and accepting while I was impatient and frustrated and overwrought.  We would drink gin and tonics and argue with one another fairly regularly.  Anyway, he's down in a Big City and just left work at Anonymous Law Firm to take a more interesting job at a much smaller firm, and came home for a few days between gigs.

"Do you miss the law?" he asked me. 

No, I said, automatically.  Then I wondered whether it was true.  Well, I said, not very much.  There's a certain kind of thinking that you get to do when you practice law, a certain kind of puzzling through complicated concepts, with precision and rigor, that I do miss.  That's really fun.  And I don't have an outlet for that anymore.  I guess I have a little bit of intellectual hunger now.  I like my life, a whole lot.  But, yes, there's something I really liked about practicing law that I haven't found a substitute for yet. 

I'm reading a book called Flourishing: Positive Psychology and the Life Well-Lived.  The chapter I'm on right now is about something called "vital engagement."  Basically it is a combination of engrossment -- the pleasurable experiential state of becoming absorbed in something that is challenging but not frustrating, that requires your full engagement and activates skills and traits that you're proud of in yourself -- and a sense of purpose or vital meaning or contribution.  You can be engrossed in a game of foosball, but you won't feel that sense of larger social purpose or meaning.  People who regularly are engrossed in something they feel is worthwhile are the happiest people, it seems.

And I do think that law, at its noblest, can offer that to some people.  Certainly the nature of the work can be engrossing, challenging, and absorbing.  And doing it well can be a calling, and can connect you to a sense of greater good.  You need to be able to choose your matters -- not everything lawyers work on will strike a chord with your own sense of purpose and value and meaning.  But there are many paths of law practice that satisfy both of these components of vital engagement. 

I don't miss practicing law, or think about it very often, so my friend's question took me by surprise.  Writing engrosses me, as does coaching, and in both cases I think there can be some value to the world beyond my own absorbtion in the activity.  But I do admit there's a specific kind of thinking that you do in the practice of law that I really enjoy, and that's not part of my life these days. 

Comments

[J]

Related, but slightly different question - do you keep your bar membership current?

[David]

Your head misses the law at times.
Your wallet misses the law at times.
Does your heart miss the law?
Ever?

[william]

Do you recommend the book?

[Carol Anne]

I don't know whether you've seen the movie Good Will Hunting ... Robin Williams' character is a major genius, but he's chosen to teach low-level courses at a community college. Essentially, he's called it quits on the academic rat race. He tells everybody that he's happy at the community college, that he doesn't want anything more.

I don't like the end of the movie. People and events come together to convince the character that he is wasting his time at the community college, and he rejoins the rat race.

I really believe I am happy teaching developmental courses at a community college. Yeah, I may have the intellectual wherewithal to get into major academic scrimmages. But that's not me. I like helping students, especially the ones who have been told all their lives how stupid they are, to discover their potential, that they're not the least bit stupid, that writing isn't about getting the grammar perfect, but it is about telling a story.

Sure, I could finish up my thesis, get my degree, and get onto tenure track at some prestigious institution somewhere. But then I wouldn't be showing the teenage single mom or the recovering drug addict or the too-sudden unprepared widow how to find their voices and go on with life.

There are also lots of hot single guy lawyers out there you would be running into on a daily basis. Do you miss that aspect?!

[a]

If you keep your bar membership current, could you match up with a pro bono provider organization and stay involved on a small scale with legal work?

Have you ever considered teaching/tutoring legal writing?

[Dan]

Bravo Sherry...

Carol Anne's point about the rat race is quite true—the rat race isn't all that it is cracked up to be. I'm glad both of you are out of it.. Even though the legal profession can pay quite well, many of my lawyer friends say that the costs otherwise can be quite high.

There is more to life than money. The most important things in life can't be bought, even if some people still think they can. Do what you truly love, instead of what will make others happy.