As to the partner who is so committed to work, I can understand his passion. When I worked in the firm, I always got excited when there were interesting issues to debate, and experienced enormous satisfaction when fishing difficult assignments. What I don’t understand is his confidence about the positive influence upon his son. After leaving home, I have always regretted that I spent too much time working in the firm instead of accompanying my parents and friends. The author made a good point about big law firms: their culture seeps in despite of your best intention. Sometimes associates just get confused about why they have to work so hard. It can be due to their passion for legal practice, their desire to outshine other associates, the inescapable insecure feeling, and also the habit of working long hours dating back to law school.

-- MeiqiangCui - 4 June 2012

Thank you for posting this article, Joseph. I agree with you that these are problems that we are aware of but have difficulty internalizing (or unwillingness to internalize).

One passage that stood out to me was: "Law students and young lawyers have to stop seeing workaholism as "a badge of honor." 285 They have to stop talking with admiration about lawyers who bill 2500 hours per year. Attorneys whose lives are consumed with work--who devote endless hours to making themselves and their clients wealthy, at the expense of just about everything else in their lives--are not heroes. And that is true whether the lawyers are workaholic because they truly enjoy their work or because they crave wealth or because they are terribly insecure. At best, these attorneys are people with questionable priorities. At worst, they are immoral. There are certainly better lawyers after which to pattern your professional life."

This reminded me of the following excerpt from a Vault Guide interview with a law firm partner:

"What advice would you give future lawyers worried about balancing work and outside commitments?

Forget about this notion of balance. Throw yourself into your professional career with all of your heart, mind, and soul. I have people who tell me, “I don’t want to live like you live. I want a life!” And I think to myself, what is a life? I’ve got the most interesting life anybody could have. Sometimes I even ask them what they want to do, and they say, “I want to go take a walk in the woods.” And I tell them, “Who the hell wants to go walk in the woods?” I can’t imagine I would ever knowingly choose to go walk in the woods when I’ve got so many interesting things to do in the office.

That doesn't mean I didn’t realize early on that it was important to attend my children’s swimming meets and school plays and their birthday parties. But hopefully the lesson I taught my kids was not that I loved to go camping with them on the week- ends, but that I was totally engaged with what I did with my life. I never went camping with my father; I don’t even remember ever going to a baseball game with my father. But my father was totally, completely engaged in his professional life, and that image was very much ingrained." Vault Guide Q&A with Law Firm Leaders.

My initial reaction when I first read this interview was, "Is this a joke?" But I did catch myself for a moment considering this absolute dedication to work as an admirable approach to life. When I read it again, I felt really bad for the guy. Maybe he actually believes what he's saying and maybe he is happy, but I hope that I never have to resort to such desperate justification for my life choices.

I agree with Lizzie's comment that "rather than helping ease our insecurities as aspiring lawyers...law school heightens them to a level that makes us doubt our talents." I think that the proliferation of incomprehensible transcendental nonsense that we're expected to read and (pretend to) understand every day, combined with the constant lack of constructive feedback and lack of collaboration (as Skylar highlighted), leaves many of us feeling lost and defeated on a regular basis.

-- MichelleLuo - 11 Feb 2012

Moving on, this was also another great thought: “If you let your law firm or clients define success for you, they will define it in a way that is in their interest, not yours. It is important for them that your primary motivation be making money and that, no matter how much money you make, your primary motivation continue to be making money. If you end up as an unhappy or unethical attorney, money will most likely be at the root of your problem.” I think the only way to fight against this pressure of others defining of success is again to know who we are before go too deep into one career path. I won’t harp on the money issue so much because I’m still trying to reconcile that with my own personal and career goals. Besides, I don’t have a desire to judge people based on decisions influenced by money because I respect and can identify with people who are in the delicate situation of having to or feeling pressured to provide for their family.

-- LizzieGomez - 10 Feb 2012

-- JosephItkis - 10 Feb 2012