Stress at work Reena SenGupta
Lawyers have it all: glamour, prestige, money. They have the chance, in private practice, to be owner-managers of their businesses. They do intellectual, well-respected jobs in the commercial and civil worlds. So, why are lawyers so unhappy?
A partner at a top UK or US firm earns on average more than ￡500,000 ($940,000). Newly qualified solicitors can earn ￡50,000 in their early 20s. Yet cumulative research over the past 10 years indicates that lawyers are the professionals most likely to suffer from stress, depression and alcohol abuse.
Alcohol-related deaths in the UK legal profession are double the national average. About 30 per cent of male lawyers and 20 per cent of female lawyers drink to excess, according to LawCare, an organisation set up to help lawyers overcome stress and substance abuse.
In the US, figures from the American Bar Association put alcohol abuse at 15 to 18 per cent of all lawyers compared with 10 per cent of the general population. In 1988, the ABA created the Commission on Impaired Attorneys. Now every state has formal assistance programmes to help lawyers deal with substance abuse.
But the problem appears to be worsening on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hilary Tilby, chief executive of LawCare, says: “We started off as a charity helping people with alcohol-related problems. Now 75 per cent of our calls relate to stress and depression.” Lawyers who are just starting out call about stress. By the time they have put in 20 years' service, they are calling about alcoholism. According to one study in the US, the incidence of depression for lawyers is four times higher than for all employed people.
White Water Strategies, a London-based consultancy specialising in executive coaching, says that lawyers are so unhappy because of the personality of the lawyers themselves, the structure of the legal profession and the way in which law firms function.
The “legal personality” is now an accepted term in legal circles and refers to the archetype a highly driven, detail-conscious perfectionist. Most important, lawyers tend to be pessimists, a fact that Fran?ois Moscovici, director at White Water Strategies, says keeps them in a vicious circle of “permanence and pervasiveness” lawyers blame themselves for any predicament. This view is echoed byMs Tilby at LawCare: “Lawyers display facets of the obsessive personality. They have to do a perfect job and if that means giving110 per cent they do so whatever the price.”
Most lawyers charge clients on the basis of billable hours, and annual targets can be harsh: 1,600 hours on average for UK associates and 2,400 for those in the US. For many, this focus on achieving a set number of chargeable hours is the single biggest cause of stress. The tyranny of the timesheet was one reason Richard Pell-Ilderton, formerly a partner at London law firm Wilde Sapte, changed career. He left in 1995 to join Société Générale as an investment banker and is now a director of a hedge fund company. “Lawyers, even senior ones, are ruled by their timesheets. Being liberated from the timesheet was one of the main reasons I left the law. Although I worked long hours as an investment banker, they were not as long as those I worked as a lawyer.”
The way that law firms are structured gives rise in itself to stressful situations, especially when firms increase in size. For example, Clifford Chance, the largest global law firm, has a turnover of ￡950m and about 3,000 lawyers working in 29 offices in 19 countries. Like most top law firms, it has two identities one as a professional services firm and the other as a global business.
Lawyers, especially partners, are expected to be both competent lawyers and international business people. Patrick Raggett, formerly a partner at UK law firm Pinsent, says: “The problem is that law firm partners want the security of being in the infrastructure of a big firm but they also want to act as sole traders.”
They tend not to like being managed, or managing in any formal sense. Ask any group of lawyers why they entered the field and they will say it was to practise law, not to be marketers or finance directors. But with billing targets sometimes as high as ￡2m a year, partners have little choice but to learn new skills.
As the business elements take over, many lawyers experience less job satisfaction through a loss of control both at the partner and associate levels. Stephen Rodney, director at legal headhunters Fox Rodney, has noticed that partners' control over their careers has lessened. “We now have partners asking us what is going on in their own firms.”
At the associate level the strain can be more marked. Few law firms give much direct client responsibility to senior associates. Jeremy Tobias-Tarsh, formerly a corporate lawyer at Clifford Chance and US firm Paul Hastings, says the result is that “the work ends up being car maintenance for very intellectual people”.
The environment is also very competitive and often lacking in feedback. “You are only as good as your last deal,” is the common refrain of many law firm partners. Mr Tobias-Tarsh says: “Lawyers are terrified of making a mistake especially in a business where there is unlimited liability. One serious error could blow apart a practice.”
It is also an environment in which women make up only 23 per cent of partners of all UK law firms, although they comprise 60 per cent of all trainees. The “win/lose” environment, says Mr Moscovici, is linked to poor health and satisfaction.
Stuart Popham, senior partner at Clifford Chance, recognises the pressures that working in today's law firms bring. He says the firm is trying to get across to its people that what they do individually does make a difference.
But in general there remains the underlying unhappiness that can arise from disappointed expectations. Many law students go into law to do worthwhile, interesting jobs that fail to materialise as they hoped.
A recent survey of qualified assistant solicitors by Legal Business magazine showed two-thirds were primarily motivated by money and achieving partnership. Neither idealism nor passion was mentioned.
律师也郁闷
魅力、威望与金钱，律师一样不缺。通过私人执业，他们有机会成为管理自己业务的所有人。他们在商界和社会中从事颇受尊敬的脑力工作。那么，律师为什么会充满烦恼呢？
在英国或美国的顶级律师事务所，一名合伙人的平均收入超过50万英镑(94万美元)。刚取得律师资格者在20岁出头就能赚到5万英镑。然而，过去10年的多项研究表明，律师是最可能受到压力、抑郁和酗酒困扰的专业人员。
在英国法律界，与酗酒有关的死亡人数是全国平均值的两倍。据“律师及大律师互助会”(LawCare)统计，约有30%的男性律师和20%的女性律师饮酒过量。该互助会是一个帮助律师克服压力和物质滥用的组织。
在美国，全美律师协会(American Bar Association)的数据显示，酗酒律师占总数的15%至18%，而总人口的酗酒比率则为10%。1988年，全美律师协会设立了“能力受损律师委员会”(Commission on Impaired Attorneys)。现在，每个州都有正式的援助项目，帮助律师解决物质滥用的问题。
不过，在大西洋两岸，问题似乎都在不断恶化。
酗酒、压力和抑郁
律师及大律师互助会首席执行官希拉里?蒂尔比(Hilary Tilby)说：“创立之初，我们是一家帮助有酗酒问题的人士的慈善组织。现在，我们接听电话的75%与压力和抑郁有关。”刚刚起步的律师来电诉说工作压力。当他们从业20年后，谈的则是酗酒问题。据美国的一项研究，律师出现抑郁的比率高于总就业人群4倍。
总部位于伦敦、专门从事主管人员培训的咨询公司White Water Strategies说，律师充满烦恼的根源在于其自身性格、法律职业的结构以及律师事务所的运营方式。
“法律人性格”
“法律人性格”一词现已为法律界普遍接受，指的是紧迫感极强又关注细节的完美主义者。最重要的是，律师往往是悲观主义者。White Water Strategies的主任弗朗索瓦?莫斯克维奇(Fran?ois Moscovici)指出，正是这一点使律师处于一个“持久且普遍”的恶性循环，他们将任何困境的出现归罪于自己。律师及大律师互助会的蒂尔比女士也持类似看法，她说：“律师有一些强迫症性格的表现。他们不得不尽善尽美地完成工作，如果这意味着110%的付出，他们也会不计代价地去做。”
职业结构
大多数律师按小时向客户收费，而年度指标可能很苛刻：英国的聘任律师平均为1600小时，美国为2400小时。对许多人来说，集中精力达到某个数量的计费小时数，是造成压力的最重要原因。原为伦敦丹敦浩国际律师事务所(Wilde Sapte)合伙人的理查德?佩尔-艾德敦(Richard Pell-Ilderton)换了一份工作，原因之一就是难以忍受工作量指标的压力。1995年离职后，他成为巴黎兴业银行(Société Générale)的投资银行家，现为一家对冲基金公司的董事。“律师，即便是高级律师，都要受工作量指标的支配。从工作量指标的压力下脱身，是我离开法律界的一个主要原因。虽然作为投资银行家也要工作很长时间，但至少不像做律师那么长。”
事务所运营方式
律师事务所的结构本身就造成了紧张的环境，特别是在其扩大时。例如，全球最大的律师事务所“高伟绅律师事务所(”Clifford Chance)的营业额为9.5亿英镑，在19个国家的29个办事处拥有大约3000名律师。与大多数顶级律师事务所一样，它有着双重身份，既是提供专业服务的事务所，又是一家全球性的企业。
事务所希望律师，特别是合伙人，既是能干的律师又是国际商务人才。原为英国Pinsent律师事务所合伙人的帕特里克?瑞吉特(Patrick Raggett)说：“问题在于，合伙人一方面希望获得大型事务所这棵大树所带来的安全性，另一方面又希望成为单干的生意人。”
他们不太愿意接受管理，或进行任何真正意义上的管理。在被问及入行的原因时，任何一类律师都会说，是为了从事法律工作，而非成为销售经理或财务主管。但是，由于一年营收目标有时高达200万英镑，合伙人除了学习新技能外，几乎别无选择。
当商业因素压倒一切时，由于在合伙人和聘任律师层面上都失去了控制，许多律师对工作的满意度降低了。法律猎头公司Fox Rodney董事斯蒂芬?罗德尼(Stephen Rodney)注意到，合伙人对其事业的控制减弱了。“现在合伙人会问我们，他们自己的公司到底怎么了。”
在聘任律师这一层，压力会更加明显。律师事务所很少赋予高级聘任律师直接客户责任。曾在高伟绅和美国普衡律师事务所(Paul Hastings)担任公司律师的杰里米?托比亚斯-塔什(Jeremy Tobias-Tarsh)说，由此一来，“最后就变得像是高级知识分子做汽车保养工作一样。”
表现如何只以最近一个案子为准
氛围也极具竞争性，而且往往缺乏反馈。“你的表现如何只以最近一个案子为准”，这是许多律师事务所合伙人的套话。托比亚斯-塔什先生说：“律师唯恐犯错，特别是有些事务所需承担的责任无限。一个严重的错误就可以毁掉一家事务所。”
在这个氛围，女性仅占全英所有律师事务所合伙人的23%，尽管她们占全部受训人员的60%。莫斯克维奇先生说，这种“非赢即输”的氛围导致了身体健康状况和工作满意度的下降。
高伟绅的高级合伙人斯图亚特?波普汉姆(Stuart Popham)承认，在如今的律师事务所工作充满压力。他说，律师事务所正试图向雇员表明，他们每个人所做的贡献很重要。
但总的来说，希望落空所引发的根本烦恼仍然存在。许多法律专业学生进入法律界是要从事有意义、有趣味的工作，而这些工作却未能如其所愿。
《法律业务》(Legal Business)杂志对助理律师进行的一项最新调查显示，三分之二的被调查者主要是受金钱和获得合伙人地位的动机驱使。没有人认同理想主义和热情等因素。
