SIDEBAR SPRING 2021 - 11

MONTGOMERYBAR.ORG

Young Lawyers
Section Update
By Christopher Sperring, Esq., Treasurer, Young Lawyers Section

ook outside your window at the
road, cars and sidewalks. Go to
the grocery store and look at the
products on the shelves. What do you see?
If you say roads, cars, sidewalks, people
and food - you'd be right. But you will
also see the law. The road required a
supply chain of raw materials, asphalt and
companies with employees to lay it. The
process to build a simple road is governed
by statutes and contracts every step of the
way. It's the same for food in the grocery
store - someone had to make the food,
make the packaging, stock the shelves and
ring you out at the checkout line. Each
step of the way, the process just to get
our food to live is governed by the law.
In other words, the law is undoubtedly
important. Without it, there is chaos. The
law gives some measure of expectation and
certainty. It matters because it protects
people and provides recourse when that
protection fails. So it makes sense to think
of our profession as " noble. " That's at least
how many students and young lawyers are
taught to think about this field.
But how noble is it really? Look at
what we do on a daily basis that we aren't
expected to fully appreciate in law school
- we squabble for months over words and
comma placement; we adopt our clients'
personalities and expectations because we
have to " zealously " advocate for them;
we tie up businesses and governments for
years and often get richer at the expense
of someone else. Yet, like knights of
medieval times, we have romanticized our
profession and believe we are protecting
the world from darkness. The reality of
our profession is more akin to hired guns
of the wild west. From time to time we
find a worthy cause to sell our guns, but
for the most part we are hired to settle
scores. This isn't to say that lawyers are
bad people, or that the practice of law
is inherently bad. When the worst in
society rears its head, you will usually see
1

a lawyer (or twenty) stepping forward to
stop it. But it's time we take a serious look
at the image we have created around our
profession as a whole and ask how that
image is affecting young lawyers.
One of the things many law students
and young lawyers talk about is " making
a difference " or finding fulfillment. They
are attracted to this profession because
professors, practicing attorneys and other
mentors tell them that they can make so
much more of a difference as an attorney
than in most other jobs or professions.
The problem is that when they graduate
very, very few will change the world.
They will not win the next Brown v. The
Board of Education or the next Obergefell
v. Hodges. More than likely, they'll be
arguing with one another over the type of
salt to put down on an ice patch someone
fell on or over the value of a business when
the partners fight and " divorce. " What
happens to them when the reality of law
does not live up to expectation?
Students and young lawyers are
taught how pervasive depression and
substance abuse have been in our field.
A 2016 study done by the Hazelden
Betty Ford Foundation and the American
Bar Association1 indicates just how bad
the problem is, especially among young
lawyers. The study found that nearly 32
percent of attorneys 30 and younger were
classified as problem drinkers. Overall,
attorneys with 10 years or less experience
had the highest rate of alcohol abuse
compared to all other age groups in our
profession - an astounding 28.1 percent.
The point of this article is not to
say that calling our profession " noble "
is the cause of so much harm to young
lawyers. But we should take a long, hard
look at the image we create around our
profession and ask whether we should
be telling new lawyers how wonderful
the world of law is when the day to

day reality is adversarial, mundane and
stressful. Entering a profession as stressful
as this with unrealistic expectations of
self-fulfillment and self-worth could
plausibly cause young, talented minds to
flounder in depression when that bubble
inevitably bursts: and that bubble often
bursts quickly for young lawyers who take
on substantial student loans hoping to
make a difference but are later faced with
the Hobson's choice of earning a meager
paycheck to make that difference or giving
up their " dream " in order to repay their
loans. There has to be a better way to " sell "
our profession to aspiring attorneys that is
based in realism, not idealism.
The upside to our profession is that
there is significantly more opportunity
to do good than many other professions.
The pro bono work and volunteerism
among our bar association is a testament
to that. So many people have been saved
from eviction because of the selflessness
of attorneys who have volunteered for our
EPIC program for instance. Last year, the
Leadership Academy helped organize a
clinic to help people re-entering society
after incarceration try and get back on
their feet. But good attorneys tell their
clients that full disclosure is the safest
way to protect themselves. We should be
fully transparent to students and young
lawyers and disclose, early, that while
there is opportunity to do good, the hard
reality of this profession is that you have
to fight battles that often seem trivial.
Students and young lawyers need a better
understanding that the road they travel
in this field is going to be paved with
much more than good intentions and
dreams. That way, they can spend more
time preparing themselves mentally for the
monotony of law and find what makes a
small difference in our community than
dreaming of being the next Thurgood
Marshall and feeling the pangs of failure
when the law is not what they expected.

https://journals.lww.com/journaladdictionmedicine/Fulltext/2016/02000/The_Prevalence_of_Substance_Use_and_Other_Mental.8.aspx

SPRING 2021 11

http://montgomerybar.org https://journals.lww.com/journaladdictionmedicine/Fulltext/2016/02000/The_Prevalence_of_Substance_Use_and_Other_Mental.8.aspx

SIDEBAR SPRING 2021

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