Law: The Toxic Profession (or, You people drive me crazy -- no, really.)

Let's begin the account of my journey into mental melt-down with a discussion of my former profession -- the law. When it became apparent recently that the practice of law was fundamentally ill-suited to my mental health I stepped back to realize that it is ill-suited to the mental health of any normal human being.

As a cathartic measure I sat down not too long ago and wrote an outline of the reasons why practicing law is toxic to those unfortunate souls who bought the hype and leapt eyes-closed into law school. It turned out to be rather lengthy.

I will not bore you with all of the details, but here are a few nuggets that will help you to see what I mean. In 2006 the state Bar Association to which I belong averaged one suicide of an attorney per month. The vast majority of attorneys (over 70% if I recall correctly) would chose a different profession given the chance to start over again.

The billable hour is an evil and demanding slave master that requires you to justify your existence in 6 or 15 minute intervals all day, every day. There is an inherent conflict of financial interest between yourself and your client -- the client wants as much of your talents and skills as possible while demanding that you do it in as little time as possible and you want the inverse. Often the client who needs the most help or attention is the one least capable of paying for it, so the poor and middle class get poor representation regardless of whether their case warrants it (or the attorney can work for free, literally taking food out of the mouth of his family). The rich get gold-plated excessive representation regardless of the severity of their problem. Under the billable hour, if the 'wheels aren't rolling, you aren't making any money', meaning that you are docked time/pay for every trip to the bathroom, printer jam, hour spent learning a new program or day spent in mandatory professional education.

No one is ever happy to speak to their lawyer. Clients only call in times of stress and emotional turmoil. Often they often call repeatedly, demanding that you undo years of poor choices on their part in a few days or weeks time. Clients almost never see the other side of the argument and demand resolution 100% in line with what they believe to be 'fair'. Any result less than a 'fair' result means that you did a poor job and sold them down the river. Every client is not this way, but enough are to make up for the rest in spades.

And, finally, the cherry on top is that you are the butt of all jokes. Lawyers are the modern jews/paddys/wops/polaks/negros who can be impugned publically and in 'jest' without recourse. Everyone knows that by definition you are a greedy, lying, self-serving bastard.

There is more, but I think this gives one a flavor of it all. I lived in this hell for ten years. Finally, I lost it. My genetic pre-dispositions kicked in with fury, stoked into white-hot flames by my profession. So I say to all of the other attorneys I dealt with, the law professors, the judges, and most of all to every needy demanding client who called incessantly demanding immediate relief from your poor choices, YOU people drove me crazy -- no, really.