Stop the Insanity?

Is the legal profession in decline?  Are the pressures for more billable hours, higher profits-per-partner, and ever-more-massive global firms leaving lawyers demoralized and unfulfilled?  Arnie Herz thinks so, and has just started "legal sanity," to provide a forum for discussing these issues:

By all reports the American legal profession is in trouble, plagued by elevated rates of substance abuse and depression, rising incivility and decaying courtroom environments, client dissatisfaction, and discernible attrition as more and more burnt out lawyers leave the career they idolized - and idealized - when they started law school.

Relatively unnoticed is the work of many practitioners and educators who, although aligned with different movements and organizations, believe it’s still possible to revitalize the law as a noble calling through which lawyers can gain a sense of fulfillment without sacrificing savvy client representation or financial gain.

legal sanity’s purpose is to raise public consciousness and facilitate discussion about our distressed legal profession and the ground-breaking work that’s being done to move it in a saner direction.

Certainly the pressures of mega-firm life are not for everyone; my own surmise is that a fair proportion of those professionals who are disappointed with where they find themselves began their careers in a smaller, more collegial firm (for example, my alma mater, the late Breed, Abbott & Morgan) that evolved into a juggernaut (Winston & Strawn).  In other words, they may feel they did not get what they bargained for.