A recent study in the Chronicle of Higher Education confirms the stereotypical perception of law school as especially stressful for law students, while suggesting that such stress has particularly negative repercussions for law students both during school and after graduation. The study, conducted by Kennon Sheldon, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Missouri at Columbia and Lawrence Krieger, a law professor at Florida State University, evaluated students at two different law schools over the course of three years and found a decline in students' psychological need satisfaction and well-being over that period. The results of their study confirmed the conclusions of other studies that "law school has a corrosive effect on the well-being, values, and motivation of students." According to these other studies, the emotional distress of law students not only appears to significantly exceed that of medical students, but "at times to approach that of psychiatric populations." Wow!
What accounts for students' distress? Apparently, law schools "problematic institutional culture." Sheldon and Krieger pinpoint several features of law schools that contribute to the psychological distress of law students. These features include overvaluing theoretical scholarship, undervaluing teaching, employing unsound teaching and testing methods, and emphasizing abstract theory over practical training.
According to Sheldon and Krieger, the impact of law school on law students' mental health has important repercussions. Aside from the obvious impact on students' sense of well-being, Sheldon and Krieger note that students' sense of well-being as derived from law school has an impact on their law school GPA, bar passage, and motivation to begin a law school career.
The good news is that Sheldon and Krieger's study suggest that the negative effects of law school can be ameliorated if law schools transform their institutional cultures and focus on enhancing students' sense of autonomy. Thus, their study found that student reports of greater perceived autonomy not only translated into better well-being, but also appeared to lead to higher GPAs, better bar results, and increased motivation to seek that initial job upon graduation.
While Krieger and Sheldon acknowledge the limitations of their study, which only focused on two different law schools over the course of three years, it is nevertheless serious food for thought.
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1. Posted by Peter H. Huang on June 14, 2007 @ 13:27 | Permalink
I'm teaching a seminar entitled Law, Happiness & Subjective Well-Being this fall.
A week of that seminar is entitled Happiness, Law Students & Lawyers.
Jody Kraus & John Monahan also taught a related seminar this past spring at NYU entitled Legal Careers and Life Satisfaction.
Here's a list of items that are related to the rececnt study that Lisa linked to:
1. Susan Daicoff, Lawyer, Know Thyself: The Lawyer Personality and the Stress of Law School, PowerPoint Presentation (Fall 2005):
http://www.fcsl.edu/faculty/daicoff/law.htm
2. John Hagan, Even Lawyers Get the Blues: Gender, Depression, and Job Satisfaction in Legal Practice, 41 L. & Soc. Rev. 51 (2007)
3. Humanizing Law School:
http://www.law.fsu.edu/academic_programs/humanizing_lawschool/humanizing_lawschool.html
4. Lawrence S. Krieger, The Inseparability of Professionalism and Personal Satisfaction, 11 Clinical L. Rev. 425 (2005)
5. Lawrence S. Krieger, What We’re Not Telling Law Students - and Lawyers - That They Really Need to Know: Some Thoughts-in-Action Toward Revitalizing the Profession From Its Roots, 13 J.L. & Health 1 (1998-99)
6. Martin E. P. Seligman et al., Why Lawyers are Unhappy, 23 Cardozo L. Rev. 33 (2001)
7. Kennon M. Sheldon & Lawrence S. Krieger, Does Law School Undermine Law Students? Examining Changes in Goals, Values, and Well-Being, 22 Behavioral Sci. & L. 261 (2004)
Other items of interest:
* Julia K. Boehm & Sonja Lyubomsirsky, Does Happiness Promote Career Success?, J. Career Assessment (forthcoming)
* Keith Cunningham, Note, Father Time: Flexible Work Arrangements and the Law Firm's Failure of the Family, 53 Stan. L. Rev. 967 (2001)
* Kenneth Dau-Schmidt et al., The "Pride of Indiana": An Empirical Study of Law School Experience and Careers of Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington Alumni, 81 Ind. L.J. 1427 (2006)
* Kenneth Dau-Schmidt & Kaushik Mukhopadhaya, The Fruits of Our Labors: An Empirical Study of the Distribution of Income and Job Satisfaction Across the Legal Profession, 49 J. Legal Educ. 342 (1999)
* Ronit Dinovitzer & Bryant Garth, Lawyer Satisfaction in the Process of Structuring Legal Careers, 41 L. & Soc. Rev. 1 (2007)
* Ronit Dinovitzer et al, After the JD: First Results of a National Study of Legal Careers (2004): http://www.abf-sociolegal.org/ajd.pdf
* Cynthia Fuchs Epstein et al., Glass Ceilings and Open Doors: Women's Advancement in the Legal Profession, 64 Fordham L. Rev. 291 (1995)
* Lani Guinier, Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School, and Institutional Change (1997)
* John Hagan & Fiona Kay, Gender in Practice: A Study of Lawyers' Lives (1995)
* John P. Heinz et al., The New Social Structure of the Bar (2005)
* John P. Heinz et al., Lawyers and Their Discontents: Findings from a Survey of the Chicago Bar, 74 Ind. L. J. 735 (1999)
Kathleen E. Hull, The Paradox of the Contented Female Lawyer, 33 Law & Soc’y Rev. 687 (1999)
* Kathleen E. Hull, Cross-Examining the Myth of Lawyers’ Misery, 52 Vand. L. Rev. 971 (1999)
* Humanizing Legal Education Symposium (Oct. 19-20, 2007):
http://washburnlaw.edu/humanizinglegaleducation/
* Lawrence S. Krieger, Hidden Sources of Law School Stress - Avoiding the Mistakes that Create Unhappy and Unprofessional Lawyers (2006):
http://mailer.fsu.edu/~lkrieger/booklet.html
* Lawrence S. Krieger, A Deeper Understanding of Your Career Choices (2006): http://mailer.fsu.edu/~lkrieger/booklet.html
* Lawrence S. Krieger, Psychological Insights: Why Our Students and Graduates Suffer, and What We Might Do About It, 1 J. Ass’n Legal Writing Directors 259 (2002)
* Lawrence S. Krieger, Institutional Denial about the Dark Side of Law School, and Fresh Empirical Guidance for Constructively Breaking the Silence, 52 J. Legal Educ. 112 (2002)
* Alan McKee, Views On Happiness in the Television Series Ally McBeal: The Philosophy of David E Kelley, 5 J. Happiness Stud. 385 (2004)
* Jason M. Satterfield et al., Law School Performance Predicted by Explanatory Style, 15 Behavioral Sci. & L. 95 (1998)
* Patrick J. Schlitz, On Being a Happy, Healthy, and Ethical Member of an Unhappy, Unhealthy, and Unethical Profession, 52 Vand. L. Rev. 871 (1999)
* Amy Wrzesniewski et al., Jobs, Careers, and Callings: People's Relations to Their Work, J. Res. Personality 21 (1997)
* David T. Zaring & William D. Henderson, Young Associates in Trouble, 105 Mich. L. Rev. 1087 (2007)
2. Posted by Jake on June 14, 2007 @ 21:18 | Permalink
"The negative effects of law school." A problem that cries out for study, analysis, debate, and solutions.
Gimme a break.
The people who vacuum the floors and empty the wastebaskets at law schools probably do not appreciate the magnitude of the "negative effects" that law students must endure.
3. Posted by Judge Foot on June 21, 2007 @ 18:14 | Permalink
You have to take this study with a grain of salt. I mean, do the authors even attempt to explain how teaching stuff that is overly theoretical contributes to poor emotional health? It sounds like the study just regurgitated the common list of complaints about law school and alleged that they cause emotional distress.
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