How lawyers lose their way : a profession fails its creative minds /

Stefancic and Delgado (law, Pittsburgh) reach the provocative conclusion that lawyers are unhappy with their work because of the formalistic method of legal education, a method that has misshaped the profession and made for very many unhappy and unfulfilled lawyers. The authors creatively use the intertwined lives of the poet Ezra Pound and the lawyer/statesman/poet Archibald MacLeish to illustrate their point. In addition to formalistic legal education that is rote and subjugates any notions of creativity, the profession itself has become burdened by the billable hours trap; repetitious, routine work; impersonal offices and poor collegial relations; lack of stimulation; rigid hierarchy; competitiveness; and so on. Taken together, these lead to high levels of stress, divorce, substance abuse, and depression among lawyers with too little time for much of anything not targeted to moving up the professional ladder. For the authors, "MacLeish's life (disillusion with the legal profession and a desire to be creative and thoughtful) is a metaphor for what is starting to go wrong with the world of work." Although the topic would seem specialized and esoteric, the authors write for a general audience. Extensive endnotes. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. All levels. M. W. Bowers University of Nevada, Las Vegas