Happy Lawyers in New York and London
posted by Frank Pasquale
It’s a big day for news stories on the life of lawyers. First, the NYT says that many law firms are starting to permit associates more flexible schedules. (There’s a nice summary and commentary on the article by David Lat.) Second, the London Times reports on some young lawyers who are happy because either a) they are in an interesting practice or b) a legal career lets them pursue the avocations they love. (The piece resonates with me because I have a friend from law school (Joanna Norland) who’s both an excellent tax attorney in London and an award-winning playwright. . . . I don’t know how she does it, but having amazing energy and smarts must help.)
The pieces also reminded me of some reflections on Russ Muirhead’s Just Work, which I’ll put below the jump.
Reviewing Muirhead’s philosophical take on modern-day work, Gilbert Meilaender observes:
If one asks too much personal fulfillment from work, one raises the bar so high that no work can satisfy us. And then, positioned to be disappointed, we miss the genuine, if limited, ways in which work can still be meaningful and worthwhile.
Muirhead’s own attempt to give meaning to work without inflating our expectations comes from development of the idea of goods internal to a “practice.” . . . [Muirhead] show[s] how sometimes goods can be embedded within work itself and not simply imposed from the outside . . . . Nevertheless, Muirhead has to grant that there is much work that must be done but which, lacking internal goods, cannot really be understood as a practice. So the tension between the social and the personal in the concept of “fitting work” remains and cannot be fully overcome. A sober realization of this truth is perhaps the best lesson Muirhead has to teach his readers.
So expect those spirited comment threads at Above the Law to continue, no matter how much law firms try to improve their employees’ lot.
January 25, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Posted in: Law Practice
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