Memoir: Levit
On the 24th of February 2015, Professor Levit, from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, conducted a presentation on her book titled The Happy Lawyer. As the title suggests the book’s central audience is lawyers but its research goes beyond those in the legal profession being the central focus. Levit’s presentation articulated how the idea of happiness, or rather the desire to attain it in all human activities varies in its degrees, but most significantly, in relation to lawyers, is worthy to be understood for its complex scope and worthiness to be considered, if contemplating the pursuit of a legal career. Levit commenced her presentation by mentioning the ‘central’ sample size of “two hundred lawyers” across the United States of America, who she interviewed for her extensive research. Many of the lawyers, when asked what constitutes a happy lawyer, responded and said, “That’s an oxymoron”, and others similarly appealed that it was borderline impossible to live up to such an idea. Subsequently, Levit spoke of three types of happiness: (1) Pleasure (fleeting happiness), (2) State of contentment (long-term happiness) and (3) The sense of having lived life well. Levit asked, expecting the given answer, what the audience in the room would attest to be the most easily or commonly attainable type of happiness and it was unanimously agreed that point one was. Levit also brought up a statistical chart on favoured activities which placed work close to the bottom, at a score of 2.7 out of 5, averaging 6.9 hours a day. The stats showed that sex ranked highest with 4.7 out of 5, averaging 0.2 hours a day. Other stats showed that the mean of job satisfaction stood at 3.0 and lawyers showed that they were just above the average at 3.33. The overall percentage of happiness for “Very Satified” lawyers was 52.4% and Overall Happiness sat at 2.37, while the percentage of very happy lawyers was only 43%. Levit then spoke of “Six Big Factors Most Affecting Happiness at Work”. These factors were outlined and explained by Levit on what to consider when keeping happiness in mind, in your quest to be a lawyer. These points were: (1) Degree of control within a job — how much you feel that you matter. (2) Degree of work-life balance — billable work hours are a problem if you are squeezed for time. This may lead to stress. (3) Alignment of work with your own values — follow your passion. You will be satisfied if you feel like you are serving the social good. (4) Quality of relationships afforded by job — a longitudinal study of happiness, by Harvard sophomores up until their 70s, showed that the most important influence of happiness at work is good relationships. (5) Opportunities for flow experiences. (6) Resilience — understand that things will never be perfect in work or in life for that matter, so always remember to expect changes, adjust and adapt them. Do not fall into the trap of “optimism bias”, as Levit explained. Conclusively, Levit also spoke of how law is one of the highest paid profession but the higher the salary, does not necessarily mean the greater the happiness. Levit stated that the mean salary for a lawyer in 2013 was $113 000. According to Levit’s research the happiest lawyers were the lawyers who compared their work with their values though, as opposed to their income. However, the offset was that these lawyers earned a third of the average income, worked for medium law firms but had an upward look towards the passion and productivity that they received from their job, as opposed to the higher paid lawyers who experienced a downward curve.
