What makes lawyers happy?

What makes lawyers happy?

It's not so much prestige and money, the big house and the six-figure salary, as it is having meaningful, personally engaging work.

That's why public service lawyers are generally happier and more satisfied than highly paid lawyers in large law firms. And judges--who have the best of both worlds--are the happiest lawyers of all.

As billable hours go up, income goes up, and happiness goes down.

The more vacation days a lawyer takes --relaxation that truly tunes out work--the happier they will be. And well-being is higher for married lawyers with children.

So says the latest study conducted by Larry Krieger, a clinical professor at Florida State University College of Law, and Kennon M. Sheldon, a professor at the Department of Psychological Science at the University of Missouri.

Venturing beyond anecdotes, they set out to answer the question--What makes lawyers happy?--by crunching data gathered from 6,200 diverse lawyers in four states.

They established a hierarchy of five tiers of factors for lawyer well-being, including choices in law school, legal career, and personal life, and psychological needs and motivations established by Self-Determination Theory, described as "a comprehensive theory of human motivation that has been prominent in the psychological literature for more than 40 years. Tenets of SDT include that all human beings have basic psychological needs: to feel competent/effective, autonomous/authentic, and related/connected with others."

Krieger said he's wanted to do the study for a decade, to fill a void of "no theory-driven empirical study investigating the experiences, attitudes, and motivations of practicing lawyers, or how those factors relate to attorney emotional health or well-being."

With all of his primary hypotheses proven, what was his biggest surprise?

"Honestly, how robustly they were proven," Krieger answered.

"I expected the results, but was shocked by the drastic difference between the external 'American dream' factors (money, school rank, grades, law review, prestige job) and the things that really mattered for well-being: integrity, relationships, felt competence, internally motivated work, and a supportive supervisor. The differences were not just clear; they were huge."

While law school grades, honors, and potential career income have little or no bearing on lawyer well-being, Krieger said his findings are not just about law schools and lawyers.

"This is the 'American dream' we...