Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Lawyers...

Brian Privett, J.D.

Stotts Law Group

Mama's don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

Don't let 'em pick guitars and drive them old trucks.

Let 'em be doctors and lawyers and such.                   

~ Waylon Jennings

Want to go to law school?  Don't do it. If you can do anything else in the whole world, do that thing.  Be happy.

There was a time when lawyers were among the elite of the professional class in any town or city.  They were civic leaders, the upper middle class, or even upper class if successful enough, movers and shakers, how civilization ran.  That quote from Shakespeare "The first thing we do is, let's kill all the lawyers" was intended as instructional on  how to create chaos and rule people ignorant of their rights.  Things have changed though.  Now I don't know if lawyers even matter enough to need killing.

Yes, there is nobility in the practice of law.  Lawyers are the protectors of freedom and justice, where high ideals always win and a concern on ethics above all else place the profession at a higher calling.  That's true, believe it or not.  Lawyers believe that and actually strive to be ethical despite 5,000 years of lawyer jokes.

We lawyers are indoctrinated with the idea that we are warriors for order in an otherwise chaotic world.  It is a noble profession, a calling.

The practice of law, however, is not nice.  It can be unhealthy, stressful, and nowhere near as lucrative as people think.  In fact, whenever I am asked by someone seeking law school, I tell them the same thing.  Don't do it.  Don't even think about it.

First, lawyers have not maintained the status or salary that people always assumed.  Everyone thinks the hardest decision a law school graduate has is the color of Benz, or to go Italian or English cut on the suit. That's only in the movies.

In Kentucky, the median wage for lawyers is respectable, about $85,000 a year, but compare that to any doctor, even general practice, at over $200k a year, or dentists at $164K, and you can see the status lawyers have lost over time.  Nurse practitioners in Kentucky have a median wage of about $105k.  Chiropractors are at $75k, nurses at $78K, median wage are almost the same as lawyers, and dental hygienists are at $75k.

These are Kentucky numbers, not national.  If wage is an indication of status then lawyers have 20% less status than nurse practitioners, but just above nurses and chiropractors.  Doesn't make for a very good country song.

Of course, the median is for lawyers with experience.  New lawyers are not worth much out in the world, like just-weaned puppies, and need some experience before they're capable of much of anything short of running papers to the Courthouse.  I couldn't find reliable data for wages for starting attorneys in Kentucky, but the Kentucky public defenders (Department of Public Advocacy) start out at $52k a year, and that's considered half-way decent in this state.

Oh, but your kid will be sharp and get one of those big firm jobs that start at six figures, right?  In my law school class of 140 at the University of Louisville, the top 5 students got big firm offers.  Not top 5%, the top 5.  There are as many members of Pearl Jam as went to work for big firms from my class, or the size of an on-court basketball team, for the entire school, in jobs in the entire state.  UK big firm numbers were probably a bit higher because of status and a larger class size, but I bet that number could all fit legally in a football game. Don't count on high paying big law firms unless you go to an Ivy League school.  You go to an instate school, you'll be down with the rest of us and the chiropractors.

Plus, associates at big law firms, I have heard, don't so much as live for a few years as they do become part of the furniture in the office.  Your six-figure starting salary will be earned by 60-80 hours a week in a pressure-filled office chasing a huge number of billable hours.  I have a friend who is working at a big firm right now and I don't know if he still knows about the existence of weekends.  I saw him out one evening looking dazed and tired.  I don't think his skin is capable of experiencing sunlight anymore.

But wait - once it you get in practice with experience it gets better right?  Nope.  Not even in a small office or especially in a solo practice. 

Being a lawyer is stressful - to all areas of your life and in any way you can be stressed.  A 2016 nationwide study of approximately 13,000 lawyers indicated that 28% experienced depression, 19% reported anxiety, 21% had alcohol use problems, and 11% had problems with drug use.

A 2023 study found that between 10-12% of attorneys have suicidal ideations versus 4.8% of the general US population.

So if we're all stressed, lonely, and overcommitted, why do it?

Well, the law school professors that used to tell us we would make a difference, were kind of right, I hate to admit.  Not a difference every day, or even most days, but enough so that when you sit back and reflect, you wonder if maybe it's all right.

One thing, I can honestly say I've never been bored.  Every day has brought some kind of new adventure, threat, win, or loss.  I've been shamed and celebrated, been a rich man and a pauper, the hero and the villain.

And boy do lawyers have stories.

I started out of law school as a public defender in Laurel County.  My first real day on the job - when they handed me a docket and pointed me to the courthouse with a criminal law Green Book - I sort of got locked in the holding cell with the female inmates, on accident, of course.  I went in to give a client an offer and no one told me the door locked behind you.  The ladies were banging on the door and trying to help me break out - which even as a newbie I knew to tell them to avoid.  Luckily, there was another public defender on shift who saw me peeking and waving out the little square window, did a double take, then brought a deputy back with keys, laughing their asses off.  He said, "I looked at that window and thought, 'that looks like Brian, or, the ugliest woman in Laurel County.'"

One time I represented a defendant charged with DUI who one-upped George Jones.  He was passed out drunk on an inoperable riding mower being pulled by a slightly less drunk driver of an operable one.  And they wouldn't pull over for the police.  Case was dismissed though - his mower didn't have a motor.

Sometimes, it's pretty scary.

One time I was working past 10 pm (that happened a lot), and the estranged husband of my client pulled up in front of my office and just sat in his truck, letting it idle, for a couple of hours, two days after getting a domestic violence order against him and losing visitation of his kids. I kept a gun at the office after that.

People cried in my office.  They yelled and cussed at me and my secretaries and staff. People were stressed and called me 24/7 (TIP - never give your cell number out).

But sometimes, you help.

I had a man come in my office once with his wife.  He was just diagnosed with terminal cancer and wanted to make his will.  We sat through everything, them crying, and me barely holding it back.  Then I helped his widow just a few months later to probate the will and dispense with administration because we were able to take care of everything ahead of time.

Once I had a guy that hunted me down at work just to shake my hand.  He told me that I was the only person that ever gave him a chance and now he's 5 years sober and has had a job every day since I let him out on probation.

There's the woman who runs a recovery house and teaches classes for people desperate for freedom from drugs who I helped get into drug court years ago as a prosecutor.

Stressed, lonely, and overcommitted?  Absolutely.  A bunch.  But make a difference sometimes?  Absolutely.  Like they used to tell us in law school - you want to make a difference, be a lawyer. You want to make money, go to medical school.

Nope, I've never been bored.  But then, I have guitars and an old pick-up truck.  Thanks for the tip, Waylon. 

 Brian Privett is a lawyer, Of Counsel with Stotts Law Group in Georgetown, Ky. He also never learned to rope and ride.