being a lawyer is hard work

Check out our old friend Superbee, a 2005 graduate of this institution who is now a real, live practicing lawyer. Apparently, being a real, live practicing lawyer is more than a little bit stressful.

It's good that he recognizes that although he's stressed by his job, he is optimistic that he will get better at it. It sounds like he works in a firm that values his contribution, so that's good, although he never really talks about whether he likes his colleagues.

This was a nice paragraph:

And it's that that's really getting to me...because when I don't know what I'm doing, I panic, and I stop breathing, and I get knots in my stomach and in my shoulders, and heartburn, and my jaw tenses up, and I get headaches, and my hands go numb, and lately I've been pretty sure I've been having a heart attack on numerous occasions.

Should lawyering really be this stressful? I'm not picking on Superbee. We've all seen the statistics on high burnout rates and high acloholism rates and low job satisfaction rates among lawyers. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to deal with all the nuances of litigation. I mean there are so many damn things that can trip you up, it's like (in my very limited experience as a clerk in a firm that litigates) you have to spend every minute of every day avoiding potential landmines -- while also coming up with your own landmines to plant in front of the opponent. That's stressful, even if, as Superbee points out, he's on the civil side, so no one is getting killed or sent to prison.

Still, I bet earning a paycheck is better than listening to Professor State & Local Government express his sheer contempt for students day in and day out...