Are
Lawyers Happy?
We all know the story of the two
padi farmers who choose different paths through life. One sticks with a more
or less subsistence lifestyle, idling away his hours sitting beside a fish pond,
while the other dynamically moves into cash crops, and then food processing,
and builds a massive business, until, in his old age, he spends his hours sitting
beside his koi pond, because that after all is what makes him happiest. The
currency of this type of story throughout South East Asia is in no small part
a folk hangover from history – when South East Asians last grew wealthy on trade
and business in the first Age of Commerce (1450 to 1650), they became the target
of ruthless Dutch aggression, seeking to control the spice trade. The rational
response was to retreat upriver, with rulers typically warning their subjects
off cash crops like cloves and pepper lest they suffer the same fate as Ternate
and Ambon.
Thankfully, in South East Asia’s second Age of Commerce (1950 to date
and counting) international law and international institutions have developed
to the extent that we need not fear renewed colonial intrusion (unless we discover
oil, and engage in loose talk about WMD, neither of which seems too likely).
But it remains an open question whether all that striving for material wealth
really brings happiness.
A professor at the London School of Economics, Richard Layard, has
written a great deal about the need for public policy to consider how best to
maximise happiness and not just focus on wealth creation. In many ways, his
policy prescriptions converge with socialism, for envy is a great destroyer
of happiness, and the cause of envy is inequality. As Karl Marx noted: ‘A house
may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small,
it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But if a palace rises beside
the little house, the little house shrinks into a hut.’ For this reason Layard
recommends sharply progressive rates of taxation – so that people work less
and enjoy more free time.
On this point he surely goes too far – people should be trusted to choose
their own mix of work and leisure. Discouraging hard work will damage society
in general. And isn’t hard work itself a source of satisfaction for many? But
on another point, that education should equip people for life and not just for
work, he is much more persuasive. The arts and sports should be valued far more
highly than they currently are in the scales of public policy. Public policy’s
traditional focus on wealth creation has assumed that wealth is a proxy for
happiness, when it clearly is not. Recognition of this would facilitate a much
greater emphasis on the environment, among other public goods that don’t fare
so well on a purely economic calculus.And what of lawyers? Does the
practice of law bring happiness?
There are a number of factors impeding lawyers’ pursuit of happiness.
First, people go to law in extremis – when their marriages or businesses are
falling apart. Litigants’ motives are rarely pure on either side. So a daily
exposure to the type of human conduct that finds its way into court encourages
a cynical attitude toward human nature itself. Second, when we win cases we
do not always derive satisfaction from justice being done – it is no great triumph
to put a man who has run up credit card debts into bankruptcy, nor to jail a
criminal whose family will flounder without him. The laws that are enforced
to these ends are necessary ones, but being the instrument of them is no great
cause of satisfaction, unlike, for example, healing the sick, putting up useful
buildings or acting in plays.
Third, lawyers, like other professionals, are beset by insecurity. Where will
the next client come from? Will the sun set on my field of expertise? These
questions gnaw away even at the most successful professionals.
Yet, notwithstanding these obstacles, the practice of law still
brings immense satisfaction. When clients are in trouble, our legal skills can
help them to solve at least part of their problems. Sometimes, our creativity
can help people with opposed interests to all come out winners. And then there
are those cases where your cross-examination exposes an injustice, or an act
of bullying, and in some small but significant way makes the world a better
place. Honing and developing our skills are as satisfying as improving one’s
golf swing or tennis stroke, and doing so in a social context – with colleagues
or in Law Society workshops – brings with it a healthy professional pride.
Our first biennial lecture, scheduled for 6 July 2007, to be
delivered by an inspiring Canadian
advocate, Irwin Cotler, takes as its theme, the role of lawyers in promoting
justice and combating injustice – a worthy career indeed.
Just after I wrote that positive conclusion I had the pleasure of sitting next
to TPB Menon, at the wedding dinner of Stanley Lai and Candace Ler, a couple
to whom the law has already brought great happiness. After more than 40 years
in the law, Menon told me he would not change a thing; the study and practice
of law has gone together with a good and honourable life. Just so, I thought,
just so.
Philip
Jeyaretnam, SC
President
The
Law Society of Singapore