Lawyers and Their Discontents: Findings from a Survey of the Chicago Bar

Both journalists and scholars have reported that many lawyers are acutely unhappy with their careers. Evidence from a survey of a large random sample of Chicago lawyers, however, is inconsistent with these reports. About 800 lawyers were personally interviewed in 1994-95. Only 1.6% of the respondents reported that they were "very dissatisfied" with their jobs, while 84% said that they were "satisfied" or "very satisfied." Male and female lawyers did not differ significantly in these overall satisfaction ratings. Although these findings are consistent with research on occupational satisfaction generally, the lack of a gender difference is surprising because the circumstances of women within the legal profession are, on average, markedly less advantageous than those of men. In more particular aspects of job satisfaction, however, women are often significantly more dissatisfied than men. Family circumstances, especially for lawyers who have children, have more impact on women than on men, as both the literature and general knowledge would lead one to expect. African-American respondents were significantly more dissatisfied than whites. Some of this difference may be associated with characteristics of the settings within which the lawyers work, including a large income difference. In multivariate analyses, only income and practice setting were found to be significantly associated with lawyer job satisfaction--neither gender nor race was significant in these analyses.