Product Description

Why do lawyers have the highest suicide rate and the highest alcoholism rate of all professionals? What's happened to truth, justice and the American way? Written by an attorney and psychotherapist who counsels lawyers, this book explains what's gone wrong, why, and what can be done about it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1905393 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

From Booklist
The professional habits of lawyers can isolate them, driving them to drink or even to suicide. An ex-lawyer turned psychologist, Sells knows the mentality that brings distressed barristers into his office and writes about it in an almost spiritual way without producing anything like the ethereal, God-loves-me idiocy that afflicts pop-psych titles. No case narratives, no self-inventories, not even much psychiatric analysis: Sells omits these in favor of pertinent generalizations about the law, and the adversarial and hierarchical character of its practice, that can sap a lawyer's soul. Diction is a classic example. Admonished to craft drum-tight language, Sells says that lawyers reduce words to a "pseudo-mathematics" that is the death of imagination. On he goes with the field's other traits (objectivity, proceduralitis) that spill into nonwork life, delivering experienced insight for the new lawyer. Fine for the career shelf and as a supplement for law courses. Gilbert Taylor

Review
The loss of meaning in society is affecting not only laws and the attitudes towards lawyers, but business, politics, and everyday lives. Here Sells explains what's gone wrong and why, offering ideas for bringing balance back into daily lives, society, and the law. An intriguing approach to understanding more than just legal documents. -- Midwest Book Review

Customer Reviews

Is Sanity Possible in a Profession Gone Insane?
A must read for lawyers and law students. Wow! I first read Benjamin Sell's extraordinarily crafted "Soul of the Law" -- part anthropological study, part social commentary, part psychological self-help book -- as a young lawyer fresh out of a judicial clerkship, while searching for a firm job. It blew me away! What a grim portrait of the legal profession; of lawyers; of our legal system. Grim...Yes. But very telling! Had I read this book prior to enrolling in law school, I probably would never have went. With three years of my life invested, and a hundred-or-so grand in education loans to pay back, I deduced that I had no choice but to land that firm job. But the lawyer of today does not have to let his career consume him, the book ultimately teaches us. Purpose and fullfilment are, believe it or not, out there...maybe. "Soul of the Law" conjures the queries: Is it the dysfunctional profession that breeds dysfunctional lawyers, or did the egg come before the chicken? How do these undeniable professional dysfunctions impact the American justice system? Is the profession on a slippery slope to hell, or is there hope? Can a lawyer today lead a quiet, normal, happy life in spite of the profession's dysfunctions? If you're a lawyer, real "Soul of the Law". You'll relate! If you're a law student or a candidate for law school, you'll run for cover!

Best insight into the law and being a lawyer
This book is a must read for anyone who ever contemplates the law or being a lawyer. Especially for anyone thinking about attending law school! Sells, along with Thomas Moore, relates the imaginative language of Archetypal Psychology to the mainstream in this insightful discourse.

It identifies a long needed soulful review of the Law's soul
A timely contribution to the Law. Without soul we are nothing. The pain and loss many lawyers are confronting and the open hostility in the law by consumers has to change. This work is a start of a journey to renew the law's soul. Best Practice may be the bridge between the lawyer and the consumer thereby helping to heal the soul of the law? I would welcome comment on this point.