I would say that a culture of fear makes the work less good. Because what are the lawyers afraid of? Lack of promotion? Lack of job security? Being yelled at by the boss, or the client? If you have a lawyer who's primarily focused on avoiding that, I think s/he'd do a bad job. I would want a lawyer who isn't too scared to exercise independent judgment, if I needed a lawyer. I appreciate the distinction between "good lawyer" and "positive atmosphere," but I would guess there's a correlation.

Something else we might want to consider is the ability to choose your clients, which people are discussing in the "Is Being a Corporate Lawyer Immoral?" thread. Robinson prides himself on choosing his clients. How important is that? Is there any organization you can really trust to choose your clients for you, and be willing to surrender your autonomy to? Is a boutique law firm more trustworthy than a big one? (Maybe. I don't know.)

-- AnjaliBhat - 26 Feb 2009

Also, who else went to that "Life After Law School" talk a few weeks back? The one where the professor from UVA presented a longitudinal study on the satisfaction of lawyers 20 years after graduating. The study had all the standard problems of getting people to self-report on their own happiness, but otherwise I thought it was well done and well explained. One of the more interesting results was the government lawyers were the most satisfied. Public interest was second and small law firms a close third (with large firms a distant last).

Anyone know any government lawyers who have good things to say about their jobs?

-- AnjaliBhat - 26 Feb 2009