Happy Holidays!

The team at Past The Bar® wishes you wonderful holidays and a great New Year! We are pleased with the reception Past The Bar® has gotten, and we look forward to bringing you great things in 2008.

Holiday times, although wonderful and joyous for many, are as you know, depressive for many others.

The Wall Street Journal published a column last week dealing with the serious topic of Attorney Depression. This story echoed other reports that chronicle the high rate of attorney depression, suicide, and higher than normal rates of alcohol and drug dependencies. You can read the article here.

The article relates: “That lawyers are among the most miserable of men -- and women -- is well-known. Some 19% of lawyers suffer depression at any given time, compared with 6.7% of the population as a whole...” The assertion is made that one in five lawyers is a problem drinker, which is twice the national rate.

They article goes on to state, “Finally, some legal educators are beginning to see poor career choices as a root cause of work-life distress. Two-thirds of 1,500 Oregon attorneys surveyed by the Oregon Attorney Assistance Program said they'd had no exposure before law school to the day-to-day life of a lawyer; if allowed to start over, 30% said they'd choose a different field.”

Not being in control, the feeling of being stuck, expectations being out of whack with reality, the boring repetitive work and paper pushing, the fighting, the billable hours, the competition, the stress, the lack of collegiality, the game playing, the lying, the poor public image, the ignoring of one’s health and one’s family, the law school debt, the never satisfying quest for status, image, money and power – why would any of this make someone happy?

You might have been one of the unhappy attorneys that opted out of big law private practice and tried to find a better way.

Your students will come out of school and go down different paths. Not all paths will lead to happiness. Part of your job is to help them explore their options and what might make them happy and successful.

Past The Bar® can help you help your students and alumni find success, satisfaction and prosper within the business and industry of law.

How do we help? By preparing your students and alumni for the real-world practice of law and the critical realities they will face after graduation, demonstrating how the real world works, better aligning their expectations with reality, and giving them the tools and skills they will need to make better and more carefully designed choices and to create, control and shape their own destinies.

Past The Bar® is a bridge to the legal world, giving your students and alumni essential practical skills, tools, knowledge, guidance, mentoring and professional development necessary for them to survive and prosper along their path of transition from student to successful and satisfied practicing attorney.

New in Past The Bar® this month:

• Words of Wisdom from Hiring Partner, David S. Haase from White and Williams LLP to law students and young lawyers regarding the attributes of a good lawyer

• An interview with Haila Hudson, President of Milestones Engineering, a minority, woman-owned company, on how her company chooses attorneys for representation

• An article on Properly Utilizing Business Communication in Today's World to better build relationships

• An in-depth look at Labor & Employment law and what it really means to practice in this area

 Past The Bar® encompasses topics including:

• The "business" of law
• Law firm economics
• Marketing
• Sales and business development
• Obtaining satisfaction
• Mentoring
• Legal industry trends
• Practice area niches

and a host of other related professional development topics.

Please visit Past The Bar® to find out more how we can help you, your students and alumni.

Send us an e-mail for more information on how to make this resource available or to ask us for a tour.