Over at Trial Theory, Bobby Frederick writes about small-firm practice (the context is a discussion of Will Meyerhofer’s article at Above the Law about the dangers of stress disorder in biglaw firms):

I suspect that most of those who cry about how difficult it is working
at Biglaw also would not survive in my office for very long.  The pay
sucks.  There’s plenty of criticism, and things have to be done right –
preferably the first time.  We are in the trenches and we’ve experienced
shell shock in the office and in the courtroom.

I’ve got a bit of experience with the kind of practice Bobby describes,
and I’m not buying the “shell shock” bit. We’re in the trenches only metaphorically. There’s not really much criticism either, unless you’re the sort of gentle soul who takes it as criticism when a judge doesn’t give you what you want.

The lousy pay can be real, though, and things absolutely have to be done right the first time. For the same reason that there is little criticism (no supervisors and no bosses) the solo or small-firm lawyer had better not screw up in the first place.

A trial lawyer screws up and has a slip of the tongue in closing argument, and his client gets convicted. He screws up and calls an inadequately-prepared witness, and his client goes to prison. Hank Skinner’s first state-court habeas lawyer screwed up and missed a filing deadline, and Skinner lost an entire avenue of postconviction review.

This atmosphere can be stressful if we let it. But let’s keep it in perspective. When he screws up, he doesn’t get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger; he gets to go home and have a glass of wine with his wife.

Still, trial lawyers often choose to let the stress rule them, even reveling in the stress. The drama of it—”in the trenches,” “shell shock”—has its appeal. And stress triggers the production of cortisol, which in the short-term gives us energy and heightened memory. Doesn’t that make the lawyer perform better?

Our bodies’ reaction to stress evolved to help us deal with the immediate short-term threats, to perform at full potential for a minute or two. Beyond that, stress starts to hurt us. Prolonged exposure to cortisol causes impaired cognitive performance. That, for the small-firm or solo lawyer, is a very bad thing.