M.E. Thomas (a pseudonym) claims to be three things: female, a lawyer (formerly a law professor), and a psychopath. Her book, Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Hiding in Plain Sight, chronicles her biography prior to its publication, with special attention to what are considered the emotional deficits of her particular neuro-cognitive framework for interacting with the world.

Unlike people considered neurotypical, Thomas has difficulty connecting with her own emotions. She says she always knew that she was different from the people around her.

It wasn’t until law school that she began to investigate why she failed to relate to her law school colleagues’ emotional reactions to the injurious experiences that become case studies in law school courses on torts, personal injury, medical malpractice, and probate.

Thomas's discovery that she meets the criteria for anti-social personality disorder – which we popularly associate with behaviors considered reflective of the worst of humanity – did not prevent Thomas from becoming a lawyer, a law professor and legal scholar, and a contributing member of society.

Thomas says because of her disorder she lost relationships and jobs. These include her law school appointment, which she lost after the publication of her book. In the book, she acknowledges her history of sometimes manipulative and cruel behaviors in her personal life, behaviors perhaps inhibited if she had a more typical emotional makeup.

What Would the Practice of Law Be Without Emotion?

I introduce you to Thomas today because, at the beginning of Mental Health Awareness Month, I am thinking about lawyers and emotional regulation.

It can be helpful to consider, at least for a moment, that while we often valorize emotional regulation, the absence of emotion turns out not to be the sine qua non of successful emotional regulation.

Quite the opposite.

Emotions are messy, and often easy to “catch” from others (from a Debbie Downer, among Packers fans after a win, or from watching the mayhem on Jan. 6, 2021). Emotions also work to our benefit personally and professionally. People suffering from their absence, like Thomas, can find ways to make their emotional deficits work for them, but perhaps only inside clearly defined ethical frameworks – like those of a law practice. But in general, most psychopaths – including Thomas – seem to wish that they were wired differently.

All of this brings us to the question: What would the practice of law be without emotion?

Would it simply be legal scholarship?

What would your lives as lawyers and judges look like without the presence of emotion or the performance of emotional displays, by you, by your clients, by the parties who have harmed your clients or accused them of harm, by witnesses, by judges, by juries and by the public?

How would your work and your roles be different without emotion – or the performance of emotion – as the animating lifeblood of the system? I’m guessing it’s hard to imagine.

This Lack Takes Its Toll

And yet: why do legal professionals report they have had very little training about emotions and how to manage legal careers with the appropriate balance of emotional engagement and emotional distance? Why does legal education not provide more training on how to succeed as a lawyer without allowing it to leave you emotionally exhausted, dysfunctional, traumatized, dissociated, bitter, or heartless?

Legal training emphasizes the cognitive work and underemphasizes the emotional labor required of lawyers. You can understand how a psychopath – someone more immune to emotion, for good and bad – would not be quite as affected by the emotional demands and drama of the profession. While we could see this as a protective benefit, aspiring to psychopathy doesn’t seem any more reasonable or fruitful ambition than being constantly emotionally vulnerable.

The Middle Way, as the Buddhists call it, would be to develop a greater understanding of emotion, an appreciation of the emotional labor asked of you as prosecutors working with victims, an awareness of your own patterns of emotional vulnerabilities and strengths, and really great strategies for working with emotions – your own, first, and also those of other players in your legal theater.

In a 2017 Psychiatry, Psychology, and The Law article “The Law Is Not as Blind as It Seems: Relative Rates of Vicarious Trauma among Lawyers and Mental Health Professionals,” scholars Grace McGuire and Mitchell Byrne conclude that lawyers are far more vulnerable to secondary trauma and burnout than social workers, despite having exposures similar levels of exposure to others’ traumatic events.​

Given lawyers’ high rates of anxiety, alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide, we can infer that there is plenty of room for improvement in lawyers’ functional resources for working well within the densely charged emotional field of the legal system.

Taking Steps Forward

The good news is that law students, lawyers, judges, and other legal professionals can learn to prepare for the emotional challenges of the profession and adopt healthier strategies for navigating its complex and often competing emotional demands.

The first step is to acknowledge that lawyering is not only a high-status profession centered on the intellectual work of comprehending and applying the law, but a profession that requires emotional intelligence, both in terms of self-care and self-management and in terms of understanding others’ emotional circumstances, patterns, and demands.

This article was originally published in the The Lawyer's Journey blog of the State Bar of Wisconsin Lawyers Assistance Program (WisLAP). WisLAP offers confidential support, consultations, and education related to mental health and wellness for lawyers.