One of the most important work-life balance books in the history of the legal profession, this ground-breaking title is now a special 20th anniversary edition, featuring an all-new epilogue from the author. This eye-opening book examines the mentality that tears down lawyers and offers ideas for bringing balance back into daily lives, society, and the law. You’ll find answers to questions like:
- What’s happened to truth, justice, and the American ideal?
- What’s gone wrong, why, and what can be done about it?
Explore the realities of undeniable professional dysfunctions, how they impact the American justice system, and those who practice in it. By living the advice in this book, you can lead a quiet, normal, happy life despite the world around you. It’s a must read for anyone who contemplates the law or being a lawyer and is essential reading for those already in the field.
Reader Reviews
Cuts to the heart of law, especially its language and nuances going this psychological thinker a comprehensive grasp of legal language and practice. Helped me immensely in understanding a collaborating with my attorneys.
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 fulfillment 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, read “Soul of the Law“. You’ll relate! If you’re a law student or a candidate for law school, you’ll run for cover!
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.
I thought that this law book gave a very different take on the legal profession than most legal books. The author describes the legal profession as rigid, hierarchical, and adversarial (which are all true), but then he talks about how the institutional aspects of the profession affect an attorney as an individual such that life is not certain, logical and orderly like the law. Thus, Sells talks about how attorneys tend to be frustrated in their personal lives by the profession as a whole because they cannot escape the rigid structures of their chosen profession. For example, on page 96, Sells says “On the other hand the lawyer is only partly a lawyer and feels from within the powerful tug of other currents, other needs. This situation exists everywhere and for everyone but is harder on the lawyer because of the Law’s demanding tendencies. And so the lawyer must champion control and order while knowing in his or her heart that things are neither controllable nor orderly.”
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