FEELING anxious, depressed, lonely, abused? All four? Then you must be a lawyer.
If you're not a lawyer, but are thinking of becoming one, then think again - unless you want to risk becoming anxious, depressed....
This is the message of an article in this month's Law Society journal, the Gazette. Under the headline "Reasons for Not Practising Law", the article outlines a plethora of psychological and financial pitfalls that come with the "noble calling" of the law.
Written to coincide with the start of the legal and academic years, the article is to lawyers what Noel Coward's exhortation not to put one's daughter on the stage was to thespians.
It quotes international research showing that lawyers are "almost four times more likely to be depressed than the population at large" and that they rank first among a US survey of 105 occupations in experiencing depression.
Other research shows that one in four lawyers experience feelings of inadequacy and inferiority in interpersonal relationships, in addition to anxiety, social alienation or depression. "Is this the same in Ireland?" the article's author, solicitor Dr Eamonn G. Hall, asks.
Now some lawyers might put up with a bit of loneliness, depression etc if there was, at least, some money in it. But Dr Hall cautions that the profession no longer guarantees a "satisfactory standard of living", to entrants. "Recent research conducted by our own Law Society revealed that some solicitors started working on salaries as low as £6,000 a year."
According to Dr Hall, the fact that lawyers are always on guard because they "don't know where the next danger may come from", has led to the "decline of collegiality in the profession and an increase in disloyalty and incivility".
Dr Hall, who is the society's chief examiner in constitutional law, said the article was partly a "cry from the heart" for the profession - and partly a warning to think twice before joining it.
"It isn't as wonderful as you might think. There's a lot of drudgery, you are vilified ... you are subject to depression and prone to substance abuse..." he said.
Dr Hall concludes the article with the upbeat message that becoming a practising lawyer is a privileged burden with conditions and duties.
As to his personal circumstances, Dr Hall, pleaded the Fifth Amendment. "I couldn't possibly comment on being lonely, selfish or depressed myself. I am a commentator, not a confessor," he said.