With surprising frequency, lawyers express regret over their decision to pur
sue a legal career. Given the high incidence of depression, anxiety, poor mental
health, and thoughts of self-harm among members of the profession, it is per
haps not surprising that many lawyers see the reality of their lives in practice
as very different from the idealistic, aspirational life in the law they entertained
and wanted when deciding to pursue a legal career. Both before and after law school, various institutional, economic, and psychological factors risk imperiling or derailing the meaningful and purpose-driven life that many lawyers desire. This interdisciplinary article uses ethics and literature and the human
ities—specifically Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych—to examine
how lawyers might pursue a meaningful and purpose-driven life within an otherwise challenging profession and in the face of certain mortality.
Though written nearly 150 years ago, Tolstoy’s novella, which addresses
themes and questions about suffering and death, as well as spirituality and
moral life—and specifically a moral, purpose-driven life relative to one’s pro
fessional life—finds contemporary resonance with a modern legal profession
that is increasingly antithetical to lawyers’ happiness, health, and satisfaction
with their chosen career. Tolstoy’s protagonist, an accomplished judge by any
means, would fit well within the sobering statistics about contemporary lawyer
depression. As such, the story of his suffering, death, and ultimate redemption
offers much to lawyers, specifically in its emphasis on service as a means of
fomenting a purpose-driven life. It also offers new ideas for revisiting and
amending existing institutional systems and ethical guidelines within the profes
sion—specifically the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools—to help lawyers find and maintain a meaningful and purpose-driven life in the law.

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