New York Lawyer
January 15, 2002

Q:
Can someone with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder function as a lawyer?

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A:
Funny you should ask! I have Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder -- often called just plain ADD -- myself. As a matter of fact, I'm a walking poster boy for what might be called undiagnosed adult attention deficit disorder. While I had long been aware of a variety of symptoms and consequences related to focus, time management, attention to detail and impulsiveness, until I was 45 and was formally diagnosed, I merely thought I fit all the labels pinned on me over the years: lazy, loose cannon, undisciplined, etc.

By that age, I had adjusted about as well as I ever would to my quirks, and all the formal diagnosis did was suggest my problems might have a neurological basis rather than be the result of maladjustment, poor socialization or a bad attitude. For many sufferers of ADD, medication -- Ritalin, Dexedrine, etc. -- has a remarkable calming effect. It did for me.

My career shows that it is certainly possible for someone with ADD to become a lawyer. The real question is whether you really should want to be one -- or where you might find a legal or law-related career that is successful (meaning you're competent at it) and also satisfying.

Check this for a lack of career focus: after law school, I earned a Master's Degree in Communication Theory -- hoping I'd be tapped to be the chief writer for Sesame Street. When that didn't happen, I entered the legal trade for a decade or so: Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia, litigation associate at a major Philadelphia law firm, Assistant United States Attorney and finally Regional Counsel for the PA Department of Public Welfare, where I was counsel to all the mental hospitals and mental retardation centers in Eastern Pennsylvania.

I then left the practice of law to become press secretary for the Welfare Department, went into corporate training and development, and finally -- when I focused my attention on what made people happy or unhappy in their work -- became a headhunter (but that was too adversarial), then an outplacement counselor and finally executive and personal coach. I'm pleased to report that I'm finally having some real fun.

I wasn't incompetent in my legal roles. But I sure was unhappy. Yeah, there were some things I liked: I learned new stuff easily ("a quick study"), came up with some creative approaches to problems, negotiated successfully because I was so eager to please everybody (a classical ADD symptom), and liked the variety of cases and tasks

But at the core of my job as a litigator was fighting . . . and I, like many people with ADD, am incredibly averse to conflict. I'm a collaborator, not an adversary � a lover, not a fighter. So my career, while outwardly successful enough, was tense, anxiety-provoking and often frustrating. I don't like detail. Much of law thrives on managing detail. I don't like rules. Law is rules and precedent. I have trouble with authority figures. Judges are authority figures. Many lawyers have strong status and conformity needs. I have almost none (except to be accepted by my peers).

I now provide career counseling to a number of very high-performing lawyers with ADD -- litigators, business and tax lawyers, deal-guys, intellectual property experts. Many of them get on just fine and are hardly handicapped at all by their condition. Others live in constant dread of forgetting crucial details, blowing deadlines and getting fatally bored.

Many people with ADD suffer from a symptom I jokingly call "EquiMax," meaning that everything feels like it's equally important and everything feels like its maximally important. That feeling -- which often is alleviated by medication, by the way -- makes it very hard to set priorities. As a result, a lot of folks with ADD try to do everything well -- all at the same time. These ADD-perfectionists are strong candidates for burnout -- and the intense time and performance stresses of many types of legal practice (especially litigation with its externally-imposed deadlines) can add dramatically to their discomfort. Furthermore, many folks with ADD feel like lifelong outsiders, so they often don�t fit in well in very regimented cultures or organizations. Large firm life can be a bigger drag on them than on others more willing to pay the price of conformity.

Yet other legal disciplines and settings can provide a lot of satisfaction for stimulation- and variety-seeking ADDers. Entrepreneurial activity feeds their inventiveness and comfort with risk, change and ambiguity (things are always ambiguous for ADDers, which often leads to very well-developed powers of inference and intuitive problem-solving). Intellectual property law feeds on their generally high intelligence, creativity and ability to think and operate "outside the box." They often feel comfortable in the "helping people" areas of law -- employment, public interest, healthcare, etc. -- where their own sensitivity can make them splendidly sensitive to the needs of others.

In general, I suggest people with ADD think twice about entering legal disciplines that are:

One more thing I can report reliably: law school itself tends to be very trying for people with ADD, with its emphasis on detail and structure and rules other people make. Focusing for long periods is often hard for ADDers; many report they can sustain intense focus on anything that really interests them, but find it hard to sustain attention on things that are not inherently stimulating -- which includes a lot of law school content. I found law school almost excruciating -- a fact I thought just reflected some basic flaw in me. But if you want the rewards badly enough, it is doable. Just plan on doubling your discipline, sacrifice and pain, because law school will be no walk in the park for you.

Is it worth it? You have to decide what you want to get out of it -- and where in the law or in law-related careers those rewards are likely to be found. But for many ADD lawyers, when life handed 'em some lemons, they made lemonade. The hard way.

Sincerely,
Douglas B. Richardson
President, The Richardson Group