How the Billable Hour Can Break Even a Strong Moral Compass: This Marriage Is at Risk of Becoming Collateral Damage to Firm Profits
The pressure of high-stakes, profit-driven corporate environments can lead professionals to slowly abandon their ethical compass. Here's how a spouse might confront this moral drift to reclaim the partner they fell in love with.
It seems that not a day goes by that we do not see a court ridiculing attorneys for filing frivolous cases in bad faith, clearly aware that what they are doing isn't supported by facts or the law.
In other words, they're doing things that they know are wrong and violate our ethical obligations as lawyers — often while under pressure to follow orders.
While violations of legally mandated professional ethical and moral codes are common in many professions, today's story stems from an email from a young lawyer. "Ruby" was debating whether she should remain married and wanted to know "what the psychological mechanism is that transforms a fair-minded person into someone I do not know anymore."
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In the beginning, he despised lawyers who frustrate fair resolutions
"(My husband and I) got married when we were in law school," Ruby wrote. "Ben would get visibly upset when professors discussed insurance defense firms that, instead of fairly resolving claims and lawsuits, did everything possible to frustrate a resolution just to build up more billable hours. They'd drag cases out, doing bad things for a buck," which Ben agreed was awful.
"After graduation, an insurance defense firm made him a great offer — and agreed to hire me as well — to establish a wills and estate planning department.
"At first, they gave Ben run‑of‑the‑mill, small cases to handle and settlement authority — which he enjoyed using. Then increasingly complicated ones came along with a long list of work to be done. He admitted that, often, much of it was completely unnecessary as the matters could have been settled promptly, saving the clients thousands of dollars.
"Mr. Beaver, one night after Ben drank too much wine, the expression in vino veritas was proven true — he blurted out, 'I do not care that these cases involve people who were injured through no fault of their own. They are money makers for the firm, and I don't give a damn about putting them through the wringer, as this increases my billable hours. And, besides, how do I know they aren't faking it?'
"Could you do a story about how someone can go from wanting to do good and help people to becoming weak, collapsing morally and doing bad things? I want to confront my husband with what he has become, and unless he gets back to his former self, I cannot remain in this marriage."
Moral disengagement in the professions
I forwarded Ruby's email to a friend of this column, psychology professor Dr. Luis Vega at California State University, Bakersfield. Vega teaches a fascinating course there, called The Psychology of Good and Evil.
"Ruby is describing something far more than simply individual weakness," Vega said. "Ben is caught in a system that reshapes a person's ethics, a psychological transformation of values under chronic pressure found in high-pressure professional cultures, known as moral disengagement/corruption of the soul.
"It is affected by the powerful virus of apathy, profit-making and feeding greed at any cost. People like Ben are engulfed in a justification of their actions, a self‑persuasion process of believing the 'victims' deserve what comes to them, and an 'I know better' attitude.
"Psychologists and marriage counselors find that spouses of lawyers and other professionals often articulate a profound moral disconnect as a reason for divorce. Notably, caving in to pressure from management to earn the firm more money — performing unjustified work that ramps up billable hours — while losing their ethical compass."
Vega added, "It doesn't happen overnight, but with gradual — required — repeated behavioral adjustments that make prior unacceptable actions seem quite normal. Ben might not be aware of what has happened, while Ruby sees the change because she knows who he was before being 'reprogrammed' by the firm.
Vega set out a road map for how moral disengagement silences an individual's conscience, driving wrongful and unethical conduct in professional settings. This leads to them conforming to the norms of the group for income, status and identity, a step-by-step process in which:
- Senior partners model the behavior that teaches associates that promotions depend on compliance. They learn that dissent will have personal, negative economic and employment consequences.
- Principles and values that were once deeply held are transformed, not because the lawyer wants to be unethical, but because the cost of resisting the group becomes unbearably high.
- When unethical behavior becomes habitual, it can destroy personal relationships through a rationalization process. Spouses become emotionally detached by continually hearing, "Everyone at the firm does it, and clients never know. Anyway, my job is to save the insurance company money, and being fair has nothing to do with the practice of law."
What makes this possible?
The following mechanisms combine to produce a husband Ruby no longer recognizes:
Cognitive dissonance reduction. Ben initially wanted to practice law economically, but his firm requires maximizing billable hours, which creates dissonance (discomfort) that the brain rationalizes so that Ben now believes, "I am being thorough, not doing unnecessary work or dragging the case out."
The slippery slope. Losing one's values happens gradually, with one legal, ethical or moral compromise after another, resulting in medical overtreatment, corporate and political scandals and lawyers who build a reputation for doing anything when the price is right.
Identity drift. Ben began his life as a lawyer with strong ethical and moral values. His work environment has become so dominant that his professional identity has replaced his personal identity. Ruby says to herself, "He is not the same Ben I married. What happened? This is not the same, wonderful guy I fell in love with."
What should Ruby do?
Vega said, "Ruby needs to say, 'Ben, if I turned into the total opposite of the person you married, would you want to stay with me? I am losing you to this law firm that has corrupted your soul. I love you, Ben. Please come back to me, back to us.'"
Dennis Beaver practices law in Bakersfield, Calif., and welcomes comments and questions from readers, which may be faxed to (661) 323-7993, or e-mailed to Lagombeaver1@gmail.com. And be sure to visit dennisbeaver.com.
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