They sometimes feel conflicted between their roles as officers of the court and as advocates of their clients. The weight that comes with being responsible for solving other people's problems within a context where mistakes are very costly can often be a heavy burden. 6 Individual traits that in addition to the external stressors must be considered as well. Perfectionism is a common personality trait among lawyers. Perfectionism leads to a way of life that demands control.
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As a result many lawyers do not fully appreciate the positive role that emotions can play in the thought process. Thus, they may lack the ability to deal with their own emotions in the healthiest of ways and tend to be insensitive to the feelings of others. The adversarial legal system can arouse feelings of hostility, cynicism, aggression, fear and low self esteem. Emphasis on materialistic values is partly to blame for the additional stress being experienced by lawyers. A number of legal scholars feel that there was much less stress in the law practice when it is viewed more as a profession and less as a business.