Attorneys lose their jobs for many reasons; however, sometimes, they lose more than that. Sometimes they lose their whole legal careers. For instance, most corporate attorneys lose their jobs once the economy slows down, and when the recession lasts longer, they can be out of work for years. It is almost impossible to recover a career from a hit like that. The same happens to many litigators after their firm settles a big case they were working on. There are also so many lawyers whose careers have been destroyed by a malpractice lawsuit for the legal services they provided or being fired after their employer found out they have lied or made a serious mistake.
You never know when something like this will happen, and your career will be shattered. That is extremely stressful, especially if you already have a family to care for or law school debt you need to repay.
One of the attorneys I have met throughout my work in legal recruiting was on the right track to becoming a partner in a major firm. Everything was set, and the partners agreed to elect him as an equity partner within a few weeks when everything changed. He wrote up a letter late in the evening and forgot to email it at that moment. The next day, he told the partner in the firm that he had sent it because he remembered that he had finished the letter and assumed he had automatically emailed it. He recalled he had not sent it yet and quickly fixed it. However, the partner found out that the attorney lied to them, fired the attorney and the firm started to spread unflattering information about the lawyer. Everyone knew him as a liar and unreliable and untrustworthy worker. His career ended unexpectedly the moment it was supposed to turn out to be the best because of a stupid mistake that, in the end, did not even affect anything in the case.