They work so hard to get through school, pass the bar, and get to a point in their firm where they're not working a horrible number of hours for a subsistence wage. By the time they get to that place, they've been getting the crap kicked out of them for a decade. Most of them get disillusioned by the system after working a few years. They do work that often requires them to have no conscience, like that's possible. They're at the bottom of every social circle. When a lawyer gets introduced as such, you can almost hear the unspoken, "Oh, gawd!!" and people's body language is obvious. No wonder so many lawyers have substance abuse problems and a high suicide rate. It's a profession that's designed, intentionally or not, to burn people out.