Hi, and welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Cottrell. I practiced law for 10 years and now I help unhappy lawyers ditch their soul-sucking jobs. On this show, I share advice and strategies for aspiring former lawyers, and interviews with former lawyers who have left the law behind to find careers and lives that they love.

Next up in this summer series of the most popular episodes of The Former Lawyer Podcast is an episode that I did about malignant narcissism in the legal profession and specifically signs of malignant narcissism because no surprise, narcissists are very common in our profession and a lot of the things that you experience in your legal workplace that seem honestly a bit crazy making are frequently the result of working with a narcissist or multiple narcissists or being in a narcissistic system.

In this episode that you're about to listen to, I talked a bit about what the characteristics even are of narcissism and in particular malignant narcissism, and how to identify it. Here is one of the most popular episodes of this podcast about malignant narcissism in the legal profession.

Today I want to talk about narcissism. Narcissism has come up quite a bit in various conversations that we've had here at the podcast over the last couple of months. The reason for that is that there are a lot of narcissists in the law.

In particular, there are a lot of narcissists in Biglaw, which is where my experience started out in the law. I'm sure you've heard—if you've listened to these other episodes—some conversations that we've had about narcissism and also the fact that there can be narcissistic systems.

This is not going to be a comprehensive exploration of narcissism, but in particular, I want to talk today about two types of narcissism that definitely show up in legal contexts and are extremely harmful, at the same time, behavior that is often normalized.

Briefly, let's just touch on narcissism and what it is. This information I'm pulling from two articles on verywellmind.com and these will be linked in the show notes. Narcissism is a personality trait that everyone has to some degree. There is a spectrum.

We all can exhibit narcissistic traits at times. However, there's a difference between having some narcissistic traits and having narcissistic personality disorder, which means that you meet a certain number of criteria under the DSM.

One of the things that can be tricky with narcissism is one, that most people who have an actual diagnosable degree of narcissism are the least likely to think that they actually need help because part of the symptomatology of their disorder is that they think that everyone else is the problem and not them.

Another really important thing to understand about narcissism is that someone doesn't have to have every single trait, someone doesn't have to be an actual diagnosable narcissist in order for their behavior to be extremely harmful to the people around them.

In fact, you can have someone who only exhibits one or two narcissistic traits, but if the way the traits show up is severe enough, it can be just as harmful as someone who might actually qualify for a diagnosis of NPD under the DSM.

Let's talk a bit about what you might see if you are working with a malignant narcissist. Of course, this is an incomplete list. But I think that going through this list will be helpful because similar to the episode from a couple of months ago, talking about the eight signs of a toxic workplace, a lot of these characteristics, signs, and symptoms, that I am going to talk about are in some ways descriptive of how certain types of lawyers often act.

So, let's go through this list. Here are things that are often characteristic of malignant narcissists. They are preoccupied with fantasies about beauty, brilliant success, and power of their own.

They're unable to handle criticism. Does anyone have a boss in a legal setting who's not good at taking criticism or who hands out lots of criticism, but never thinks that they are the ones that have done anything wrong? Maybe something you've experienced.

Malignant narcissists also have a tendency to lash out if they feel slighted. They're likely to take advantage of others to get what they want. They're overly concerned about their appearance and how they look to others. This can be physical appearance or social.

They have an expectation of being treated as a superior. I can think of multiple stories that I've heard of people in positions of authority at firms, in particular partners, getting very upset because someone who they perceived as being inferior to them did not bring the level of obsequiousness that they expected to an interaction with them.

Another characteristic of malignant narcissists is a lack of empathy for others. They can have an inflated sense of self and an inability to self-regulate. By self-regulate, that means an inability to control their emotions and the way that they experience them which can often involve lashing out, screaming, throwing things, name-calling, shutting down, and silent treatment. Think of all the things that a toddler might do but in an adult's body and that's what you're talking about when we're talking about an inability to self-regulate.

Another characteristic of many malignant narcissists is having no remorse for hurting others. No interest in apologizing unless it benefits them. I can't tell you the number of times that I have heard stories from people about how a partner did something, either threw someone under the bus or didn't treat them with respect about some work they've done or whatever.

Of course, there is never any apology because although apologizing and repairing relational rupture is a key component to having a healthy relationship, whether we're talking about work or personal, it's also true that often repairing the relationship and apologizing, taking that position of apology does not necessarily benefit the person who has lashed out, especially if they are more senior. This symptom of no interest in apologizing, unless it benefits them, shows up a lot in legal workplaces.

Here are some other signs and symptoms of malignant narcissists. Having an attitude of deserving the best of everything, the tendency to monopolize conversations and/or mistreat those who they perceive as inferior, hidden insecurity and a weak sense of self, tendency to blame others for their own bad behavior.

For those of you listening, I'm very curious to know how many of you have had an experience where a superior in your legal workplace, whether that was your Biglaw firm or somewhere else, didn't do something that they were supposed to do, didn't meet a deadline they were supposed to hit and somehow that turned into an occasion for them to be upset with everyone else who was not them, not the person with the ultimate responsibility, which was them, but instead it's everyone else's fault. I know that that is a very common occurrence, the tendency to blame others for their own bad behavior.

All right, those are some characteristics of malignant narcissists. Now, a narcissistic sociopath is in some ways similar, but the characteristics are a little bit different, and so I want to talk about these as well, because again, some of this behavior that I'm talking about, the expectation of being treated as superior, lack of empathy for others, inability to self-regulate, the tendency to blame others for their own bad behavior, mistreating those who they perceive as inferior, some of this is so baked into the acceptable culture of large firms that it's so easy to think that this must be normal, that I must be weird for thinking that these things I'm seeing are wrong and not okay.

Of course, in many cases, the stated goals of the firm, the stated goals of the type of culture the firm is trying to create will not match up with these experiences that you have and so there's this additional level of gaslighting where you're seeing these people behaving in this way and yet you're being told, “Well, that kind of stuff doesn't happen here or we're not okay with that kind of thing,” and yet the behavior is allowed to continue.

That's why I think talking about it is so important because I really think that people genuinely get into positions where they feel like, “I must be losing my mind. I must be crazy because I think this matters and I think this is not in line with what we're saying we're about in terms of how people are supposed to be treated.” Or, maybe in some cases, the firm isn't even saying that people need to treat others well.

I think in that case, it's just important to realize like, “That's not okay.” Anyway, back to the topic at hand. How to spot a narcissistic sociopath. A narcissistic sociopath is someone who could be diagnosed with aspects of both narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder.

So, these are the criteria for the DSM-5 criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. There are nine criteria and five or more of the criteria need to be present for someone to get an official diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder.

So, here we go. Number one, a grandiose sense of self-importance, i.e. exaggerates their achievements and abilities. Number two, a preoccupation with the idea of gaining success, power, love, and physical attractiveness. Number three, a belief that they are special or high status and can only be understood by similar people, or should only associate with those people or institutions. As I said, some of these basically describe the experience of being in Biglaw.

Anyway, number four, a need for excessive admiration. Number five, a sense of entitlement and expectation that others will comply or give them favorable treatment. Number six, exploits other people for personal gain. Number seven, lacks empathy for others.

Number eight, envies others or believes that other people envy them. Definitely something that I have observed. Number nine, arrogant behaviors and attitudes. Okay, so those are the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder.

Then here are the criteria for antisocial personality disorder. Just a reminder, for someone to be a narcissistic sociopath, they need to qualify for both a diagnosis of NPD and also a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.

Here are the criteria for antisocial personality disorder. Antisocial personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others. These are the criteria for antisocial personality disorder, and an individual must show at least three of the following diagnostic criteria: One, repeatedly failing to follow social norms resulting in grounds for arrest. Two, engaging in deceitful actions such as lying, using aliases, and not paying off debts. Three, impulsivity and lack of planning ahead. Four, irritability and aggressiveness that lead to physical altercations. Five, reckless lack of concern for the safety of other people. Six, chronic irresponsibility that leads to failure to maintain a job, finish school, or keep financial commitments. Then the seventh one is a lack of remorse about hurting other people.

Also, to be diagnosed with APD, the person has to be at least 18 years old and have evidence of a conduct disorder by age 15. This is a much more stringent set of criteria, obviously. Again, I'm not saying you should go around trying to diagnose people in your everyday life.

That's not my intent in sharing this with you, but I do think that when we hear about some of the most extreme forms of abuses in the law and in law firms, a lot of the criteria that you see in these two personality disorders that comprise narcissistic sociopathy are present.

Even if you don't have this level of criteria, the criteria I walked through before this about malignant narcissists, 100% you have criteria along those lines, even if not malignant, just the general criteria of narcissism.

Again, why does this matter? Why am I going through all of this? I'm going through this because I want you to understand that some of these criteria describe behavior that is eerily similar to the behavior that we see in many legal jobs, especially in large law firms from people who are in positions of authority.

It's not always overt. It's not always someone throwing a stapler, though certainly staplers have been thrown. It's not always someone doing something so outrageous that everyone is willing to recognize that it's problematic.

Many times it actually can come in the form of more covert narcissism—which is something that we can maybe talk about on another episode—but where you're seeing these expectations of being treated as superior, lack of empathy, inability to self-regulate, insecurity, tendency to blame others for the things that they have done wrong, tendency to monopolize conversations, tendency to mistreat those who they perceive as inferior, these things, I think, often in the law get written off when this behavior is present as just, I don't want to say normative because it's not that it's normative, it's just that it doesn't provoke enough of a response for people who exhibit these kinds of traits and behavior to actually be held accountable or for there to be any real hope of lasting change.

If you've been listening to this episode and you've heard me go through this criteria and you're thinking like, “That seems to eerily fit the profile of one or more people who I currently work with,” I just want you to know that you are not crazy. The experiences that you are having are real.

Having these experiences can be very disorienting, especially in a professional setting because it seems like they shouldn't be happening. It's easy to explain away and it's often, like I said, so normalized that you feel like there might be something wrong with you for thinking that it's problematic. But it is problematic.

The fact that we have a situation in our profession where people can behave in these ways and still hold positions of great power and authority can still be celebrated as, let's say, “Well, they're a bit of an asshole, but they're a great lawyer.” That's a huge problem.

You are not wrong for thinking it matters how people treat other people, for thinking that other people, especially people in positions of authority and leadership should be held to a higher standard.

I really hope that in the legal profession and in our large law firms in particular, we can start holding people to, I don't even want to say a high standard because not treating people in the ways that I've described in this episode isn't a high standard, it's actually just basic human kindness. We at least should start there. Okay, thank you so much for joining me for this episode. I will talk to you next week.

Thanks so much for listening. If you would like to learn more about the framework that I use with all my clients to help them figure out what it is that they want to do that is not practicing law, then go watch my free masterclass, The Simple Five-Step Framework For Identifying An Alternative Career That You Actually Like. You can get the link to watch at formerlawyer.com/masterclass. Until next time, have a great week.