Engineering is soul crushing too, not everyone makes decent salaries in the bay area or elsewhere, engineers have zero social status, unlike lawyers. There is no "normal distribution". And don't forget that as a lawyer, you don't face the type of age discrimination that engineers deal with, and you don't have to "relearn" your tools every few years because something else is now in fashion. Law stays mostly what it is, and the tools don't change. Obviously you have to keep "up to date" with the law, but that's it.