Studying law ruins reading for pleasure. It's a fact.

OK, maybe not a fact. But I know it took me a few years after law school to begin reading for pleasure again. Why? Because after all the case books and exams, reading fiction seemed pointless. No fictional character needs to have a problem solved by the the book's reader (except maybe in a choose-your-own-adventure novel).

And the ABA anecdotally backs up my anecdote:

In the November issue of the ABA Journal, Black’s Law Dictionary editor-in-chief Bryan Garner writes about an encounter with a law firm partner who approached him with a problem: Ever since law school, she’s found herself scouring whatever she’s reading for the most relevant, skimming “for the main point—as if for a holding. But in literature, it’s not there.”

Article here (via ABA journal).