This is strange — I never heard anything remotely like this in law school, and most lawyers I know do a good deal of outside reading. I wonder where the author heard this advice, and why she doesn't say who "they" is.
Am I the only one who never heard this cautionary advice in law school?
The whole idea that "thinking like a lawyer" should mean you forget how to enjoy reading and writing reminds me of Keats' claim that Newton destroyed the rainbow by explaining it. It's unfortunate that the author had such a bad experience with the law - but this is either strikingly bad pedagogy or simply a poor match with her specific personality, and shouldn't be taken as a reflection on the practice of law itself.
One example is the game Monsterhearts, where you play Buffy/Twilight/Teen Wolf/etc "teenage supernatural drama" types. The rules are carefully designed to make relationship drama and petty inter-group conflict a natural result of play, even if the players are levelheaded sorts who wouldn't act that way at all on their own.
It is weird to say to people that I read constantly but I think the last novel I read was several years ago.
Did you ever read novels (outside of those assigned in school)? I assume you still read a lot of non-work stuff, even if just news?
The worst was when I had to review ~ 10,000 pages of material for a presentation. I wasn't reading all of that -- I maybe read 1/10th in great detail, and skimmed half after I determined it was relevant -- but even so, for a couple of weeks after that I didn't read for pleasure at all.
However, I can think of lawyers who have been novelists (Louis Auchincloss comes to mind) or notable critics (John Jay Chapman). And certainly I've known quite a few lawyers who read widely.