The incidence of psychological distress and mental illness among Australian lawyers and law students is significantly higher than that affecting the general population and those in other professions or areas of study.
1. Among Lawyers
Why Lawyers Leave Legal Practice
Lawyers working in legal practice have been found to leave legal practice after an average of three to five years.
The reasons they have given include: the unacceptably high demands of work, expectations that their work will have priority over their family life, excessive competitiveness and harassment, including sexual harassment.
One exit survey found that most lawyers leaving legal practice reported having sleeping problems, being exhausted, crying, being depressed, irritable and suffering loss of confidence and self worth.
In light of this, it is perhaps not surprising that moderate to extremely severe levels of depression have been reported by one in three lawyers in legal practice.
Lawyer’s Lack Understanding of Mental Illness
Studies have also shown that most lawyers have little understanding of mental illness. They have stated that if they were affected, they would be unlikely to seek professional help. Instead, they would seek assistance from their families. If their mental illness was disclosed, they expected to be discriminated against, most probably by their employer.
Lawyers’ Mental Illness first identified in Law School
Affected practicing lawyers have reported that their symptoms of mental illness first manifest while they were in law school.
That mental illnesses emerge in law school, and that their effect continues to be felt in subsequent legal practice is recognised and has long been recorded. Australian Federal Court Justice Shane Marshall notes that Abraham Lincoln’s struggle with depression appears to have been triggered during his law school days. Justice Marshall cites Joshua Wolf Shenk, one of Abraham Lincoln’s biographers, who wrote that it was not until Lincoln’s ‘intense study of law’ that ‘the first signs of trouble’ and ‘serious concerns emerged.‘
2. Among Law Students
Around one in three Australian law students have reported experiencing depression.
In addition, the frequency and severity of their symptoms has been found to be higher than that of 87% of the general public.
While law students are more aware of mental illness than lawyers, they also tend not to seek professional help, preferring instead to seek help from family and friends.
What is it about Law School that adversely affects law students?
So what is it about law school that accounts for this lasting adverse effect on students and lawyers?
ANU Study
A study conducted at ANU appeared to show that even one year of law school can have a profound and adverse effect on law students.
The researchers suggested a number of possible causes. These included:
the changing of students’ thinking styles from experiential to rational, and
their perception that being a lawyer required detachment, an adversarial attitude, neutrality (including amorality), dispassionate analysis, pessimism (through focus on worst case scenarios), and risk aversion.
All this, they suggested, contributes to creating a perception of a lawyer’s role as not being a positive one.
A number of other aspects of law school have been identified as possible causes, including that:
law schools are dominated by excessive competitiveness rather than collaboration,
students lack a sense of belonging,
there is lack of interactive teaching,
students acquire a negative perception of what it takes to be a lawyer, and
law students’ perceptions of the value and enjoyment of various activities.
Western Australian Study
An investigation of the last point in a Western Australian study revealed that students’ appraisal of their social activities was poor.
This, the study concluded, appeared to establish a direct correlation between law students’ appraisal of their activities as relaxing, enjoyable and worthwhile, on the one hand, and reported levels of stress, anxiety and depression, on the other.
The researchers suggested that this could be attributed to ‘the excessively high value that legal education places on status and materialism’.
The seemingly obvious explanation for law students’ distress is that it is a reflection of their dissatisfaction with their studies.
Melbourne University Study
However, this explanation appears to be refuted by the findings of a Melbourne University study which disclosed no identifiable correlation between students satisfaction with law school studies and levels of psychological distress.
Responses to Findings
Responses to the findings of these, and many other similar studies, have tended to focus on the symptoms of the psychological distress and mental illness.
The focus of initiatives in the legal profession and law schools has been on reducing the incidence of psychological distress.
Staff turnover in law firms, has been addressed by
promoting awareness of mental illness and available help,
encouraging self care, and
enhancing resilience
Affected law students and lawyers have also been made aware that they are not alone.
The curricula of some law schools has also been amended to include courses on mediation and mindfulness.
Teaching practices and arrangements have been altered to promote greater interaction between students, and between students and staff, in order to promote a greater sense of belonging.
Broader well-being initiatives have also been initiated by law schools, law societies and law student societies.
Such reforms are on the whole clearly desirable. They provide, or have the potential to provide, lawyers and law students with the knowledge, support, and resilience to better cope with legal practice and law school and be less likely to be affected by psychological distress and mental illness.
The Insufficiency of Reforms
However, such reforms are not in themselves sufficient. Thi is because most public debate of this issue and many of the reforms appear to leave the roles, values, principles and practices of legal education and legal practice largely unchallenged and unchanged.
Current initiatives have also been criticised by legal practitioners who argue that the legal profession has made ‘little progress in its effort to drive down the high rate of depression among lawyers’. They also question the effectiveness of law firms’ wellbeing initiatives, describing them as ‘lip service’ by organisations whose priorities are different to what they claim them to be.
The Need for Further Reform To be Addressed in Second Part of this Paper
In the soon to be posted, second part of my paper, I intend to further develop the argument that there is a need for further reform, by outlining why without more fundamental changes, responses to the prevalence of psychological distress will only be partially successful.
