Tips

Three Tips for Lawyers Dealing with Stress, Mental Health, and Substance Use Issues
By:  Chris Ritter

For those practicing law in Texas, it may be no surprise that lawyers suffer very high rates of mental health and substance use issues. Lawyers are handed their clients’ worst problems and are expected to solve them. They are supposed to be perfect or their reputations dwindle. If they make a mistake, it can be career changing or devastating to a client’s life. There is little time to smell the roses, and when that opportunity comes, it is hard, if not impossible, to stop thinking about the fires that need putting out at the office. It is a tremendous understatement to say that the life of a lawyer can be very stressful and difficult.

Researchers have found extraordinary differences between the mental health and substance use of attorneys compared to other people. For example, a recent law review article noted that attorneys had the highest rate of depression of any occupational group in the United States.¹ A 1990 study indicated that attorneys suffer depression 3.6 times as often as the general population.²

With regard to alcohol use, researchers have found that attorneys have almost double the usual rate of problem drinking.³ One study found that before law school, only 8 percent reported alcohol problems. By the third year of law school, 24 percent reported a concern about having a drinking problem.⁴

In a 2014 law school wellness study of nearly 4,000 participating law students at 15 law schools across the country, 43 percent reported binge drinking in the past two weeks, 25 percent reported marijuana use in the past year, 27 percent reported having an eating disorder, and 21 percent reported that they had considered suicide.⁵ Additionally, 14 percent reported using prescription drugs in the past year without a prescription.⁶ 

Regarding suicide, lawyers have historically topped the list of all professionals in suicide rates.⁷ They have been found to be twice as likely as the average person to commit suicide.⁸ 

Obviously, these are major problems. No one wants to be troubled by thinking about these issues, but they deserve real attention. 

Three Wellness Tips

When dealing with the spectrum of problems faced by Texas attorneys, there is no single solution that will take care of everything, but the following tools are useful for both mental health and substance abuse issues.

1. Learn to Relax. For attorneys, relaxing can seem almost impossible. In order to relax, cultivate interests unrelated to the practice of law. This will provide you with opportunities to take a well-deserved break from your work, and quite frankly, helps to make you a far more emotionally well-developed and interesting person. You will also meet a host of new friends and contacts who will help give some additional perspective about your life and your choices.

Breathing exercises have been very effective for attorneys who need to relax, or “quiet the mind.”⁹ TLAP’s website includes links to audio and videos of relaxation exercises at texasbar.com/TLAP under the “Wellness” tab.

2. Practice Positive Thinking.  There is a growing body of research showing the powerful positive effects of positive thinking and positive psychology.¹⁰ One way to practice positive thinking is to focus your attention on what is right in your life by making a gratitude journal. Studies have shown that taking the time to make a list of things for which you are grateful can result in significant improvement in the way you feel and the amount of happiness you experience.¹¹ Try making a list of three to five things for which you are grateful each morning for a week and see what happens.

3.  Help Others. Service work sounds like just one more thing to add to the list of things you do not have time for, but this is something helpful for you, so consider really making time to do it. Obviously, until you secure your oxygen mask, you should not attempt to rescue others, but lawyers have been found to gain “intense satisfaction” from doing service work,¹² and studies show it helps improve mental health and happiness and offsets the effects of a stressful job.¹³ 

Lawyers suffering from mental health and substance use issues must take action to get better.  As Mahatma Gandhi (a lawyer in his younger years) said, “The future depends on what you do today.” If you or a lawyer, law student, or judge you know needs help, TLAP is available to provide confidential guidance and support at 1-800-343-TLAP(8527) and texasbar.com/TLAP. ¹⁴

Chris Ritter is a staff attorney for the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program (TLAP) of the State Bar of Texas.

 

¹ See Lawrence S. Krieger and Kennon M. Sheldon, What Makes Lawyers Happy? Transcending the Anecdotes with Data from 6200 Lawyers. 83 Geo. Wash. U. L. Rev. 554 (2015).

² See William Eaton ET AL., Occupations and the Prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder, 32 J. Occupational Med. 1079, 1085 tbl. 3 (1990).

³ See Justin J. Anker, Ph.D., Attorneys and Substance Abuse, Butler Center for Research (Hazelden 2014) (available at http://www.hazelden.org/web/public/document/bcrup_attorneyssubstanceabuse.pdf)

⁴ See Benjamin, G.A. H., Darling, E.J., and Sales, B. The Prevalence Of Depression, Alcohol Abuse, And Cocaine Abuse Among United States Lawyers. 13 International Journal of Law and Psychiatry at 233-246 (1990).

⁵ See 2014 ABA/Dave Nee Survey of Law Student Well-Being (co-piloted by David Jaffe and Jerry Organ and funded by the ABA Enterprise Fund and the Dave Nee Foundation).

⁶ Id.

⁷ According to a 1991 Johns Hopkins University study of depression in 105 professions, lawyers ranked No. 1 in the incidence of depression. See William Eaton et al., Occupations and the Prevalence of Major Depressive Disorder, 32 Journal Of Occupational Medicine 11, Page 1079(1990).

⁸  A 1992 OSHA report found that male lawyers in the U.S. are two times more likely to commit suicide than men in the general population. See http://www.lawpeopleblog.com/2008/09/the-depression-demon-coming-out-of-the-legal-closet/ .

⁹ See Rhonda V. Magee, Making the Case for Mindfulness and the Law, 86 NW Lawyer 3 at p. 18 (2014) (available online at: http://nwlawyer.wsba.org/nwlawyer/april_may_2014/?pg=20#pg20).

¹⁰ See http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/publications.htm.

¹¹ See Steven Toepfer, Letters of Gratitude: Improving Well-Bring through Expressive Writing, J. of Writing Res. 1(3) (2009).

¹² See Lawrence S. Krieger and Kennon M. Sheldon, What Makes Lawyers Happy? Transcending the Anecdotes with Data from 6200 Lawyers. Geo. Wash. U. L. Rev. 83 (2015 Forthcoming), FSU College of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 667(2014) (citing Bruno Frey & Alois Stutzer, HAPPINESS AND ECONOMICS: HOW THE ECONOMY AND INSTITUTIONS AFFECT HUMAN WELL-BEING at 105 (2002)).

¹³ See Michael J. Poulin, et al. "Giving To Others And The Association Between Stress And Mortality." American Journal Of Public Health 103.9 (2013): 1649-1655 7p. CINAHL Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.

¹⁴ Please watch this 2015 TLAP video: texasbar.com/tlapisthere 

 

Views and opinions expressed in eNews are those of their authors and not necessarily those of the Texas Young Lawyers Association or the State Bar of Texas.