Prioritizing Mental Health and Well-Being in the Workplace is Evolving and Driving Change in the Legal Profession — from law.upoenn.edu by Daniel T. Lukasik, Esq.; with thanks to PennLaw’s Future of the Profession Initiative (from 6/9/22) for this resource
Excerpt:
I now know I was never the only one with a mental health problem. Over the past five years, numerous surveys have confirmed what I and others suspected: anxiety, burnout, depression, and problems with alcohol are rampant throughout the legal profession. Compared to the general population, the magnitude of lawyer distress is deeply troubling.
In a confidential ABA survey of 13,000 lawyers, twenty-eight percent reported they had experienced a problem with depression within the past twelve months, a rate four times that found in the general population. Yet, given this sobering fact, there’s good cause to feel optimistic about the profession’s future.
Today, there is nothing short of a revolution in the law at all levels regarding mental health.
Two other relevant items from PennLaw’s Future of the Profession Initiative from 6/9/22:
- About one-fifth of lawyers and staffers considered suicide at some point in their careers, new survey says — from abajournal.com by Debra Cassens Weiss
- Two-Thirds of Lawyers: ‘My Job has a Negative Impact on Mental Health’ — from artificiallawyer.com
From DSC:
I post this for:
- Undergrad students within higher education — as you should go into a career in the legal profession with your eyes wide open.
- For the rest of us in society — for a better understanding of others’ situations. If you know of a lawyer in the family or as a friend, you may want to check in with them as to how they are really doing.